I just emailed a submission to Firefly & Wisp (publisher of 13 Tales of the Paranormal and to whom I had submitted my novel Relic last year, for which I'm still patiently awaiting a response) for their zombie anthology. The story, "No More Room in Hell," was previously "published" on my personal Facebook profile page, but it has since been saved to disc and deleted from Facebook. I wrote a 55-word query in the body of the email, which counts toward my 500-word daily goal. This blog will be the remainder, as it outlines my writing and reading goals for 2012. So to make a long story short, I just completed one writing goal: send a zombie submission before the 1/11/12 deadline.
Last year I bought a cheap monthly/weekly planner specifically to track my writing career in 2011, and I have done the same for this year. We're only on January 2nd, and I already have several goals and tasks jotted down therein. I only hope I end 2012 with more days marked than the 2011 planner had at Saturday's end...
Other writing goals, aside from #WIP500 (which was not only met but also exceeded yesterday), include finishing last year's NaNoWriMo story, tentatively titled Hiding Out on Jekyll Island. I also would like to, at the very least, work on The Odic Touch sequel, the title of which might spoil the ending of the first book for those who have not yet read it. Speaking of which, the first new goal of 2012--a plan from 2011--was met yesterday when I raised the novel's price to Amazon's minimum novel price, $2.99. It may be a self-published ebook, but I feel it's at least worth that much.
Another big writing goal for 2012, as I mentioned yesterday, is to find a literary agent, a journey which I tried to relaunch yesterday. My efforts were befouled, however, when I learned that the notebook into which I'd been jotting down agency names, had the number "118" at the top of the first page. I soon realized what the number meant when I noticed that I had some of the names written down twice in the notebook, from earlier explorations in the guide to literary agents. That was the page number at which I had previously left off for another day. Once I had my spot in the pdf settled, I decided I needed a break after having wasted my time. I guess I'll have to try again today, starting at page 118!
I'd also like to read the Julia Cameron book I picked up at 2nd & Charles before Christmas, a sequel to The Artist's Way. There are several other writing books I have that I need to read, and some books on literary theory and authors such as Mark Twain and Charles Dickens that I would like to read even though I do not own them, Other goals include writing more poetry and short stories, which may happen anyway thanks to #WIP500, and submitting the shorts to magazines and anthologies in the hopes of finding a home in print for them.
So to sum up the writing goals:
1. Buy 2012 writing planner, which I did in 2011, check.
2. Change the price of The Odic Touch, check.
3. Submit to Firefly & Wisp's zombie anthology, check.
4. Try to find a literary agent; I know where to start now, which is a step in the right direction!
5. Finish Jekyll Island.
6. Work on Odic Touch sequel.
7. Continue with the daily goal of writing 500 words, the first two days of which have already been completed.
8. Read more books on writing (and writers!).
9. Write more poetry and short stories.
10. Submit more short stories! (I'm not comfortable enough with my own poetry to try to submit any outside of the school publications.)
Ten goals is a good number for beginning a new year. I have other goals of course, healthwise, but this is a writing blog, and I'll try to limit it to such. =)