I’ve never considered myself the type of girl who has her life together. Most of the time when I make resolutions they last for a day or month or, in the case of last year, I went to the gym for a full three months before quitting. Whoo!
Funny enough though, friends, family and even acquaintances have described me as that ‘has her life together’ type of person. To which I usually deny. But this year, I figured, why can’t I be that girl who has her life together? Or at least that girl who starts to feel like it. The more I deny that that’s the kind person I am, the less likely it is that that’s who I’ll become.
So for the sake of meeting my writing goals this year, my first 2020 resolution is to stop viewing myself as an underachiever.
I’ve felt this way for a while because, well, I’ve never successfully finished an entire manuscript. My stories usually fall apart in the middle and I have to backtrack, sometimes changing it to the point that it looks nothing like the original story. I realized this year that my stories fall apart in the middle because I don’t outline very effectively. That’s something I’ve been working on this year. With my current WIP, I’ve taken a full six months working on the outline which is the longest I’ve taken to outline any WIP.
My second writing resolution is to participate in Camp Nanowrimo which I am currently doing.
I’m a little behind, but I’m trying to not let that discourage me. The real point of Nanowrimo is to write every day, in order to build those writing muscles. If I do by the grace of God become a full-time author someday, I’ll have to write every day as my job and If I miss a day, I’m not doing my job. Becoming a professional and not just a creative is the goal here.
My third writing resolution is to get critique partners.
This is something I’ve never done before. I used to post my writing online to a website that no longer exists, so I used to get general feedback on my work but not the in-depth, full manuscript critique that a CP is good for. I want to find CPs and have them read my work by early July because that will help me reach my fourth writing resolution which is…..
I want to enter Pitch Wars.
This is my most ambitious writing goal yet. Pitch Wars happens every year, usually in late September. It’s a program where writers submit their manuscript and a query letter in hopes of being mentored by a traditionally published author. The mentorship lasts about 3 months and in the end, there is an agent showcase where literary agents see your revised manuscript and query letter and can decide if they want to represent you. It’s an amazing opportunity and several authors have been granted book deals because of this program including the amazing Tomi Adeyemi, the author of “Children of Blood and Bone.”
My last writing resolution is to blog once a week, not only to help build my author platform, but to also share my writing journey with you so you can hold me accountable. See how this works? (*wink*).
Doing all of this publicly is extremely terrifying for me and absolutely out of my comfort zone, but dreams don’t happen in comfort zones, right?
