I recently attended a day workshop on planning for the year at Queensland Writer Centre. I very much enjoyed it, in part because it was the first time I’d met other writers. Inspired by that, these are my belated 2024 goals. It’s always good to be externally accountable – and posting on my writerly blog does that job.
Main Goal
Finish my first romantic fiction novel, Softening, of 85,000 words including at least one full beta read and complete the resultant edits, then enter at least one competition for unpublished manuscripts.
The competition I’d like to enter is Publishable, again at QWC. It’s home turf and you get decent feedback with options to add-on more when you enter. I doubt I’ll be ready in time though. Last year’s deadline was May. I’ll definitely have my novel completed with multiple edits then. What takes time is the beta reads. While I could carry on editing while it’s out being read, it risks being a waste of time. Editing while the book is in beta feels like fiddling while Rome burns. I might crack out a few good tunes, but it will have all been rather futile when I have to rebuilt everything. So, I may have to enter another competition towards the end of the year to fulfil that goal. Time will tell.
Mini Goals
Here are a few other things that I’d like to do
- Enter one short story competition
- Continue posting on this blog. I’ve barely any readers yet, but it’s a long term play. Anyway, I like doing it – which is handy
- Attend a writer’s conference
- Get professional / industry advice and mentorship
- Outline my next novel
Alongside these writerly goals, I’ll have to continue functioning correctly as a human being – so keep my job, provide care and feeding for the daughter, stay married, and maintain the house and garden. Hopefully I can keep all those plates spinning, but I’m looking at the garden right now and it’s terribly overgrown.
Photo by Arthur Chauvineau on Unsplash
