Goals for the New Year

I realized I hadn't posted my goals for 2011. Writing them down (especially in public) is the only way I'll get my butt moving.

Writing Goals:
Complete my Ivy book in time for Pennwriters Conference (May)
  includes completing first draft (est 60,000 words)
  running book through How to Revise Your Novel
  get book pitch-ready 

Submit it to agents
  includes writing query letter

Finish first draft of Demon book
OR run Phantom book through HTRYN

Participate in NaNoWriMo 2011?

Other goals:
Run 5k in July
run half marathon in October
I'm sure there are others, but they escape me.

I think that's enough to keep me busy for the year. It's enough to keep me working, and it may be more than I can do, but at least I won't finish early.

What are your goals for the year?

Re-Post (and Follow-Up): Crash Test for Writers

Let me briefly get you up to speed, in case you don't religiously follow my posts:


Holly Lisle makes a living as a writer. She also happens to be a great teacher and devotes her time (in between novel writing) to teaching writers how to be better writers. I've mentioned her Clinics and course How to Think Sideways, but she also does Crash Tests.

A crash test is where she takes a few paragraphs of fiction from one of her students and she picks them apart piece by piece, showing what's good, what went wrong, and how to fix it. She just posted her fourth crash test AND IT'S MINE!!! Holy cow!

It's very helpful. I knew there were things wrong with it, but didn't know how to fix them. Anyway, here's the link to Holly Lisle and the Case of the Ghostly Girls.

This was really exciting for me. She helped me a lot with this scene. Looking back over this, I'm not sure I used her advice as much as I should have. In fact, I kind of want to go back and fix it. I will resist.
But here's the scene after editing:


Ghosts can be so rude sometimes. I walked with Lisa to a shaded picnic table, ready to take a break from schoolwork when I suddenly felt very strange--awkward yet familiar, like that dream where you find yourself on stage and can’t remember what you’re supposed to be doing.

The courtyard came to life around us, the tables filling up fast with students and the smell of fried food wafting from the cafeteria. Squirrels scampered around garbage cans and darted over piles of mulching leaves. Everything around me was normal. Or it seemed that way.

Then I saw him: a guy sitting with his arm draped over a bench. The guy who was looking right at me, his face expressionless. Normally, I’d be freaked out by someone staring at me like that, but this guy wasn’t eating. He wasn’t interacting with anyone. He was about my age, but he wasn’t dressed like a student. And Lexington, Virginia has its share of ghosts.

“Rachel?” Lisa raised an eyebrow. “What are you staring at?” She pulled her leg over so she straddled the bench.

With her back turned, I braved another look. Kids behind him shouted and threw a Frisbee back and forth, but the ghost sat perfectly still. His stare was starting to bug me. Why couldn’t ghosts remember to be polite every now and then?

When Lisa twisted back around, I forced a laugh, trying to soothe the confused look on her face. “Sorry. I spaced out. You ready to go?” I grabbed my bag and stood, trying to shake the ghost’s intense gaze. Didn’t he have any manners? At all?

Lisa looked down an her cell phone and opened her eyes wide in mock surprise. “Ooh yeah, better hurry. We only have thirty-two minutes before the bell.” She laughed, but picked up her bag. “It’s okay. I want to have a talk with Paul before next period.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh.” Paul Mason was a baseball player Lisa had a crush on. She talked about him constantly and dragged me to parties if she thought he might be there. For some reason Lisa had never been able to get him to notice her, even though she was stunning. No other girl in school could compete with her full lips and perfect oval face.

“I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” Lisa wiggled her fingers at me and practically skipped across the courtyard.

Fine with me. I wanted to talk some sense into this ghost.

Re-Post (and Follow-Up): Resolutions for Writers

I've been digging through my archives. I'd forgotten what all was in there. Some really good links fell through the cracks, and some pivotal moments in my writing journey never got resolved (on the blog anyway). So. What I want to do is put up an old (but useful) post, and then write about what happened next (or some other current, relevant info.)

First Re-Post:
New Year Resolutions for Writers
Original Link:
http://emilycaseysmusings.blogspot.com/2009/12/new-year-resolutions-for-writers.html

We're all determined to write THE book this year. THIS will be the one. (And I genuinely hope it is, for all of us!)

So this post is for all of you who need a little motivation or help setting goals.

Here are 7 Weekly tasks for Authors that I think is excellent ground work for setting your own personal goals.

And here's a post by author Devon Monk called Why I Write. It's more of a reflective piece, but I found it to be motivating.

And finally, QueryTracker.net posted Setting, Keeping, and Achieving Your Writing Goals in the New Year. A few basics, with the writer in mind :)

 

My goals for this next year:

 

--edit Shadow Bound for the 569th time

 

--Get a clean, polished copy of Song of the Muse out on submission

 

--Write a book that is better than all my previous work

 

--Read at least 5 books that I can learn from as a writer (and love as a reader)

  

What about you?

Okay, so I didn't quite meet all of those goals. What really happened that year?

• I took Shadow Bound through How to Revise Your Novel. It took me a few months, but I went from 3 partial requests to six partial requests and 2 full requests (and counting). The book is infinitely better. (I'll show you the opening scene later)
• I read 10 books that helped me as a writer and entertained me as a reader (Maybe more. I lost count.)
• I ran my first half marathon
• I had my second child
• I went to my first writers' conference ever (a wonderful experience that I plan to repeat this year)
• I started my Ivy posts, which inspired my current WIP
• I wrote the first 12,500 words of my WIP

Not bad. I had no idea until just now how much I'd accomplished in 2010. I actually thought I'd bummed out because of my pregnancy.
So there you have it: an excellent reason to keep a journal, a blog, and/or a writing diary.

The YA Writer (Part 2)

Moving right along in this (rather short) series on YA. This post covers characters in young adult fiction.

First Novels Club writes about the Various Nefarious Ones: Villains/Antagonists in YA. It covers all the "types". Entertaining and helpful.

And to go right along with it, Dissecting the Token Bad Boy (and where to draw the line between alluring and just plain psycho). This can be a tricky problem and has brought SO much criticism down on the heads of YA writers.

The Nuclear Family in MG or YA Fiction addresses an interesting question: why is it that young adult characters never come from a traditional, unbroken family?