Update: 2019 Goals. My Writing Goals

I’ve found a new goal for 2019! I keep saying I want to listen to music more, I finally got around to buying a new album I meant to buy last year (Seether: Poison The Parish) and a new mp3 speaker so that’s a new goal. Listen to music more, maybe buy more music too (a ‘new’ Bowie album 🙂 )

I’m reading Catcher In The Rye this year, I mentioned it on readitswapit book forum where I often join in with a classic a month and the person organising that has added it as a book choice for March! Great!

So I’ve been thinking about how I can meet my writing goal to finish my novel. First I need to read over the thousands of words I’ve already written, most is already typed up into Scrivener but I write by hand and sometimes on my typewriter and then use my laptop (I like writing by hand but then typing it up takes ages and I didn’t finish! But I love writing in Scrivener as it’s great for random ideas and scenes and more organised than on paper).

If you make a goal you start by breaking it down into smaller goals. So I think my first goal will be to read over the first few pages, nothing strict just  easing into it. Then I’ll try to read more of it in the next sitting. (In theory).

The problems that will arise are:

• I might hate what I’ve written and get discouraged
• I’ll end up making copious amounts of notes which will be helpful but slow my reading down
• How long will it take to read through it anyway?

But I have to read through it so I can end it. So I can figure out what’s going on as I didn’t have a plan and it’s a mess. A mess!!!! 

Small steps, small goals: READ THE FIRST FEW PAGES. GO BACK AND KEEP READING. 

Solutions:

• Small steps. Read it over. Bit by bit.
• The notes will help the story and maybe reading it will help me think of more ideas
• I will finish it even if it’s terrible!
• Find quotes to help me keep going, a survival kit would be an idea but that will just result in procrastinating.

I have no idea how long this will take so there’s no deadline. I’m hoping that I’ll just be happy with the progress I’ll be making rather than beating myself up with no finished product which is what I usually do.

I could take little breaks from it and even work on short stories at some point but only when I’m happy with my progress.

I want to get to the end of this year and finally feel like I’ve done something, that I’ve finished the first draft. I say every year I’m going to be a more productive writer and read books and make goals.

But this year: one writing goal. No books, no miracle cures (I did start that podcast not sure what to do about that at this point continue or quit, I hate quitting) or long to-do lists or goals.

I’ll let you know how it goes 🙂

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Ok so since writing this I’ve started reading my WIP. It is a mess because I’m a pantser it’s just flitting from one scene to the next. Some scenes are ok but there doesn’t seem to be a direction.

Any advice on how to fix this appreciated

My writing itself I’m liking (needs lots of tweaks but it’s ok) but the story needs work. I have conflict and setting the scene in the beginning but I’m not really sure how to improve it. Also at the moment my brain is tired from reading and staring at a screen 🙂

I really wish I’d planned this as I went, it’s a lot like a NaNoWriMo novel bits of scenes and ideas because I was free writing.

I’m wondering if after I’ve read over it I should make a plan and start fixing these problems maybe that would be better? Or should I just finish it and then work on that on the rewriting stage but if I do that I’m concerned I’ll compromise on quality.

I knew this was going to be a lot of work and my plan is still to read over it and make sense of the story and make notes as I go. Maybe then I’ll have a better idea of what to do.

How can you make a story that hasn’t got a plan, a pantser’s story, into one with more of a direction/structure?

I started off thinking the writing isn’t as bad as I thought. Then I realised how directionless is it 😦 And the negative trumps the positive. I’ll keep going.

I’ll keep you updated…. I have a review on it’s way very soon.. 🙂