Ring in the New Year!

Tip of the Day: Join us for Fast Draft January! Emily, Deena, and I will be writing the first draft of a new WIP this January, encouraging each other as we go. We'd love more writers to join us. Interested?

Happy 2009! I am greeting the new year with optimism! I am energized to take on new projects and challenges this year, and so I am unveiling my new Miss name for 2009: Miss Perfecting the Pages. That will get me into the revising spirit. Thanks everyone for your input on my new name.

This week, we’re discussing our writing goals for the year. I considered starting off by finding my goals from last January and seeing if I measured up. Confession time: I couldn’t find my goals for 2008! I think I was just like a ping-pong ball in a dryer, bouncing from one idea to another. So this year I’m going to be goal-oriented. I’d better start a list:

Goals
Be goal-oriented.

I believe a proper goal is supposed to have a time limit, but I’m going to let “Be goal-oriented” be a stretch goal. I do have goals with time limits, though.

I’m jumping right into January with Fast Draft January! And Deena and Em will be my partners in crime! In January, we will write the first draft of a project near and dear to our hearts. I’ll be doing something I’ve wanted to do for a long time—attempting to write the script for a graphic novel. My graphic novel takes place in 1910, so I’ve been getting primed for my Fast Draft by using 1910s slang. I know you’re jazzed for an earful of 1910’s slang from me this month. It’s gravy.

After January, I’m back to finishing the book I was working on before I stopped to read for the Cybils Award. My goal is to have that tween novel revised and ready to send out queries by the end of April. That’s 3 months: February, March, April.

I also have a first draft of a middle grade novel I’ve had “on reserve” while I work on the tween novel. I’ll start sending that to my crit partners after I get some more work done on the tween novel. Let’s say I can start working on that in March and switch over to concentrating on it totally in May. Could it be ready by October or is that unrealistic? I think I’ll need input to know for sure, but I’m going to set October as the benchmark I’m aiming for.

That leaves me with November and December to revise my graphic novel script. Okay, so what if I write the graphic novel in January and decide, hot dog, that’s jake, I don’t want to wait a year in this market to send out a graphic novel? I’ll still need to take a breather in between the first draft and revision, so I can always pick it back up in May and switch the revision lineup around.

This doesn’t really leave me any time to write short stories, do another round of NaNoWriMo, or make any other major time commitments. And I’m okay with that this year. I don’t want to gum up the works with other commitments. I’m writing down my goals so I can stay attached remora-like to my revisions or I’ll never have anything to send out.

Except for January. We’d love to have more writers join us for Fast Draft January.

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages