New Year, New Goals

APPLIES TO YOUR WRITING, TOO (VIA)

Contrary to popular belief, I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth.

(The earth doesn’t have a face. Unless...)

But I have been MIA around here. I could say it was a short blogging vacation, but the truth looks more like this:

busyness + laziness x holidays = no blogging

It’s a new year, though. I have in me at least four months of pretending I’m going to be a better version of 2015 Tracey. And that includes reviving this dusty space.

I’ve read so many great books! I’m plotting a new story! There are Things happening that I miss sharing with you in longer than 150-word blips on Twitter.

Consider that my first writer resolution for this year. Here’s the rest:

Read more outside YA.

I did a quick scan of the books I read in 2015 and realized a couple things:

1. I barely read any adult or middle grade novels this year.
2. I spent an obscene amount of money on books.

I’ll probably always be spending an obscene amount of money on books, but this year I plan to make more of those nonfiction, adult fiction, NA, and middle grade. There’s an especially large number of MG books on my TBR list, including The Nest by Kenneth Oppel and Jon Klassen, The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin, Nightbird by Alice Hoffman, and Lindsay Eagar’s forthcoming Hour of the Bees. 

Go easier on myself.

If I left my CPs the same sort of comments I leave myself while writing, I wouldn’t have any friends. I’m not entirely sure why I think it’s okay to tell myself “Worst sentence in the history of the written language” or “THIS BOOK IS A PIECE OF TRASH” when I’d never even think that of a friend’s manuscript, but there you have it. I am a Mean Girl to myself.

I’ll be honest: I had a really difficult time with this in 2015. I was writing a book that I has such a grand vision for—this type of prose and that type of character development. It needed to feel a certain way. And mid-draft, it didn’t. I just about convinced myself the story would never end up on paper how I saw it in my mind—and I wasn’t too nice about it.

But then something happened: I finished it. I revised it. More than once. And it’s now my favorite of all the books I’ve written. I should have trusted myself to get there—maybe not in draft one, but eventually.

This year, I want to be kinder to myself. I’m gearing up to write something new, and my goal is to remember that I felt this way before. That’ll help me be nicer to me when something’s not perfect. It can get there, eventually.

Stop comparing.

Is it possible to be a writer and not compare yourself to others? To not compare your book to others? If you can do it, you’re required by law to share your secret with me.

I easily let the fear of not being good enough get to me. And it’s hard to write what with all that “will I ever get there?” stuff going on my head. My goal is to forget don’t have a book deal. To forget that my first draft isn’t as good as the amazing published novel I just read.

I read a quote somewhere by someone (if you know, hit up the comments) that said something like, “Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s end.” Your draft isn’t going to be as good as a published novel.

(If it is, I might hate you a small bit.)

This year, I don’t want to spend time worrying about whether I can tell the story how it needs to be told or whether my prose is perfect enough or if I’ll even sell the book. I’m writing for the love of writing and hoping everything follows from there.

What are your 2016 goals?

Ready, Set, Write! (Or, More Accurately: Ready, Set, Keep Brainstorming And Maybe You'll Get There!)

Hello, Internet peoples.

Funny meeting you here. I was just saying how my blog’s been sort of a ghost town since my wrists started hurting and I took a little hiatus from posting. This is what getting old looks like.

I suggest you avoid it.

Anyhow, I’m still doing Ready, Set, Write, though I’m going about as fast as a snail stuck in tar. So I’m ditching the goals I set back when I thought my wrist pain would go away quickly and adopting a “do as much of this as you can before your wrists begin to throb” mentality. I’m sure my doctor would approve.

Speaking of my doctor, the good news is that I don’t have carpal tunnel syndrome. I hear that’s a beast to beat. The doctor’s not exactly sure what I have, but she thinks it might either be inflammation in the wrist joint (you know, that little dip just above your wrist bones) or tendonitis. I’m on anti-inflammatories now, so cross your fingers it kicks this pain so I can write for longer than five minutes at a time.

Anyhow, because of all of this wrist nonsense, I still haven’t finished world-building my fantasy story. YES, THAT IS A TRUE STATEMENT. WOULD I KID YOU ABOUT THIS? NO, I ABSOLUTELY WOULD NOT. I did say I was going slow…

Anyhow, this week I’m hoping to finish brainstorming and writing out the social structure for my four kingdoms.

Because I’m just world-building and brainstorming the plot, I don’t have a line to share. How about a photo that inspired my main character, Asta?

How are your writing projects coming along?

Ready, Set, Write: Week 1 Goals

Last summer, I wrote a book. I wrote it fast—faster than I anticipated—and I take absolutely zero credit for the motivation that made me open Scrivener every night. That goes to Ready, Set, Write, a summer writing intensive hosted by Katy Upperman, Alison Miller, Jaime Morrow, and Erin Funk. Thanks to the constant Twitter writing parties, I hit wrote like I was running on coffee spiked with Red Bull.

That’s why I’m participating again this year. For me, accountability equals words. Lots of ’em. RSW starts today, so here’s what I’m hoping to accomplish this time around:

World-building: I’m still building the world for the fantasy novel I plan to write. I could write the book, then go back and add details, but for my last WIP I did a ton of pre-work and I think that’s part of the reason my story worked. So I’m planning to spend many RSW nights hammering out the details of my world.

Outlining: I always thought I was a pantser until I outlined my mystery WIP and realize how much better my writing was when I planned ahead. As much as I want to jump right in, I’m going to force myself to outline this time, too. I’ll thank myself when it comes time to revise and my notes consist of more than THIS ALL SUCKS—REDO.

Writing: I’m hoping to begin the actual writing of this project before the end of the summer, though I know I’ll be moving at a slower pace than I did last year. My wrists still hurt, so I can’t work for as long as I’m used to. On the plus side, setting lower goals will make me feel more accomplished—said underachievers everywhere...

As for specifics, here are my goals for this week:

Brainstorm the following details for each of the countries in my fantasy world: language, ethics and values, religion, population, government, politics, and the crime and legal system. (If you’re curious, this is the checklist of prompts I’m using to answer questions about my world. It’s super detailed, but incredibly helpful.)

What are your writing/revising goals this week?

Read, Set, Goal

A couple weeks ago I joined the YA Buccaneers in a writing boot camp, which is the only type of boot camp I will ever join, mostly because I am not insane. If you haven’t heard of the YA Buccaneers blog, you can check it out here. Who are they? A bunch of cool writers with eye patches and peg legs who punctuate their speech with words like “arrrgh!”

Anyhow, they’re hosting a writing boot camp, which I joined (go Team Defiance!) because there’s nothing I love more than accountability with writing goals. That’s a much kinder way of saying I’m weak and need others to force me to work.

Instead of writing, I’ve been revising because that stage of my process is never-ending. Good boot camp members have been posting their goals and progress to their blogs. I forgot rebelled. (Then again, kids get sent to boot camp for rebelling so it seems almost fitting.)

Anyhow, my goal in joining the boot camp was to finish this set of revisions before sending my MS off to one more round of beta readers. I also wanted to finalize a query and synopsis. So far, I’ve written a query and synopsis and made the biggest revisions to my MS.

This week, I have some very specific goals:

1. Critique a friend’s query.
2. Finish read-through for pacing then send MS to betas.
3. Revise query and send to readers.
4. Attempt to make synopsis not suck.
5. Attempt not to slam head into desk while working on synopsis.

I’m pretty sure I can handle numbers one through four.

In other news, last night I heard about this writing goal–setting program from Liz Briggs’s blog and decided to try it out. It’s called myWriteClub, and lets you create all sorts of goals, track them, and keep up with friends’ goals. Anyone use it?  (I’m traceyneithercott on there if you do.)

What are your goals for the week?

What's Up Wednesday: The Goals Edition

What’s Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop created by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk for like-minded writers to meet and encourage one another. Everything you ever wanted to know about it (now, with 50 percent more!) is right here.

What I’m Reading: I just finished two really great books, and I’m dying to start on Melissa Landers’ Alienated. I’ve been up for a good human-alien YA romance for a while, so I was excited when the book came out yesterday.

What I’m Writing: In the summer of 2013, I joined a group of writers for a season-long writing challenge that had me pumping out words like I had a direct line to my muse. I was so successful, I’m joining up for the group’s latest plan, Writer Recharge: a month of meeting WIP goals with the help of other likeminded writers. I’m pretty sure the accountability is exactly what I need to finish revisions on this story. For anyone else who could use a little push, here’s how it works:

Organizers: Katy Upperman, Alison Miller, Liz Parker, Elodie Nowodazkij, Sara Biren

• First week of February: Post your goals for the month on your blog, website, or Twitter. Use the hashtag #WriterRecharge. Link your blog post at sarabiren.com.
• Every Monday in February: Update your progress via your blog or twitter. Link your blog posts at Sara’s Monday posts.
• Throughout the month: Use the hashtag #WriterRecharge to connect with other writers, have writing parties, and cheer one another on!
• February 28: Post your final update via your blog or twitter.
• Anyone who uses the hashtag or links their blog posts will be entered to win one of five query or 3-chapter critiques.

So here it goes, my goal:

I have a WIP in the middle of a round of heavy revisions. And by “middle” I mean beginning. My goal is to finish this round of revisions by the end of February. I’d like to set a certain number of chapters to revise per day, but I’m pretty sure that’d just overwhelm me—especially since some chapters are a breeze and others require heavy lifting. My plan, instead, is to work on revisions at least one hour per day with the idea that some days I’ll work for much longer.

What’s Inspiring Me: I love this post by Susan Dennard about increasing writer productivity. Her description of her struggle with fear and the inability to write hit close to home, and I love her tips for setting a writing routine.

What Else I’ve Been Up To: The Man and I have embarked on a Battlestar Glactica marathon which has made me aware of two things: A) There is a good reason this show has a rabid fan base and B) going on a TV binge is detrimental to my sleep. I’m like an addict in an opium den. I don’t care about the time, I NEED TO WATCH JUST ONE MORE EPISODE!

What have you been up to?

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