Writing Goals For 2017

It’s the time of the year to review the writing goals I set at the beginning of 2016 and talk about what I want to accomplish for 2017.  A lot of these will be rolling over from 2016.

  • Write more consistently every day – I am going to aim for 500 words a day with fewer non-writing days.
    • According to my Word Count Spread Sheet O’ Doom, I averaged 401 words a day.  Eyeballing it, I wrote about the same number of days.  
    • For 2017, I’m going to aim for the same goal
  • Read more books – I write better when I read more, so I want to aim for 30 books this year. You can follow my progress at Goodreads.
    • I read 38 books total.  Probably closer to 45 if you consider how much short fiction I consumed this year.
    • I’m setting a goal of 40 for 2017.
  • Submit the final draft of Chaos Wolf
    • Seven submissions achieved this year.  I stopped to do another edit pass, so I’ll start submitting again in February 2017.
  • Submit more short stories
  • Write more short stories
    • I wrote one which needs to be rewritten.  I have ideas for a few more, but the focus right now is on my longer works.
  • Rewrite the first draft of the second novel, Chaos Wolf’s sequel Chaos Hunt.
    • Didn’t happen. I was sidetracked by several other projects.  Now that Chaos Wolf is locked down for the most part, I can restart writing it.
  • Transform the fanfic story into an original story
    • First pass is done.  There are more fanfic elements that need to be weeded out.
    • I decide if I want to self-publish this or traditionally publish it.  It also has a potential tie-in to the Lucy Harker, Vampire Hunter story that I need to think through.
  • Submit fanfic rewrite
    • Didn’t happen.  See above.
  • Finish the draft of Lucy Harker, Vampire Hunter
    • New for this year.  Draft got about half way done for NaNoWriMo and needs to be finished.
  • Tweet and Facebook more
    • Didn’t happen.  Will try again.
  • Find a writing group either online or in realspace to join.
    • Still haven’t accomplished this.  I think it would help me focus, but my schedule makes it tricky to accomplish.

It’s hard to measure how much I truly accomplished.  I’ve taken large steps forward, but I’m not kidding myself.  I still have a long way to go.