Skip to main content

New Year, New Start

During the last couple months of 2014, I decided to take a bit of a breather. Sometimes when you're trying so hard to finish a project or to make something happen (like get an agent, for example) it begins to feel as if you're banging your head against the wall. It's nice to take a step back and allow myself the time to reflect on what I'm trying to achieve.

I don't just want to land any agent and I don't just want to write any kind of book. I want my writing to mean something to someone and I want to find an agent who believes in me.

During my hiatus I also had the time to do a lot of reading, which seems to appear on my list of resolutions year after year. I just finished reading the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth and can't say that my mind has truly let go of that heart-wrenching ending yet: the sign of a really great book.

So for this year, I decided to make a list of Writing Resolutions. I am going to avoid being overly ambitious and focus on realistic goals that I not only can meet but have a strong desire to. Here we go:

  1. Finish the rough draft of my second novel - I'm feeling much more inspired after my break and think I've found a solution to the lull I'd been facing in pace. 
  2. Go back and edit my first novel (again) - I recently made a revelation, which I'll be sure to post about, which resulted in the almost gut wrenching decision to dust off the book and make yet another edit. I think it'll ultimately be the best decision for my first baby if I want her to ever start walking.
  3. Read at least 12 books this year - It probably doesn't sound very impressive, but I find that one book a month is much more realistic and kind to myself and my schedule.
  4. Complete 24 writing prompts - I don't really do this anymore, yet it always brings me back to that raw creativity I often crave. I see so many interesting prompts on Pinterest and save them for that rainy occasion when I want to write yet have no motivation to work on my existing project. This year I aim to make it a habit to sit down and do a prompt twice a month.
  5. Blog - I find that blogging is best when you're inspired, which is why it's hard to put a set number on this one. However I am going to devote myself to it at least once a month. 
And finally, though I really wish I could've topped off this list at 5 because the number seems so much more rounded, my final resolution:

6. Do something out of my comfort zone - Whether it's writing, reading or otherwise, this year I'd like to do at least one thing that doesn't make me entirely comfortable. It's so easy to fall into the same patterns and routines year after year. We make lists and then forget them. This year I'd like to have that one thing I can look back on in years to come and know that I made the most of 2015. 

So that's it for me. Anyone else have any Writing Resolutions?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

#AuthorToolBoxBlogHop 15 Critical Questions to Ask Your Beta Readers

Happy blog hop day, everyone! I hope that your writing has been both fun and inspired. While I missed last month's hop, I have been in the thick of what will (hopefully) be my final round of revisions before querying my current novel. Hooray! In case you missed my video recapping my first beta reader experience , my novel has undergone a couple of major changes these past few months due to the feedback I received. It was an incredible learning opportunity for me. I truly believe that, thanks to my beta readers, I was able to resolve issues that would almost certainly have come back to bite me during the querying process. Whether I was saved from agent rejections remains to be seen, however, through this process I learned things about my writing and this story specifically, that I would not have otherwise. And for this reason, I highly recommend reaching out to beta readers before considering querying agents. That being said, I wanted to gather my thoughts into a post that co...
13 comments
Read more

#AuthorToolBoxBlogHop New Favorite Writing Resources - Setting, Word Choice, Revision (oh my!)

Happy June, Writers! This month has been huge for me in the way of craft. In the midst of my revision, I decided to take some dedicated time to focus on a few of my weaker areas in terms of craft. These were areas I had identified during my read-through or areas in which I simply lacked confidence. I decided for this month's blog hop to share my list of resources that have been helping me these past couple of months with the hope that they will prove useful to some other writers out there. #1 Setting The Rural Setting Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglish ( click for Amazon page ) The Urban Setting Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglish ( click for Amazon page ) What's so great about them: Written in incredible detail, these two books showcase a vast majority of possible setting locations throughout your novel. It pinpoints the exact sights, smells, sounds, tastes, textures, sources of potential conflict, and more. Le...
17 comments
Read more

July #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop: Writing My First Spec Script for Television

Happy blog hop day everyone and thank you so much for stopping by mine. By the time you're reading this, we will be well into the month of July and I will have officially begun my Camp NaNoWriMo project. I'm writing this post at the end of June while preparing my plan of attack over the next 31 days in which I plan to write my first ever spec script for television. If you're not familiar with Camp NaNoWriMo, you can check out this blog post where I go into more detail. In essence, it's a month where writers worldwide dedicate themselves to a particular project of their choosing. But personally, I like to think of it as a giant pause button. NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo have become my sole excuse to put down my novel with its seemingly endless revisions and pause for a month to focus on something new. Somehow doing so under the established framework of NaNoWriMo is easier for me than simply picking a random month of my own choosing, which I know I would never do if...
14 comments
Read more