Sunday, January 1, 2012

Rerun of Writing Goals with a few amendments - yee haw 2012

I wrote this post on the fifth of December but wanted to repost it with amendments here and there as I see fit! 

Where am I and where am I going?

As this year winds down and I am sixteen days from turning 60 - yep you read that right - my mind turns to what I've accomplished and what paths I still want to explore. I have found one of the most brilliant uses of blogging is for me to state my goals. I tend to like to do what I say I will even if I know that it would be very rare for any of my readers to remember what I said I would do, let alone bug me about it. Still - it seems to work and I like anything that works. I also find that organizing my thoughts and plans out loud helps me find out what exactly I've been formulating below the surface. Capeesh?

TRUE - after my latest attack on it, True stands at 87 thousand. It is in fair shape having been gone over with a fine-tooth editorial comb by the editor I hired to do so. It is in third person now and many of the changes I desired to make have been made. I still have a couple of seemingly biggys to do. I want to rework the ending and also go through the editorial letter I wrote myself a few weeks back to make sure I've addressed everything in that. Am I going to have time to do this before the new year? I don't think so - I'm busy at work and have all the fun things (yep, even we Buddhists get ensnared in holiday madness) that go with the season. I'm going to say that I will be done all revising by January 16th. I will take the next two weeks of January to get my submission package together - including editor going over every piece of the thing and starting afresh with an edit of the big piece. For my submission package I will want two or three chapters polished to shiny goodness, the longish synopsis and the shortish one, a bio and a covering letter. I don't think my editor will be able to do a copy edit of the whole manuscript but I won't be sending the whole thing out anywhoozie so that should be fine. February 1st I start submitting to agents and publishers. I plan on sending at least four packages a month until I hear back from somebody in a positive way. 
UPDATE ON THIS PROJECT: Think I'm on schedule. I've checked out my editorial letter and made some changes from that. I'm still picking away at it but think it should be good by the 16th of this month - then two weeks to get packages ready. So, all good.

THE ROCK WALKER - this mystery has been done and dusted and read and reread but yet! Yep, back to the revising desk with it. I think it needs about a month's worth of revising, then it too will go to the editor for a hard look. So - February for TRW. Then probably March for rewrites from the editor's notes and then half of April to get the package ready for it. Then it too goes out the door - not to agents in this case - only to publishers.

EARTH BOUND - finish first draft by end of June. Then revise and work with editor. I'm thinking that this will be ready to send by September 1st.

Whew! Can I do it? Don't know but I do know it is do-able. The early part of the new year is my time to write. Biz is slow and snow days many - I should be able to hunker down and pitter-patter.

UPDATE: so far December was way busier than I thought (in terms of counselling practice) but I still imagine a slow down this month. So lots of writing to do and I'm ready to get at it seriously. I've talked to the person who edited True - she wants back at it and she'll also look at the mystery. 
I'm ready to rock and roll - how about you?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jan - I am so very happy for you that you've made as much progress as you have on your writing. You've got solid and reachable goals, too. I am really looking forward to reading your work when it comes out, too.

Unknown said...

Jan, I like that you stated very precise goals and have a plan/ timeline to execute them. Awesome!

L. Diane Wolfe said...

You changed your book from first to third person, didn't you? Wow, I can;t imagine doing that big of a change.

The big 60! We will need to celebrate.

Carol Kilgore said...

You bet. I also like to stick by what I said I would do.