The Writers Aspirant Accountability Thread

@ease I have just submitted. Had hoped to get it in earlier, but with Christmas and [insert excuses], it didn't happen.

Now, to await results

Best of luck to all those who submitted and to those still working on their stories to submit before the deadline, you can do it!

@ease 

I am indeed, finally in for Q1. I could have done it earlier, I just kept fiddling and fiddling. Hopefully they were improvements ? 

As to December goals:

December goals.

>> 1. Set goals. I liked starting off with a highly achievable/achieved goal last month. Somehow it encouraged me when I looked at my other goals. So I am doing this one again, 

I did indeed set goals so 1/5 so far!

>> 2. Win writers of the future. lol. Keep it achievable. I can't control whether they will *like* my story or not. So instead: Choose one of the 100% drafted and convert to a 100% finished and submit to WOTF Q1 V41. 

I did indeed choose one of the 100% drafted, finished it, and submitted to WOTF Q1 V41, so 2/5!

>> 3. Do a blog entry (trying to keep my working consistent)

Achieved! 3/5 ? 

>> 4. Read a craft book from beginning to end. I'm always reading these, but why not make completing one a goal   it's writing related

Achieved - million dollar outlines by Dave Farland. so I have now done 4/5

>> 5. Start something new. Not sure this is a good goal. Very non-specific, no metric. But I like this one as it sounds fun, so maybe it will help me achieve my other goals.

Poo! But I still have 8 hours 50 minutes to start something!! Time to get moving

My goal was simply to submit a story for the first quarter, and I did (with 8 whole hours to spare wow)!

I am pleased, as I ended up starting with a completely new story in December, and it is a bit experimental in form for me. I also had a rough month in general, so just finishing it made me feel good. When I decided to write the new story, I made it my goal to make it properly short, like under 6k, and I achieved that. At the end I am really happy how it turned out, no matter what happens.

As to goals for January, I want to get back to the story I was originally writing for this quarter. I need to re-think the structure and everything really, hah.

I hope this year will bring more good than bad for everyone.

January's goal is to simply do some writing. Preferably finishing a short story and then get back into novel mode. 

@pdblake and a damned fine goal that is. I really hope you achieve it.

@tiinag brilliant job submitting! Honestly, I think just under 6k is the sweet spot. I used to read 20k in a sitting, but now I find it tough to do more than 6k, and if I'm going to read something in multiple sittings then I might as well read a novel!

I used to think 5-7k was the sweet spot for WotF too (and it's no coincidence my winning story was almost exactly 7k) but on beta reading the rest of the stories they seemed to be a lot longer generally. 

Best of luck with your WIP; I hope you get it finished for Q2.

@gideonpsmith bloody fantastic to hit so many of your non-trivial goals. What are your plans for January/this year?

@joel-c-scoberg great work getting it submitted. It was always my goal to get "this" one in earlier than the last. And yet every Deadline Eve I found myself frantically fixing and tweaking. You got it submitted, that's what really matters!

I met my goal of 6k words written in December, plus a bit, and thus missed my stretch goal of 12k. It looks like I'm working almost every day in January, so will keep 12k as a stretch - destined to fail - and aim for 6k again. I'm also going to add the goal: write at least one word every day. It worked wonders for me when I did it the last couple years, and I'm not sure why I stopped!

@ajschultz6, @clfors, @writhmic, @annax, @kz_richards, @toddjones, @storysinger, @physa, @pegeen, @kent, @jeschleicher, @sconn, @ericstallsworth, @hannya, I hope you smashed your goals for December and 2023.

Here's to all of us taking 2024 by the horns and writing so many wonderful words.

@ease Sorry for the late check in. I was able to meet my goal for the month by writing a new story (which my husband says was better than the other one, yay!) and submitting it for Q1. My goal for January is to write a fresh story for another market and develop a plan for publishing my YA dystopian novel (and think about its sequel???).

Posted by: @pdblake

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January's goal is to simply do some writing. Preferably finishing a short story and then get back into novel mode. 

January Goal: I agree with this goal. To compliment the creator, I'll push for the same goal.  

I forgot all about updates for November and didn't even write up December goals.  Augh! 

Well, the following is to get me back on track.

November 2023 Goals:  Update

• Finish new story that is 70% completed for possible Q1 submission - Failed
• Finish edits on HM for possible Q1 or other market submission - Failed, but roughed in edits
• Finish edits on another HM for possible Q1 or other submission - Failed to start

December 2023 Goals:  Update

• Finish new story that is 70% completed for possible Q1 submission - Failed (did figure out what I want to do, though)
• Finish edits on HM and submit for Q1 WotF - Completed
• Finish edits on another HM - Failed (did figure out what I want to do, though)
• Create some new stories ideas - Completed (I have 3 solid story ideas to work on)

January 2024 Goals: 

• Finish edits on a WotF HM (I know what it needs, just need to refine story)
• Finish a new story
• Rough Draft another new story
• Dig out my horror novel and start thinking about it again (70% complete after last big cut/move of chapters to book 2) 

For January 2024, my first time posting in this thread, I'll start with something fairly small: finish the Online Writer's Workshop (been sitting at "Section 9 Practical: Write your story" for months) and submit the story.

Posted by: @atkirk

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For January 2024, my first time posting in this thread, I'll start with something fairly small: finish the Online Writer's Workshop (been sitting at "Section 9 Practical: Write your story" for months) and submit the story.

Will leave the official welcome to @ease as this is his thread, not mine, but I'll say welcome in the meantime!

One suggestion is those sound like big goals, not small - if you've been sitting on section 9 for months - there's 3 sections to that, then you have section 10 and 11. Maybe split it up a little so its more manageable - ie read essay of #9 by mid January and watch video by 31st. 

Even more so for "and submit the story" ! maybe just get a draft? You probably also want to review, edit, sent to critiques, revise... that's a lot to do in 1 month. 

Just my feeling...I'm not expert and your milage may vary. Some people do better with 'stretch' goals. either way - 👍 

@gideonpsmith I am on part 3 of section 9, and knowing my process, I can get that done easily in one day once I really set my mind to it. I may review the video and reading, but... yeah, one day to finish the draft, then in the next section I'll be reviewing to add emotion, then let it sit, then review again...

Yeah, if I get right on it, I can submit by the end of the month.

Posted by: @ease

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@gideonpsmith bloody fantastic to hit so many of your non-trivial goals. What are your plans for January/this year?

 

1. Set goals for January

2. I *think* of myself as a fantasy writer, but every short story I write is SciFi. Goal 2 for January: Write a FANTASY short story.

3. @tj_knight was kind enough to launch a writing challenge and I said I would do it, but between Q1 submission and just having my brain explode by the fact he looks at writing a completely different way than me so I've struggled with the tasks so far, I haven't really participated. So Goal 3 is open my mind and really give this other way of developing stories a solid go! (as measured by visiting the discord and actually attempting some of the tasks!)

4. Read at least 10 short stories

5. Write another blog entry

I think #3 is going to be the most challenging of those. My brain is stubborn and sometimes doesn't like learning new ways of doing things 😉 

@atkirk consider this your official welcome, and @gideonpsmith, consider this your (and everyone else's) authorization to officially welcome anyone!

Posted by: @gideonpsmith

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I *think* of myself as a fantasy writer, but every short story I write is SciFi. Goal 2 for January: Write a FANTASY short story.

This rings true for me too! I submitted my first fantasy short story to WotF (HM) and a revised version for Q1.

@atkirk welcome to the thread!

January goals:

1. Get back to writing. After submitting an entry I find a need time to clear my head ad focus, deadlines always help me do that. It would be nice to not need deadlines to write productively.
2. Start a new short story. If I leave starting a new story too long, I tend to go back and edit previous entries.
3. Plot out a novel. I have plenty of ideas but I need to commit to ONE and then write it.
4. Read more and more broadly. Over Christmas I picked up a few books and have two on the go (Pavane and Black Dahlia). I'd like to finish those and try to read sci-fi / fantasy and other genres too.
5. Submit a story to another market. You can't sell a story if you don't put it out for sale!

Gideon (if you'll pardon the intrusion into this thread), please note you can't go wrong with the challenge. The 9 pieces are just that - pieces of a writing puzzle. Yeah, it's a challenge to look at creating a story differently, but there's no test at the end to make sure you did every step. 😉

That said, the approach is setting first, then theme/universality.

Thus: I want to use a sci-fi setting to talk about the dangers of AI. Or, I want to use a fantasy setting to write a story where friendship conquers all. Or, I want to use post apocalypse to show the enduring strength of the human spirit.

However, if you can't think of a theme and you just want to write a cool story about androids fighting our wars by proxy using swords instead of guns because they are impervious to bullets (my first HM) go for it! As long as you are inspired to create a story, it's a win.

And I'm back. A bit late in the month, but that was just me being lazy. I haven't stopped writing though.

My January objectives:

• Write 1 short story a week, start to finish (meaning draft zero). Quantitative objective more than qualitative, but I'm the kind of person who tends to start and never finish things.
• Finish/polish (meaning edited and all) 1 short story.
• No looking at my novel's draft - not yet, too fresh still. But gosh, I'd love to have a sneak peak lol.
• Write a minimum of 25k, whatever these words are.
• Work on the craft: keep on going with the workshop in here, I love it so far.

Update on 09 January: I have drafted one whole short story for week 1 and am well advanced for week 2. I have polished and submitted another one. So I'm well on track.I also managed a record number of rejections reaching my mailbox: 5 since the beginning of the year LOL. I don't care, I'll keep on submitting, editors and first readers, whether you like it or not 🤣 

I've just been going through my records for the year and thought I'd do an annual update.

Between the 1st of January 2023 and the 1st of January 2024 I made 115 submissions. That was 19 short stories sent out to 50 different markets and one novel sent to 16 different agencies.

The results were 6 no responses, some after querying several times and resulting in my withdrawing them (oh, and one started allowing AI, but we won't go there), 80 form rejections, of which 7 were from agents, 6 personal rejections, and 22 still in progress, of which 9 are agents. I have 1, yes ONE, sale, which is still to be published.

In that time I have written approximately 101k words (which surprised me as I've not written much at all since the end of October) and edited out 37k, mostly from that one novel.

At the moment I have two projects on the go, a novel and a short, 5 stories that need revising, and two ideas sat bubbling away and waiting for me to get around to them.

Okay January!

1. Write every day on my current novel in progress.

2. Finish and submit to WOTF the short story I put on the back-burner to focus on my last novel(finished the novel)

3. Submit novel to 3 more agents

4. make a round of short story submissions

5. Fine tune pitches for my novel and previous works before Superstars!

6. Finish current painting

This list got a bit ambitious. We’ll see where this takes me.

Posted by: @clfors

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This list got a bit ambitious. We’ll see where this takes me.

stretch goals! 👍 

Posted by: @pdblake

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I've just been going through my records for the year and thought I'd do an annual update.

I'm so impressed by your update. You are amazing.

Inspired by your post, and as I'm well on track for my January objectives, I stopped and checked what I managed to do in 2023 submission wise.

I started submitting in May, with 1 story only. I had a couple more ready in Autumn, and a fourth one at the end of the year. With this in mind, I count 26 submissions and 22 rejections (9 of which are personal). No acceptance of course, but I didn't expect any. Getting started is a long process, lol.

I seem to accelerate for 2024. I now have 5 pieces in submission (a 6th one has been thrown into the revision trunk). 6 submissions so far, and already 3 rejections (of which 1 is personal).

I'd like to have between 5 to 10 pieces in the submission hell at any time of the year. I won't put myself an objective of a number of submissions. I've learnt that stories can get stuck for months, and I don't have a big enough stock to keep on feeding the system when this happens.

Why does this matter to me? Because it forces lazy me to actually finish stories and polish them. And to keep on writing new ones, finishing them and polishing them. If I didn't fix myself this objective, I'd have a tone of unfinished pieces all over my folders, lol.

This has been such a great inspiration. Last year was my first submitting!

sub’d 13 pieces to 20 places With 4 wins/placements and 2 still waiting to hear. Got some good feedback on my novel too and started the next.  

hoping to sub more in 2024!! Got 2 subs in Jan already … just got to keep on it. Signing up for competitions and free workshops really helped in 2023.

January over, and I made it!

January objectives:

• Write 1 short story a week, start to finish (meaning draft zero). Quantitative objective more than qualitative, but I'm the kind of person who tends to start and never finish things. More than 1 a week. A few went straight into the trunk of oblivion, for sure, but I might have a couple I can try and polish.
• Finish/polish (meaning edited and all) 1 short story. Done and submitted! Another one is with beta readers now, so I did well.
• No looking at my novel's draft - not yet, too fresh still. But gosh, I'd love to have a sneak peak lol. I haven't!
• Write a minimum of 25k, whatever these words are. Done with a few days to spare.
• Work on the craft: keep on going with the workshop in here, I love it so far. Done. And I watched Apex Snap Judgement (it was great as always)

Now February is coming, time to get really moving...

February objectives:

• Reverse outline my novel draft - yep, I was pantsing big time, so it's a mess that I need to clean up.
• Start editing the outline once done, based on the workshop I followed on how to make a story more dynamic and exciting.
• No editing/rewriting the draft as such, I need to let it sit (yes, yes, I won't touch it, I swear, lol)
• Write one short story a week - I'll probably go for flash fiction due to lack of time.
• One short story edited -> polished -> submitted.
• Keep on going with the workshop.
• Finish beta reading a fantasy novel I've just started reviewing (still 450 pages to go, lol)

Looks great Hannya!

Have you read any books on outlining?

450 to go? Ouch. Hope it's a pleasant read.

These months go by too quickly...

Anyway, my goal for January was to get back to the WIP I was originally working on for the previous quarter and figure it out (hah). Well. I worked on it, tried a completely new angle to get into the story, and yet something was still off. I know the main plot points and the characters yet something is wrong and I haven't figured it out. So instead of banging my head against the wall and allowing myself to slowly hate the story, I decided to set it aside for as long as I need to. I take that as a win!

I started working on a new idea which is still a delicate new sprout and it makes me excited. 

February goal: A draft of this new story without losing the excitement. (Trying not to overwater the sprout).

Posted by: @sconn

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This has been such a great inspiration.

You all are such great inspiration. I'm awed and delighted by all of the achievements I'm seeing here.

For January I wrote about 8000 words, and queried twelve agents! For February, I have kids' birthdays, Superstars Writing Conference, filing taxes (and amended taxes x3!), and an awful load of immigration stuff, so my goal is the same lazy: 6000 words. Really hoping that Superstars ticks off most of those as I don't know when else I'll get to them!

@ajschultz6, @clfors, @writhmic, @pdblake, @annax, @kz_richards, @toddjones, @joel-c-scoberg, @storysinger, @physa, @pegeen, @kent, @jeschleicher, @sconn, @gideonpsmith, @ericstallsworth, how did your January go? And what are you going to do in this upcoming month of lurve?

@tiinag and @hannya, truly phenomenal that you checked in without my nagging. TGio, I think you made a wise decision: never fight a story. It may not win but you will still lose. I hope this new story continues to spark excitement for you. Hannya, you scare me. In a wonderful, envy-and-well-wish-generating way. I hope you continue to horrify we mere mortals.

I managed to write something in January. It's not finished but I did get words down on the page. 

I've been struggling to wrestle the PTSD back into its box for a while. It's about there.

The plan this month is to finish a short story off and hopefully find my mojo again. 

Posted by: @tj_knight

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450 to go? Ouch. Hope it's a pleasant read.

It is an EXCELLENT read. The world building is mind blowing. The kind that makes you think, "Wow, I wish I had thought of that." Alpha/beta reading is becoming a year-long hobby of mine. I already have another one planned after this one. I learn so much doing it, I make writer friends, and I have the chance to read great stories. What's not to like?

Posted by: @ease

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Hannya, you scare me. In a wonderful, envy-and-well-wish-generating way. I hope you continue to horrify we mere mortals.

I started so late in life (I'm 50+ and still a rookie) that I must speed up, lol. Yes, it took me all these years to stop thinking I wasn't good enough to write. I don't care anymore, I just do it.

Let's go everyone, we've got this 😎 

Hi! I would love to participate. Thank you for making this thread!

Great job! I believe that producing multiple stories each month significantly speeds up my development and boosts my confidence.