Tag: 2021 goals

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Personal Rambles

Did I meet my writing goals for 2021?

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I did not meet half of my writing goals for 2021. As a quick recap, my goals were:

  1. Release a series of short stories
  2. Revise the novel I was working on at the time/learn how to revise a novel
  3. Learn how to work with beta readers
  4. Publish

Looking back at that old blog post, one of my biggest goals should’ve been to work on my non-fiction writing because sheesh. Anyhow, I’m sitting at a 2/4 for those writing goals.

Could be worse.

1: Release a series of short stories

This goal was about a series of short stories I was working on and planned on releasing in June. I stopped cold turkey in March and I haven’t touched it since. My dream was releasing this series on a semi-regular basis, amass a crowd of adoring fans, become famous, etc. 

Releasing that series wasn’t a bad goal on its own, but my writing priorities shifted and I hit a bad burnout over the summer. A new idea, The Misadventures of Montoya and Rose, caught my eye and I was a goner ever since. 

I think the main reason I didn’t complete this goal was that I wasn’t married to the idea. It would’ve taken a massive amount of time to complete, and that’s time I’m not interested in investing. Though, it’s good that I gave it a go because it expanded my horizons when it comes to fiction writing.

Just so you never ask me to release the full thing, here is an excerpt of what I was working on: 

The plan would be going forth that fateful night. 

Summer has long since passed. Now, under the glow of a crescent moon, the grass is brown and frost-bitten. The bare trees sway with the chilling wind, and hearths need to be more attended to.

The wind pushes against the window of the Estate owner’s daughter, Ada. It whistles through the small gaps and creates a small draft. She shivers, pulling the thick, woolly blankets up to her chin.

Her fireplace is a void in her wall. She closes her eyes and pretends that this winter is like the last one. But she feels the gown staring at her.

January 2021

(Side note, it’s so odd to read what I wrote a year ago. If I doubt if I’ve improved, I’ll reread what I wrote back then).

2: Learn how to revise a novel/revise the novel I was working on at the time

I think I know what novel I was talking about in the original post, but Past Jay felt the need to be secretive and not reveal what genre it was. Past Jay could’ve been referring to the novel I was drafting over winter break, a thriller derived from the first book I wrote, but I’m not sure. Whatever the case, I have not revised a novel this year. I so thoroughly failed that specific goal that I wrote two books in 2021. Revised none of them.

I only know how to revise a novel in theory because all of my first drafts have been so utterly broken that the only way to salvage them is to go in with a rewrite. Both times. 

3: Learn how to work with beta readers

I actually did this one! Huzzah! When I wrote my short story, The Stolen Dagger, I enlisted the help of six beta readers to get feedback on my work. It was confusing. I don’t know why, but I expected the process to be easier than it was. Maybe the stress got to me, maybe it was my inexperience. Whatever the case, it was a confusing process to evaluate what everyone was telling me. 

I have so much more to learn about the beta reader process that even though I’m marking this goal as completed, it’s only partially so. 

4: Publish

I fully completed this one. After the falling out of my short story series, I gave up on publishing. Then something in me broke in this past month and I went all-in. The journey to publishing was wild and extremely short, and if you want to know what it was like, you can read about it here. 

Conclusion

I’ve made so much progress in this past year that it doesn’t matter if I met all of the goals I set in 2020. I learned how to write essays, I stayed consistent with my social media and managed to hit 1k followers on Instagram, I wrote two books, and I published! While I have goals for 2022, big ones at that, I have no intention of sharing them publicly. I’ll probably make a post like this a year from now and evaluate my progress. I know I’m incredible and I’m proud of the work I’ve done, and that’s what matters now, and a year into the future. 

Categories
Book writing Personal Rambles

2020, Writing, and Me

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Do you remember how we all had such high hopes for a year with such a swanky number? This past year was disastrous for many reasons, but it pays no fool to focus on the negative.

There were only two obvious things that weren’t terrible for me this year, and one of them was my success with writing. The other is too personal for public platforms. Anyhow, I have written a full novel and have made significant progress with another (granted, it’s a rewrite of the completed novel. I’ll get into it). I’ve also started taking my experimentation with this blog and Instagram seriously, and I have… hopes for them both.

Some reflection about my novel

I fully expected to feel like I have gained some kind of power and knowledge with having completed the first draft of a book, but I feel just as I did before. But there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ve significantly improved as a writer in this past year.

Not only on a basic prose level but also on an overarching structural level. Novels are so intricate and if one thinks about it for too long, it gets far too overwhelming. But that means that there’s always something new to learn; that your progression has no real reason to plateau. 

I also learned that I can write a book. I wrote a book! Most can’t say that. Knowing that it is, indeed, possible for my peanut brain to do such a thing fans the flames of my ego. I best be careful about that… That confidence has inspired me to rework and rewrite my first book.

The seemingly insufferable task of rewriting a book is daunting, and it’s a sure sign of failure, but I was going to fail somewhere, so it might as well have been with a draft. The long and the short of it is that I found the story I was meaning to tell only after I fumbled around with a crapshoot.

I have a new focus. I made an outline, and I have pumped out 15k words in a week.

Goals concerning my novel writing

I want to go through the revisions and begin the editing stages of a novel this upcoming year. I want to push myself further into the process than I have ever gone before, and I wish to enlist the help of beta readers with my project.

There is also a series of short stories in the works right now. My hope is that I will be able to start releasing my new project by or in the summer. I will talk more about that project when I officially announce it — for now, you must wait in suspense (I’m sure you’re so very invested in a lofty promise of a project that you must find a way to settle yourself. I recommend cold water).

As far as long term goals, and how I want to share my work with the general populous, I haven’t the faintest idea. Will I try to go the trad route? Will I go through a more professional means of self-publishing? Shall I just post to an open platform site such as Wattpad? Who knows. 

Goals concerning my social platforms

I doubt that I’m going to reach massive heights with this here blog and my Instagram. However, I’m not going to focus on numbers because they’re too finicky and have a nasty tendency to mess with one’s head.

Rather, my goal here is consistency. I want to push myself to post regularly on both platforms. I’m going to try a new system of posting that seems to work for many others and I hope will work for me. I want to be able to gaze upon a backlog of quality posts. I won’t fib and say numbers are meaningless to me — I’m not that egregious of a liar. Nay, I’m curious to see what frequent, quality posting will do. How much will I grow? Must I pay to play (in this capitalistic society, yes. However, how far can I push it before I must pay to play? Probably far less than I’m willing to admit). 

I also wish to improve upon concise works such as short stories and blog posts. I want to become a better opinion essayist — which will do nothing but help in the grand scheme of my academic career. It’s also important to me that I have something of a backlog of my work (as embarrassing as it may come to be) to show where I have dug my roots into and grown.

A backlog of free works that are representative of my style and genre preferences may help with growing a readership. Besides, one is never too young to herd readers and use them as cheap bait to earn a profit (I am nothing if not a hypocrite; it’s one of my many dazzling talents). As in, I enjoy following authors and seeing where they’ve come from and how their work has evolved, so, why not do it for myself?

Goals concerning revising and editing

I touched upon this briefly in the novel section, but I wanted to dedicate an entire space to it. I have very little experience with revision and editing for I have yet to make it that far into any of my long-form works. As a more experienced writer than I has said,

Good writing is rewriting

So many old white men that the internet can’t decide who got there first but it certainly wasn’t me so don’t go turning some greasy eyeballs looking for plagiarism.

I may have a book, but that doesn’t mean it’s close to being a great or even good work. It simply exists as a dumpster fire on my Google Drive — the warmth of which heats up the left for dead manuscripts I have piled in there. 

Conclusion

It’s apparent that none of these goals are what one would call concrete. However, that just means that Future Jay can determine the threshold for success and failure. The scoundrel best be in a pleasant mood when he reflects upon these goals.