2016 Goals & Deadlines

Okay, now that I've gotten a little more organized from the holidays and have set some deadlines and goals for the year, I am going to post them as a way of motivating me to meet them more and hold myself accountable. So far with my new little schedule I've been doing pretty good. Let's hope I keep this up!

Here are my 2016 Deadlines, so far. Some of them aren't set that are further in the year, so I'll change some of it later on depending on how things go in the first 6 months of 2016.

As some of you may know, I'm still editing my first completed book BRING ME TO LIFE, otherwise known as BMTL. I really need to get my butt on finishing the 2nd draft and go through more edits of it until it's ready to send off to agents. For some reason I have worked good on it and then stopped working on it for months at a time just to come back and get back on a good schedule. Let's hope this is the last of it and I work through until the end!

I'm also working on editing both of my completed rough drafts at once. BMTL and my 2015 NaNoWriMo novel, working title of SECOND CHANCE, or just known as SD.

Currently I'd like to finish the 2nd drafts of both BMTL and SD by April 3rd. In March I'd like to start prepping my next book  with the plan of beginning it on April 1st for Camp NaNoWriMo. I haven't set a word count goal for April yet, nor have I figured out which of my ideas I'd like to work on during this month for Camp NaNo.

Depending on how the first draft goes on my new WIP I'll start in April, I'd like to have it finished by the end of July. I'll begin edits on it in September, hopefully, and also be working on final edits of BMTL and SD between April and September with the hopes of beginning to query in October. And, of course, I'll be prepping for my November novel for NaNoWriMo in October as well.

So far that's my schedule and deadline! I have monthly and weekly goals, as well. I'm going to get back to work and try to keep my blog updated and come up with some fun posts soon! And, of course, I'll be posting my February goals at the end of this week.


What are your 2016 goals/deadlines? :)

Happy writing!

Updates & December Goals

I know, I know. I disappeared again! But I had good reasons; moving, work, everyday life, oh, and having a baby! On November 9th at 9:17 PM our second son, Elijah, was born weighing 7lbs, 2 oz. He was a month and four days early from his due date. Even though he wasn't supposed to be here until around December 11th, he is perfectly healthy and a definite joy. :)

So since I've been home  I've had more time to work on getting things organized and on track again with editing. Really trying to crack down and kick these edits in the butt. I haven't been working on writing, but I will as soon as I'm done working on this round of edits. Trying to focus on getting BMTL as clean as I can so I can query soon.

I've also been in search of a new long-term critique partner. So that's been taking up some of my time too.

I'm thinking of starting to post goals on here to be held accountable. I have this thing where I work great on something for a little bit and then somehow screw it all up and go into a funk of not working on anything for months at a time. I'm tired of doing that and just want to get on track and keep working with serious intentions of getting published. When I am able to find an agent to be represented by, I'm not going to be able to do this. I'll have deadlines that I will need to meet and be serious about. So I need to get my butt in line and work as though I'm already represented and with deadlines.

I've also been trying to be more active in two writing forums I'm in, one is Agent Query Connect which I absolutely love and is a great help, and also Absolute Write. AQ Connect is filled with people serious about getting published and some are already published or represented. You can get help with Queries, synopsis, basic writing questions, publishing questions, and just everything you need in order to land an agent and getting published. An amazing place to get feedback on everything. And Absolute Write is filled with talented writers from all genres and types, not just novels. It's a little more laid back. Both are great places that I highly recommend.

Sometimes on the forums in AQ Connect we list our goals for that current month, a few serious ones I had on mine for the month of December was:

1. Figure out where I left off in editing - This I've already done, so it's scratched off my list!
2. Get everything organized and on track.
3. Create an editing schedule with some deadlines.
4. Finish edits for chapter #3-#8.  - So far chapter 3 and 4 are done.
5. Get back to working on my blog! - Working on this now, obviously. :P I want to try and post something at least once a week. Maybe I'll work on posting my progress each week for now to help keep me on track.

Hope everyone is doing great! Happy writing & editing!

Updates

Hello everyone! I haven't posted updates in so long, so long in fact that I had to create a whole new blog and copy everything over because Google wouldn't let me login to my account! I couldn't even recover it!

But oh well, what's done is done and I'm slightly starting fresh with a blog. I need to start posting more! I will definitely start trying to post more and update more on my projects and also Bring Me To Life, which I'm still in the middle of editing, by the way.

I've set new deadlines for myself for my current projects, hopefully I'll stick to them. I really want Bring Me To Life complete and edited as much as possible so I can begin the fantastic--and slightly scary, okay, A LOT scary--path of Querying an Agent and hopefully getting one and continuing down the yellow brick road to Publication.

I may post my new deadlines on the blog so I can have other witnesses, the very few who may see them at this point, see them and make them more real.

That is all for now and I promise I will try to be back with more updates and maybe goals here and there and start putting more things up on this new blog and post things about my current projects, etc.

Also, if you know of any great blogs I should follow, including yours if you have one, please let me know! :)