Nicole J Simms/ March 1, 2017/ Blog/ 0 comments

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February 2017 Writing Goals Review and March 2017 Writing Goals

What happened to February? It feels like I blinked and the month was gone. I don’t know why, but it feels like time is racing towards something. Well, with a new month, it’s time to check on my progress with my writing goals. Again, I haven’t achieved everything that I had planned, but I have completed some goals, so I’m happy about that.

So, what were my February writing goals? Well, my February writing goals were:

Writing Goal 1: Finish the third draft of my novel
Result: I knew this wasn’t going to happen even before I decided on the goal. I have to admit I am finding it difficult to work on the third draft of my novel. It seems to need more brain power, and I just can’t manage to produce enough. However, if I do want a submission ready novel this year, then I do need to have this third draft finished by the end of March.

Writing Goal 2: Finish planning my psychological horror novella
Result: Yeah, I didn’t reach this goal either. I often work on my novella in the evenings, but I also write my daily flash fictions in the evening, so by the time I’ve done that I feel too tired to work on my novella. And sometimes working on flash fiction ideas (and other stories) take up the time I would use for the novella. However, like with my novel, I do need to do better with this.

Writing Goal 3: Continue to work on story ideas for my flash fiction collection
Result: I have done this. Many ideas keep popping into my head. I just struggle to find the time to get them all down on paper.

Writing Goal 4: Write the first drafts of 30 flash fictions for my flash fiction collection
Result: Sadly, I didn’t reach that goal. I’m surprised how difficult I am finding it to write a flash fiction per day. However, I did manage to write 13 flash fictions, and my total word count is 21,778 words, so I’ve written 9,778 words towards my 30,000-word collection this month. So that’s not too bad.

Writing Goal 5: Work on ideas for next novel
Result: I still haven’t found the time to work on this yet. I’ve been focusing on working on my flash fiction story ideas and planning my stories for the four submission calls. I do, however, need to start concentrating on this because I do want to start writing it in November.

Writing Goal 6: Submit four short stories to four submission calls
Result: I’m pleased to say that I achieved this goal. Yay me! I managed to submit four stories. Actually, it was five. I submitted two entries to the Reader’s Digest competition. Fingers crossed one of them is a yes.

Writing Goal 7: Write story for submission call
Result: I’ve not had time to write this, but I still have time before the deadline. It’s this month, though, so I need to pull my socks up.

As you can see, I haven’t done very well with my February writing goals. In my defence, I do have a lot on at the moment, and not just with my work, my writing group’s World War Two anthology titled From Sunrise to Sunset will be released in April, and we will be doing a book launch (22nd April) and a book tour. So, this is taking a lot of time to organise, and promote. However, I still need to do better with my writing projects; otherwise, I will never move forward as a writer. So next month I must do better.

So now it’s March I have a list of new goals that I hope to achieve.

My March Writing Goals

  • Finish the third draft of my novel
  • Finish planning my psychological horror novella
  • Continue to work on story ideas for my flash fiction collection
  • Write the first drafts of 15 flash fictions for my flash fiction collection
  • Work on ideas for next novel
  • Submit three short stories to three submission calls
  • Write story for submission call

Okay, again, some of my goals for this month are the same as last month’s goals, but I will be rearranging my timetable so, hopefully, I can do better this month.

I’m not going to be too hard on myself because I did well with the short story submissions, and I’ve nearly finished writing the first drafts of my flash fictions for my flash fiction collection, so something is better than nothing. However, this month I do need to do much better otherwise I will never complete my 2017 writing goals.

I hope everyone is doing well with their writing. And remember, something is better than nothing.

Keep writing, folks!

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