Brainstorming
It isn't just a new year for She Writes, it's a new year for me, as my birthday and She Writes's are very close together. (Mine is today!) For the anniversary last week, we asked She Writers all over the world to get together and share their wishes for the coming writing year. For my birthday, I am going to take a big leap and write mine down here for all the world -- or at least all She Writers -- to see.
This is a big step for me. As some of you know (but many of you don't), I started She Writes two years ago at a time of deep emotional turmoil and pain. My marriage was ending, and with two small boys to protect and my own guilt and grief to process, I wasn't able to write. I tried, but the words just didn't come, and the isolation writing requires was dangerous for me in the throes of so much depression and anxiety. (My journalling was critical to my survival and mental health, but my journals are not something I would ask any other human being to read!) I needed to reach outward at a time when I couldn't go in. So on the advice of a very wise friend I decided to do the next best thing, responding to my own need for a home, a community, and an empowering space for women writers, a place where all of us can turn during those times when writerly isolation is hard to bear.
Two years later, I am thrilled to say that I am ready to write again, and writerly isolation sounds heavenly! (Now if I can only find some.) I have ideas that have been percolating for some time, and are now too urgent, and too inviting, to ignore. I am also aware that the very existence of these ideas and creative impulses has been comforting me for months now, making me feel as though I have accomplished something when in fact nothing has been tried. That must come to an end. It's too easy to bask in projects yet unattempted and unrealized -- in that hazy, dreamy light, they all seem doable and brilliant, and it is tempting to leave them in their idea-state just for that reason. But I owe it to myself, and to the stories I want to tell, to subject them to the harsh and unflinching light of the work itself, and see how they hold up.
So without further ado -- three wishes for my writing in the year to come.
I wish that...
1) By this time next year, I will have completed a television pilot and have settled on a novel idea (I've got several in my head), and have gotten it well underway.
2) By this time next year, I will have found a writing group to support me in my efforts, and be settled into a routine for doing the work regularly.
3) By this time next year, I will have written something I am willing to share with my agent. (Ack!)
How about you? Declare your three wishes here, and ask other She Writers to hold you accountable. I know that this is one of the places where I will get the support, and the gentle hounding, that I need in the year to come. That is certainly one of the things She Writes is for, and I can't tell you how good it feels to to know that, now that I am ready, it's here.
Lovely piece, thanks for sharing!
1. Have my second book finished and ready for publication
2. Create a cozy, inspirational writing space that I never want to leave
3. Have a disciplined writing schedule that is a priority in my life
Aloha!
1. Have my first novel published (maybe by She Writes Press)
2. Finish my second novel which I am 3 chapters into now
3. Have my second novel published
I've tossed about trying to narrow to three. But here goes
1> build the audience for my blog, which will strengthen my writing chops
2> gather enough courage to submit writing for pay ( stories, articles, etc )
3> develop an outline, plot points and a viable end for my first novel.
Finish the final draft of my YA novel, write the query and submit it to an agent.
Keep my blog going and make it better.
Connect more on She Writes!
Mine are:
1) Start the novel that has been circling around in my head for about 2 weeks now
2) Barring the novel coming to fruition, at least write something creative about the idea that I have
3) Actually figure out how to develop a character even it is based on me and my life
Adding on to Jennifer Sullivan Corkern's encouraging quotes, here's one from Gustave Flaubert: "Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may wild and original in your work."
1. I will become habitual in setting and keeping writing hours. It took a year, but I did it for a weekly yoga class. Writing is just as challenging and sustaining and necessary for me as yoga.
2. I will find or start a neighborhood writers' group (NYC UWS - any takers/recommenders?) for non-fiction so I have some externally-enforced deadlines.
3. I will have completed a first draft of my book, and decided how to e-publish it.
Thanks, Kami, and you go, girl!
Let me think, by this time next year I want to:
1. have had my second book published;
2. have had at least one of my books touch the lives of many;
3. have a better understanding of social media and how I can use that platform to encourage and inspire others with my writing.
Love this inspiring post. My 3 wishes (can I really only have three?) are:
Wow, you all seem so much further on than me!
1, To have established a writing routine
2, to have actually shared something I've written out loud at my newly created writing group
3, to have something finished to a standard for submission - ie to have received my first rejection slip!
Then I think I can move onto bigger (and better?) things.
My three wishes would be something like this...
1. To capture the attention of the agent that is a perfect match for me out there somewhere and sign with them.
2. To be able to see my completed young adult paranoramal manuscript in print.
3. To finish writing the second book in my new series.
Thanks for posting your wishes. I am working on family history/memoir -- and have hundreds of documents including letters and diaries from and to my grandparents, by parents, my uncle (250 WWII letter) to go through ( and in some cases, first get deciphered from a 19th Century unreadable German script, then I must translate from readable German to English) ) to move ahead. So it's been slow-going. I've written about 150,000 words, but not happy with direction. For my next year my wishes are to :
1) get a decent first draft of the memoir that I can shop around and/or
2) get familiar enough with e-book publishing to publish it myself
3) be savvy about social media and marketing to establish connections both with my memoir and my blog, www.familyarchaeologist, which highlights the story of my family told through their writing and documents. Whew!
It's been a year since my divorce. I hope at some point I end up doing as well as you are.
1. By this time next year to have a solid draft of my book completed.
2. Like you, I want to find a solid, serious writing group but I also want to find an editor.
3. By this time next year I will have two stories/articles published in literary magazine or local newsletter. (Sound small but big for me)
I have a quote from Anthony Trollope hanging above my writing desk: "A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules." I hope to apply that quote this year and accomplish these three things through the small daily task of writing, even if it's only for 15 minutes:
(1) Send my memoir to agents;
(2) Apply to at least one writers' retreat; and
(3) Complete a proposal for my nonfiction project.
Thanks for the prompt!
On this post I'm going to print it...and here goes my 3 wishes to which I will commit.
1) Contact at least 10 SheWrtiers from the list I print (at this point) at the mid year point to check on their progress and send a note of encouragement.
2) Will exhaust my resources looking for a "proofreader" I can contract to work with on an ongoing basis, as...
3) I will publish *****five***** new novels, plus one poetry book to release no later than May 2012! .
Happy belated birthday. I hope all of your wishes come true. My 3 wishes are as follows,
1) To get an agent as passionate about my writing as I am and to be well on my way to selling my novels
2)To mount the musical Room To Grow, that I have written with my friend Laura Hall
3)To build up my following at bridgetstraub.com
1. Have a book deal on the table for my first manuscript or self publish.
2. Start my second manuscript.
3. Build my online community.
I have a fantastic quote on writing that sums up my passions at GirlwithaNewLife.
1. Write the (dreaded) synopsis for my novel, which will hopefully be done in October (women's fiction).
2. Write query (dreaded) letter to send out.
3. Think of a title for my novel. My mind is totally blank on this one for some reason!!
Thanks Kamy for sharing your wishes and encouraging ours. Here's mine:
1)to find myself continually delighted by the act of writing and befriending the work of writing (as opposed to my more usual patterns of feeling hostile toward and overwhelmed by the writing process)
2)to have my revised novel in the hands of an agent
3)to have built so much support, care an space for my creative writing life that its existence is no longer a dream or speculation, but concrete reality
It feels good to write these words and affirm the future!
Kamy, what a blessing to be part of she writes...thank you also for this opportunity to solidify some intentions. This year I would like to:
1. Revise and successfully publish one of my poetry manuscripts
2. Continue the raw writing of the longer photo/prose poetry manuscript I'm working on now so it is ready to take with me on retreat summer 2012 for revision
3. educate myself about, and find, an agent for my work
This might get revised as the summer/year goes on, but I need to set some goals right now. Any help I can give others towards reaching their goals, I'm happy to offer...and wouldn't mind receiving swift kicks in the butt in order to reach my own. So...
1. Write one short story (rough draft, any length, as long as it's the story itself is complete) a week for the next three months, with the first due Sunday July 10th.
2. Get myself "out" there on SheWrites and other writing forums (Absolute Write, Verla Kaye's Blue Boards, etc.) so that six months to a year from now, I have found at least one trustworthy writing/critique partner with whom I can share my work.
3. This one's the scariest...submit to at least ten magazines/markets/and or anthology calls before the end of 2011.
Okay, this is a scary proposition, but I'll bite:
1. By this time next year I will have published at least one article on Success in a magazine.
2. By this time next year, I will have an agent for my book.
3. By this time next year, I will have consistent paying writing work (doesn't have to be creative, just writing- could be corporate). Based on my own ideas would be great!
Phew.
Thanks for asking, Kamy. I wish you--and all of us--luck. I know I really appreciate what She Writes is becoming for me.
Thanks for starting SheWrites and for inspiring us to put wishes into words through your post today.
My wishes/goals are here:
1) Submit poetry to multiple journals in time for fall deadlines
2) Keep my blog running and active (figure out the techy stuff and also keep writing)
3) Continue social networking in person and online to promote my blog and poetry
Thanks for the post -- this is the perfect chance for me to distill what I'm hoping to accomplish in the next writing year so that I don't feel pulled in so many different writing "directions"!
To become a participating member of SheWrites.
To Workshop and Revise my literary short story, “Closeted,” and to submit it
To finish writing my retelling of Rumplestiltskin, which was supposed to be a short story but is languidly stretching out into a novella, and to bring it through its first rigorous round of revisions
Great post and happy birthday. My wishes for the following year are:
1. Hit my target of writing four plays for my business.
2. Get my novel finished and in the right condition to send off to publishers/agents.
3. Get my ebook finished for my writing business.
Is that enough writing work for the next year?
Happy birthday to you and SheWrites! I love the three goals idea. Here are mine:
1. Write something, if only a short story, that I can share with my dad and grandfather (I mostly write articles on sex and dating that I can't show them).
2. Join a writer's group (can't seem to find one! how hard can it be?!)
3. Finish my blog to book proposal.