Here's Day 4 of the #writerlyresolutions challenge! The prompt: to share my goals for 2018!
I'm feeling ambitious this year, so let's go with these:
The Forgotten (currently on submission to editors): Do two more rounds of submission this year. In between rounds, revise my novel based on editorial feedback.
Game plan: Brainstorm revisions with my agent in January. Make revisions in February. Submit to a new round of editors in March. Wait. If it comes to it, brainstorm revisions again in July. Make revisions in August. Submit to a new round of editors in September. Wait. If no bites by the end of 2018, reevaluate the project.
Wind Rider (a work-in-progress): Finish the novel and get it ready for agent feedback...
Here's Day 3 of the #writerlyresolutions challenge! The prompt: to share unexpected successes from the past year.
Because let's face it - we can't plan for everything, we can't predict inspiration, and we can't imagine every single opportunity heading our way. The lesson here is to let our goals be flexible. If we allow ourselves the space to follow what most interests us in each moment, inspiration can lead us down some pretty interesting paths.
Here's my grand (probably non-exhaustive) list of bonus projects I did not plan for last December:
I brainstormed books 2 and 3 of my Forgotten series. If I get a deal for the first book, I can hand over my vision for the rest of the series right away.
Here's Day 2 of the #writerlyresolutions challenge! The prompt: to share one goal from 2017 that I did NOT achieve and what I learned from not achieving it.
Back in December 2016, I decided that if I was going to get an agent by June, that'd give me plenty of time to secure a book deal by the end of the year. Easy, right? If you get one, you get the other? I have to laugh at the sheer gall required to claim that I would get a book deal on my very first book, on the very first round of submissions, and within six months.
As it stands, my agent submitted my novel to seven editors in September. By October, we'd heard from three of them - all rejections, but with constructive feedback. As of this post, we're still waiting to hear back from the oth...
Here's Day 1 of the #writerlyresolutions challenge! The prompt: to share one goal from 2017 that I achieved and what I learned from achieving it.
Back in December 2016, I decided 2017 would be my year for getting an agent. More specifically, I planned to get an agent by the time I returned to graduate school for my June 2017 residency. I don't know what I was thinking, putting this kind of time constraint on a process I hadn't even started and knew nothing about (probably something like "I have plans, and the universe better not get in my way").
In any case, I did a bit of research into querying. I wrote a query letter. I did a final pass of editing on my novel. Then I began the process in March - the grueling, soul-sucking, demoralizing proc...
