Friday, January 9, 2015

Welcome to 2015! (Part II)



By Kelly Bridgewater

Wow! I can’t believe it is 2015. Where has the time gone? I graduated from high school in 2000, so I can’t believe it is the year of my fifteen year high school reunion. Not like I’m going because there were 1,000 kids in my graduating class, and the ones who I would want to see again, I still keep in contact with.

This is the year that Marty McFly went to the future. You know, in Back to the Future Part II. That one was always my favorite. Even though we have advanced a lot in technology since my days of high school, the creators behind the movie even had technology that we don’t have yet. No flying cars available for the masses. No pizzas that grew bigger in a matter of seconds. I don’t have a fingerprint scan to enter my house.

But as we look on the vast expanse of the New Year, what do you plan to do? It is a time of new beginnings. Time to start again. Even though, I believe you can do this anytime of the year, not just in January.

If you missed my post last week, where I shared how to start the year off on the right foot. Here is the link to that post. I hope you read it and then return to this entry.

As a writer, I set personal goals during each month. Right now, there in the back page of 2014’s planner, which need to be transferred to my new planner. My yearly planner is a 400 page planner that I customize with handmade calendars then two pages for each day. I am the most productive that way. Plus, it costs an arm and a leg to buy planners that are daily and monthly. I don’t like the weekly monthly ones. There is never enough time for me to write in. My husband keeps joking that there is an app for that on my Note 3, but something about writing it down every day. Must be the writer in me. J

Back to my writing goals. During the month of November 2014, I finally sat down and crunched out 71,000 words for my first novel in a series featuring Chloe Walker and Devin Sanders titled Face of Admiration. During December, I finished it, completing at 98,000 words. Also, during December, I worked on plotting the second book in the series. No title yet.

During January, I have started another writing marathon working on the second book. I hope to finish the whole book in January, but I think it will leak over in February too.

During February, I will finish the second book and plot out the third one. Now these aren’t full on sketches. I use the cork board method in Scrivener and write little ideas for each chapter. I love being able to drag and move the chapters around.

During March, with Seekerville, who offers prizes and advice to encourage writers, I plan to compose the third book in the series.

April, I plan to catch up on my reading and just relax (even though I have to read and submit reviews for books and work on my blog postings all year long) after completing 300,000 words over a span of five months.

May, I will start revising the first book.
June. Revise.
July. Revise.
August. Revise.

September, Prepare one sheets and my pitch for the annual ACFW conference. This year, I plan to actually pitch to editors and agents. I have never done that before. I have never thought my writing was good enough.

October. Read and relax. Hopefully, preparing my book to send to an agent or editor who I sparked their interest.

November. Write another book. I don’t know what yet.

December. Spend time with family while finishing the book I started in November and plotting my next book.

A lot of writing goals for one year, but we’ll see how the year actually goes. Stayed tune for my next post next Friday on January 16th where I will share my reading goals. It won’t be month by month like my writing goals. It will be something more interesting. So come back. I need tons of feedback on both of these posts.

Do you set writing goals in the beginning of the year? How do you do it? If you don’t, should you?

I would love to hear your comments on what you do to set the year off in the right foot when it comes to writing.

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