Wednesday, December 7, 2016

IWSG: Writing Goals


 
            Time for another posting with the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, where writers can share their insecurities and encourage one another. IWSG was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh and we share our posts the first Wednesday of the month. The IWSG poses a question for us to answer in our monthly posts. Here is the question for December:
In terms of your writing career, where do you see yourself five years from now, and what’s your plan to get there?
            This has just been a week of future-oriented questions. First, the Question of the Month was about retirement, and now this. Maybe this is God’s way of telling me to start thinking more about the future in my life. I must admit that this is a tough question to answer because I have not set many definitive goals with my writing. I’ve allowed stress and many distractions to get in the way of my search for writing contests and publications to submit to. The book that I started sometime in the last year has been put on hold because it was loosely based on some of my own experiences and I’m not ready to write a character that is too much like myself. So, those are the things I’m not doing, but what am I doing? What are my writing plans? These are questions that really get me thinking and I actually have been thinking about these things a lot more the last few months than I was previously.
            Five years from now, I hope to be a lot more writing-oriented, and in order to get to that point, I will need to make some changes with my current job situation. I hope to turn one of the ideas floating around in my head into a novel and I want to participate in NaNoWriMo at least once in the next five years. In the meantime, I have decided that I really enjoy writing short stories after the two anthology entries I’ve written. My entry from last year was mostly an experiment and I’m not sure I like it anymore, but I plan to steal one of the characters from that story and give him his own new story. In fact, I may introduce him in a blog post in the next couple months. As for this year’s entry, my brain has already created a prequel and multiple character continuations of the story I wrote and these ideas could have novel potential. Although, the idea of writing a fantasy novel is quite intimidating. I also hope to have at least one thing published somewhere; an article, a story, or even a book. I know in order to get something published I need to write more and submit more, which would mean scheduling my writing time better. These goals may not seem very big to those who are career writers, but for me these sound doable under my current circumstances. I’m a slow writer, so each step I take with my writing feels like a big step for me! If some other life circumstances change, I may be able to shift to writing on a more full-time basis and then I would have a whole new set of goals to share.
 
Do you like to keep your goals small or do you think big? Any other slow writers out there?

10 comments:

  1. Its good to at least think ahead where you might want to take your writing and then work on seeing if you can get there down the road :)

    betty

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  2. That is interesting that you just answered a question about retirement and now this one! I think your goals sound spot on for the stage that you're at with your writing. I'm a newbie to this whole writing thing too so can really relate to what you're hoping to accomplish over the next five years.

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  3. I think God is telling you something!
    Short story goals are easier to obtain than full length stories. Cool you have other story ideas from what you've already written.

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  4. I believe you submitted for the IWSG Anthology, right? I read most of the entries blind. There were so many good ones, and stories that can continue. So I encourage you to do that.

    Your goals are great, and I'm not a career writer. :) I'm wishing you all the best for 2017.

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  5. Remember, we're always comparing our rough drafts to everyone else's final works. That is, we don't see the struggles of others. What may seem slow to you might be lightning fast to others, but with the time you have... I'm in a similar situation. I haven't been devoting as much time to writing as I would like. Sounds like you've got a good plan in place.

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  6. That's me too managing my time and schedule and establishing a routine habit as I would working any job.

    Juneta @ Writer's Gambit

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  7. Stealing characters is good, especially if they aren't going to make it out there in their original form. I did that, took a couple from one story that got shelved, flipped the perspectives, and made a short story. It was accepted into an anthology that comes out next week! So good luck and I hope we do get to see this character on your blog. :)

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  8. Thanks everyone for stopping by! I'm slowly making my way through your blogs, and I'm sorry if my comments show up more than once. My internet is acting wacky again :(

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  9. I'm a slow writer at the moment because there are so many distractions around. But really, for me, that's an excuse. I just need to schedule time and stick to it. And stop making excuses. Easier said than done, of course. Best wishes on your future plans.

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  10. well, i enjoyed your post, so I don't see why you shouldn't have multiple things published, once you can devote more time to it! Good luck!

    and thanks for stopping by my Cradle Rock release tour at Juneta's blog!

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