The Writers Aspirant Accountability Thread

Great to see so many people checking in regularly and looks like some serious productivity and progress.

I didn't set any September goals as such, but I did edit and submit three short stories (two rejections already). I'm currently trying to get my head around having a website, so I've been doing some research or, in other words, writing procrastination on that front.

October goals

• I have two novel ideas (narrowed down to these two), so my goal is to commit to one and start plotting and writing it (both are expansions of short stories, the short stories being my mental gateway into the worlds).
• Submit three short stories.

Posted by: @joel-c-scoberg

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I'm currently trying to get my head around having a website, so I've been doing some research or, in other words, writing procrastination on that front

I wasted so much time on a website at one point. Its an easy timesink. In the end I copied a restaurants page and instead of photos of seasonal specials I put the front covers of magazines I was in. The down side is, its fairly clunky, so any time I need to update it its a major hassle moving things around to have the formatting right. So my one rec (if I had the time/chance to do it over again) I would focus on ease to edit/add stuff as an important criteria so its quick to update

@adrian I think my other big favor I could do myself is to stop checking submission grinder. I see loads of rejections come out and just because I haven't got one and people who submitted after me have I start to get my hopes up (and I should know, having been on the other side, sometimes they just don't review in order). A few days pass. Sometimes just me and another person or two not listing results. By this time I'm already imagining my piece in the magazine. Thinking about my acceptance speech (jk) and imagining taking my family out to celebrate. And then my rejection comes in. I think if I paid less attention to when results should come from all venues/markets and didn't check SG, rejections would be softer as they won't have been built up as much.

@gideonpsmith I’m so glad I’m not the only one who does this.

Posted by: @gideonpsmith

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I think my other big favor I could do myself is to stop checking submission grinder. I see loads of rejections come out and just because I haven't got one and people who submitted after me have I start to get my hopes up (and I should know, having been on the other side, sometimes they just don't review in order). A few days pass. Sometimes just me and another person or two not listing results. By this time I'm already imagining my piece in the magazine. Thinking about my acceptance speech (jk) and imagining taking my family out to celebrate. And then my rejection comes in.

Haha, good advice @gideonpsmith!

Posted by: @gideonpsmith

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I wasted so much time on a website at one point. Its an easy timesink. In the end I copied a restaurants page and instead of photos of seasonal specials I put the front covers of magazines I was in. The down side is, its fairly clunky, so any time I need to update it its a major hassle moving things around to have the formatting right. So my one rec (if I had the time/chance to do it over again) I would focus on ease to edit/add stuff as an important criteria so its quick to update

This is really helpful advice, thank you.

And for what it's worth, I have visited your website and thought it looked good, one to aspire toward. 

There is no one way to win this contest. But the best thing to help (after writing a new story and submitting every quarter, of course) is beta reading the latest volume:

https://writersofthefuture.com/forum/postid/56347/

If you have the time, I cannot recommend doing this enough.

@ajschultz6, @clfors, @writhmic, @pdblake, @annax, @kz_richards, @toddjones, @storysinger, @physa, @pegeen, @kent, @sconn, @gideonpsmith, @ericstallsworth, @hannya, @tiinag, @olivia-ava, @abeona, @bon, @thewritingwolf, @mulch, @marius

Posted by: @ease

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There is no one way to win this contest. But the best thing to help (after writing a new story and submitting every quarter, of course) is beta reading the latest volume:

https://writersofthefuture.com/forum/postid/56347/

If you have the time, I cannot recommend doing this enough.

@ajschultz6, @clfors, @writhmic, @pdblake, @annax, @kz_richards, @toddjones, @storysinger, @physa, @pegeen, @kent, @sconn, @gideonpsmith, @ericstallsworth, @hannya, @tiinag, @olivia-ava, @abeona, @bon, @thewritingwolf, @mulch, @marius

Out of curiosity, what's involved and what kind of time commitment is it? (e.g. what time frame do you have to do what tasks) I assume it's looking more for reader reaction than critique-like suggestions.

(Edit: I see earlier in the topic you linked to, it suggests it's mostly looking for typos and copy edit items, which answers part of the question. But still curious about how whether it's all the stories or some, and what time frame you would have to do that amount of reading)

@ease you forgot to add "and it's fun" 😉

But it is also a time commitment searching for typos, grammar errors, homonyms etc so worth thinking about your balance before offering.

I will say, I am doing it, and they were kind enough not to just send me the entire book to do in one go! But then, I guess they are still deciding what's going to go in...

Posted by: @adrian

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Out of curiosity, what's involved and what kind of time commitment is it? (e.g. what time frame do you have to do what tasks) I assume it's looking more for reader reaction than critique-like suggestions.

 

@adrian

 As above, they want typos, spelling errors, grammar errors, homonyms, that kind of thing that can be easily missed. It's already accepted as pro-level and any crit I assume has been done, so they are not looking for that from you, but you're trying to pick up on errors that a line editor may have missed so it requires very careful slow-reading (at least for me, I can't pick up those kinds of things skimming)

My first batch was 5 stories plus bios. As you know, wotf stories are generally 10-12k but they can be shorter, or they can be up to 17k. So one batch is 5 times that or 50,000 words more or less to slow read for errors. 

I don't know if they will send me more when I get done with these, I assume so. The deadline for this batch was a little under 3 weeks.

Could be an interesting learning experience, but I'm already strapped for time I'm afraid. Also, I'm an ESL. Not a bad one, but I wouldn't feel comfortable being responsible for checking grammar and vocabulary

I think my calendar also doesn't allow for it, but it's cool to get a glimpse of the process. Thanks.

Previously they've sent the entire book in one go, and given you about a month to return your feedback. They don't crucify you if you don't manage to mark up every single story/bio. This year they sent me just the first five stories/bios, and again, gave about a month to return the feedback. I can't wait to dig into them.

Posted by: @gideonpsmith

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Okay, I have mulled....

 

October goals:

 

1. Write a flash piece

2. Do three writing exercises. I have to make this explicit as the temptation when I sit down is always to write a 'piece'. Doing a 'piece' is always alluring as then I have something concrete at the end rather than a, probably unusable, hanging paragraph or page or two. I want to consciously focus on some craft exercise though so I'm going to make that a goal so I do it.

3. I have a few older pieces that I now understand what went wrong. So I will take ONE and either edit it, or re-write it, using that knowledge, rather than let it die an idle death on my harddrive. I'm nervous about this goal. I don't much care for revising or revisiting. I usually prefer to waste my time on completely new adventures. But I am *told* this can sometimes be a useful learning exercise even if you still never use the piece. October seems like a good month to find that out.

Oh whoops! Just re-checked this thread to see if I had already accomplished my October goals yet (as I have done a lot but couldn't remember what the goals were specifically). Turns out I have achieved none of them yet   

So don't do as I do - instead, write your goals and then remember what you're working on so you have a chance of actually achieving them.

Ok, as for me, I'm putting these above my desk now 😉

That's this time of the month again. I can post early as I didn't set objectives for October, so it's easy to report back, haha.

October was a wild ride. Despite no objectives, I progressed but very slowly:

• 4 stories edited, polished, and submitted.
• 1 story drafted but I don't like it so I slammed it in the Whatever folder.
• 1 acceptance (woohoo)--my first ever so there's been a bit of partying.

November: I'll do a non-Nano so I won't have much time for anything else. I set the objective at 60k. That's half what I did last year, so it should be achievable with not much stress. No specific project for that. After nearly a year of writer's block on and off, I'd like to have the freedom to jump between projects, whether novel or short stories, depending on my mindset that specific day.

Posted by: @toddjones

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October 2024 Goals: Update

• Complete a new story for October submission to Flame Tree Publishing  (Edgar Allan Poe-ish style story) - COMPLETED
• Complete draft for part 2 of Semi-Finalist WotF story - FAILED, didn't get to even starting this
• Start a new story for Q1 WotF - COMPLETED, started a new story, but haven't finished draft yet

 

November 2024 Goals:

• Review/Edit several stories for Story Unlikely Submission
• Complete draft for part 2 of Semi-Finalist WotF story
• Start a new story for Q1 WotF

I have not yet achieved my Oct goals but I will not give up until midnight Oct 31st!

there's still time!!!!! (not really but, yeah)

Posted by: @ease

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October goals:

• Translate 2000 words of dictation into good prose. (I really want to make that 12,000, but I just don't think it's plausible).
• Dictate 2000 words. (I want to make it 10,000 but I'm not sure I have enough dictating time left on my free software, and I'm cheap...)

I was right, I couldn't fix 12,000 words of dictation. I did fix 2,500 though. I also dictated 14,000+ by getting other free software; it's worse than my preferred app, but it's free and with no limit. I'll come back with November goals after some navel-gazing.

Posted by: @ease

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Posted by: @ease

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October goals:

• Translate 2000 words of dictation into good prose. (I really want to make that 12,000, but I just don't think it's plausible).
• Dictate 2000 words. (I want to make it 10,000 but I'm not sure I have enough dictating time left on my free software, and I'm cheap...)

I was right, I couldn't fix 12,000 words of dictation. I did fix 2,500 though. I also dictated 14,000+ by getting other free software; it's worse than my preferred app, but it's free and with no limit. I'll come back with November goals after some navel-gazing.

 

Why do I have to keep pointing out October isn't over yet! You still have time 😉 . That's just 9500 more words in 2 days when you did 2500 in 29 days 🤡 

Posted by: @joel-c-scoberg

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October goals

• I have two novel ideas (narrowed down to these two), so my goal is to commit to one and start plotting and writing it (both are expansions of short stories, the short stories being my mental gateway into the worlds).
• Submit three short stories.

• I only submitted one story (but currently have three out on submission, so does that kind of count?). I did edit one with a view to getting it out but, I realise now I forgot to do so   There's still time to get that one out to bring my total to two submissions in October, which isn't great but better than no stories submitted.
• I have selected one idea for a novel and roughly plotted out the storyline and wrote around 6k words, which I am pleased with.

November goals

• Jody got back to me with comments on my WotF story, so the priority is to get a revised draft back to her ASAP.
• Write 10k words on my novel
• Submit three short stories

Well I finished a short story, which was the main goal for October. 

November will be spent on the novel I looked away from for a while. I'm not doing NaNo due to their recent problems and their advocating AI. Instead I'm having a stab at NoNo on Absolute Write, albeit with a lower word count of, hopefully about 30k. 

My October goals were to play with new ideas (I did), and/or with some existing story ideas which are in different levels of production (I did not). I had a lovely October, but didn't spend much time actually writing due to things and/or stuff.

For the new story I have written couple scenes for and made an outline for it. Not 100% sure about the ending, but I will know it once I actually write it out to that point. This one is a bit different for me, especially in structure, but it's a story I really want to tell.

November:

Decide which will be my Q1, the new story, or one of the older ones I haven't finished.

Focus on the Q1 - would be dandy to have a full draft

Posted by: @marius

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Didn't have a particular goal for september, but I sub'd three short stories to writing contests and wrote a synopsis for a novel. October's going to be all about the novel and my goal is to write at least 15.000 words. I hope more, but I'm also busy with house renovations and have a 2 yo running around, so I'm trying to be realistic here...

Didn't even come close. I got to about 4k before I realized it severely lacked focus, so I started outlining. I'm a plotter, shouldn't have tried to pants this.

New goal: finish the outline including external and internal conflicts, and write bios for at least 4 major characters

Great to hear everyone else chugging away (or trying to) 😊 I think my Oct went okay, although as mentioned, I got a bit demotivated early in Oct and had to recover a bit.

October Goals update:

1) brainstorm and create a skeleton outline for my next WoTF story. - DONE. Been busy last couple days on this.

2) get 3 stories in the mail for other markets - DONE. Some rejections have also come back already, but still done.

3) try the new process of only checking writing responses once a week, with a new email. - PARTIALLY DONE. This worked much better for me, although I have still to shift some of my old set ups to the new email address. But happier with the process for sure.

November Goals:

1) Work on outline and write a first few pages for a novel idea that's been kicking around for a while.

2) Get a first draft of my WOTF story.

Posted by: @m-norris

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October Goals:

- Outline my Q1 story. Start it if I have nothing else to write.

- 7 Days of writing for 1 hour or more.

- Complete WotF online workshop.

Uhh… totally forgot about that last one. The other two though, complete! (Although it was like 5 days not 7.) We’ll say total 68% completion.

November goal:

NaNoWriMo. Very simple. 30K-50K words, whatever I can do. December I’ll dive into novella revisions for Q1. 

I’m amazing. (And so are all of you! Don’t forget how important it is to remind yourself of that when you’re feeling frustrated!)

Okay, finally November so....

October goals:

1. Write a flash piece

SUCCESS! And it was submitted. And it was rejected. And so I then submitted it somewhere else.  

2. Do three writing exercises. I have to make this explicit as the temptation when I sit down is always to write a 'piece'. Doing a 'piece' is always alluring as then I have something concrete at the end rather than a, probably unusable, hanging paragraph or page or two. I want to consciously focus on some craft exercise though so I'm going to make that a goal so I do it.

Two done. So as the target was three, failure. But I will award myself an "honorable mention" for this effort  

3. I have a few older pieces that I now understand what went wrong. So I will take ONE and either edit it, or re-write it, using that knowledge, rather than let it die an idle death on my harddrive. I'm nervous about this goal. I don't much care for revising or revisiting. I usually prefer to waste my time on completely new adventures. But I am *told* this can sometimes be a useful learning exercise even if you still never use the piece. October seems like a good month to find that out.

Oh dear. This was a 0% completion so I will place that squarely in the failure bucket.

I guess waiting till Nov 1 didn't increase my success rate on goals, but as they say in Galaxy Quest. Never Give up, Never Surrender!

There goes October. Time to see how I did!

• 13,000 words on my WIP
  • 👍 - 14,500, plus a couple thousand on an unexpected story that came to me. Bonus!
• Keep my grubby mitts off that draft from last month. I have a bad habit of editing too soon and not making the deep changes necessary. I have to freshen up these eyes.
  • 👍 - It got a little hairy with about a week to go when visions of revisions danced in my head, but we made it.
• Keep 3 pieces out on submission. If passion returns for those 2 that aren't quite up to snuff, maybe they'll reenter the rotation.
  • 👎 - 2 of them were easy. They just stayed out the whole time. That third one fell off about halfway through, and I never bothered to find a new potential home for it.

Goals for November

• Make a revision plan for the Q1 story and start on a second draft.
• 12,000 words on anything. Q1 second draft. Longer project. Random story that popped up last month. Freedom!
• Read at least 15 minutes every day. Some hiccups in my routine last month really threw my reading off, and I have to get back on it.
• Send those 2 stories I'm most confident in back out if either of them gets rejected.

My October goal was to get my subs up to 10. I did submit a few stories, but they were all quickly returned, and I haven’t resubmitted them. Ultimately, I ended the month with net -1 subs out, completely failing to meet my goal, but that is partly due to an acceptance, so I’m not mad.

In November, I want to completely outline and begin writing my Q1. This month I outlined two different stories but decided neither was WotF-y enough, so it’s back to the drawing board. 

Posted by: @tj_knight

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Final tally - 29k in Septembergust!

Today I am at 79k, so I'll offer my goal of reaching 100k by the end of Octomber.

Made 100k! Currently 100,500 so, just.

At this point I'm hoping to max at 140,000, so I'll go with:

November = 120,000
December = 140,000 + The End.

I've been futzing around with a different story the past few days. Either burnout or needing a break or making excuses, I'm not sure. Either way the break feels good, but I need to dive back in soon...

Reading is going poorly. Got to 37 minutes in an audio book the other day. No dialog. Zero. Just 37 minutes of telling. I couldn't take it so I returned the book - and didn't get something else. Ugh. Maybe if I had an Audible membership and I was paying for two books a month I'd actually listen to two. Problem is, I return so many I'd just feel ganked and cancel my membership.

I need to see a book shrink.

Posted by: @tj_knight

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Posted by: @tj_knight

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Final tally - 29k in Septembergust!

Today I am at 79k, so I'll offer my goal of reaching 100k by the end of Octomber.

Made 100k! Currently 100,500 so, just.

At this point I'm hoping to max at 140,000, so I'll go with:

November = 120,000
December = 140,000 + The End.

I've been futzing around with a different story the past few days. Either burnout or needing a break or making excuses, I'm not sure. Either way the break feels good, but I need to dive back in soon...

Reading is going poorly. Got to 37 minutes in an audio book the other day. No dialog. Zero. Just 37 minutes of telling. I couldn't take it so I returned the book - and didn't get something else. Ugh. Maybe if I had an Audible membership and I was paying for two books a month I'd actually listen to two. Problem is, I return so many I'd just feel ganked and cancel my membership.

I need to see a book shrink.

 

First, congrats on the word counts!   

inspirational!

Many libraries loan audible books too these days. For physical copies you still have to go in, but they also often have ones on their website, so you could try that before splurging on the audible membership to see if audio books are helpful to you