Saying Goodbye to the Year

I usually try to come up with resolutions when the new year rolls around, but the more I think about it for 2014, the more it seems like a futile endeavor. My resolutions always end up the same: write more, read more, edit this or that, send out queries, focus on my health and try to lose some weight, build better habits and try to get closer to some of my life goals.

All very general in recent years, because the years would pass by without nothing achieved (or not enough) when I had more specific resolutions.

This year, I am not going to worry about resolutions, promises to myself to do X or Y.

This year end, I have spent New Year's Eve day spending time with my aunt, watching "Frozen" with my mother, crafting a gift, listening to music, talking with friends online, and shortly, a bit of writing on a story I began earlier in the year.

Tomorrow, I will spend more time with family, rest and relax, grade, and edit.

I want 2014 to reflect these two days, full of obligations and enjoyment, and balancing between the two. A year where I have time to rest, but also to have fun, and to get projects done that are just for me, as well as complete projects with and for others.

Happy New Year, and happy writing.

Happy New Year

Something about the turning of the year propels people to resolve themselves. To lose weight, to finish a story, to find a (better) job. I find it hard to go back, scramble through papers and find the ending year's resolutions to see what was accomplished, but I still like the idea of starting off with a goal.

I have some of the usual goals, to exercise more, try to be more fit, and since I graduated in May (spent the summer and part of the fall editing and querying), I haven't found a job yet, so that's a big goal as well. I let my crafty Christmas pull me away from the job-hunting. For this blog, however, I focus on the writing goals.

Between tomorrow and this day next year, I will:


Revise 'Hounds' at least once more.

Query agents on that urban fantasy.

Edit Harry's Skin (my M.A. thesis, and frankly, the reason I applied for the graduate program in the first place).

Start querying for that around May/June.

Finish first draft of my steampunk ghost story. (Probably get some editing in as well, but we'll see how the other editing goes first.)


It was three, almost four years ago that I realized I could finish a novel-length story. After accomplishing a full first draft, though, comes the heavy editing. I've reached a point where I can see what doesn't work, and I can fix some of it, but some solutions still elude me. I resolve to examine my editing practices more this year, so that I don't look at the editing process as endless, hellish, or treat it so hesitantly that I neglect to textually weedwhack it as necessary (I know there are times that I let myself get bogged down in the small edits rather than deleting or rewriting scenes, because I didn't want to admit something so big was wrong.)

One revelation about my writing, which I've made this year, is that my first drafts are rather rambly. So you can see, most (all) of my blog posts are essentially first drafts, but for that, I hope you forgive me and accept the extemporaneousity of it. I'll try to recognize more in these writing habits so as to improve the first drafts and make the editing easier.

Any new writing goals for you readers out there?

I'll leave off this last post of 2009 with a simple wish, for all of you, your friends and family, to be healthy, be happy, and to write much and well.

Happy New Year! Happy writing, everyone!

Yearly Resolutions, It’s Starting to be a Tradition for Me By Now

2006 I finished my first novel, a fantasy set in a medieval styled world. I’d started it in high school with a friend. I completed it as my undergraduate honors thesis.

After graduating with my BA, I got real impatient real fast and began another novel, an urban fantasy centering around humans and the fae. By December I finished the first of that. The months following I edited it and brought, five pages a week for the most part, to my writer’s group. Some time over the summer of 2007 I brought them the last of it. I still feel like it needs more editing, but I did get through one big round.

Now I’ve finished my third semester of the Master’s program. MA in English with a concentration in creative writing. My thesis is another novel, urban fantasy, with werewolves and gods/goddesses. I’m about halfway through it, and I want to finish the first draft before January 14, 2009, the first day I go back to class for my last semester. By Mid-May (technically by March or April), I will have a full draft, revised a couple of times.

Between January 2007 and November 2008 I also worked at a part-time job that just began demanding too much time for me to focus on school and writing. I’m not working right now, but I may get a part-time job on campus. We’ll see.

Which leads me to resolutions. I don’t (read: I usually don’t) achieve all my resolutions, but I like having something there, in print, something to move towards. I may not have accomplished what I set out to this year, but I’ve made progressed. That’s good.

So for 2009:

January through May—focus on school and finishing the werewolf UF. Graduate.

May through August—I will wait on getting a job, at least until after the summer (if I can help it) an focus on polishing the two urban fantasy novels. Start querying them with agents. Maybe I’ll start with the faerie one, since I already have ideas for a second and third book.

August/September—if I haven’t yet, start looking for a full-time job. Write Book 2 of the Fae UF if I haven’t started that yet.

October through December—writing Books 2 and 3, querying, hopefully by this time I will have an agent and we’ll be working on getting something out to publishers. (Is it too much to hope by this time next year, I may have an agent and a publisher?)

The resolutions are very detailed, but I think that’s just more evidence that this is the time to get off my keister and start querying. There’s some editing that needs to happen first, but I can’t get bogged down in that and avoid the next step.

So on that note, I will try to take those next steps.

And to you writers out there, good luck in 2009. May you have inspiration and luck in your writing and publication.

Happy writing.

See you on the other side,
Sabrina

(A Bit Belated) Happy New Year

So I haven't been on Blogger for a while, and it feels like it's been quite a while since I was on my computer at all. But it is a new year, so I suppose resolutions are in order. Not that the time of year makes a difference, but I think it's a good idea to look over the year and set goals, particularly when one has lots of stuff going on. Now's as good a time as any.

So I looked over my goals from last year, and I accomplished some of what I set out to do, but not everything.

So for 2008:

I finished one round of edits, and half of another, so firstly, finish the rest of that editing, and start querying agents.

I've already done a little research into which agents might be a good fit, now I need to narrow it down and organize myself, make sure I know which ones prefer email queries versus hard copy.

Survive my second and third semesters of graduate school (this spring I have two classes, one after the other, on Tuesdays and one on Fridays).

Finish the first draft of at least one of the two big stories I started last year--the urban fantasy or the pirate-ish maybe-YA fiction.

Plan out the plot/story arc for book two of the story I'm currently editing.

Here's to the new year, people.
Happy Writing,
Sabrina

And Writtenwyrdd, thanks for the New Year's wishes in the comments below.