What are your New Year Resolutions? Here's mine!

Happy New Year! Welcome to the year 2009! Many of you, as I did, stayed up till midnight to ring in the new year. This post is a reward for you staying up all that time. Anyways, I've decided to join in the popular custom of making resolutions for the new year. Or at least, I have a few writing goals I'd like to accomplish. And here they are:

• First and foremost, my biggest goal by far is to write, edit and self-publish Dream of a Dream, the allegorical novel about NaNo. Since this goal is so large, I have divided it up into monthly goals which are as follows:

January - Write the first draft.
February - Send the manuscript out to readers to get feedback and also finish writing Lwyn: A Space Trader's Daughter Book 1 and 2.
March - Edit second draft of Dream of a Dream.
April - Send second draft out to readers for feedback. Also create a cover for the proof copy and layout the text.
May - Get CreateSpace to approve the documents for the proof copy and print it. Edit the third draft of the novel.
June - Send out third draft of novel to readers for the last time.
July - Make the final changes to the novel. Start laying out the text and alter the cover for the second proof copy.
August - Finalize the proof copy and order it. Finalize the layout, design, and content for my new authors website, Sittybus. Make the graphics for marketing Dream of a Dream.
September - Launch website on the first of the month. Change and order another proof copy if necessary. Launch marketing for Dream of a Dream.
October - Release Dream of a Dream on the first and continue the marketing campaign. Try to get book into a bookstore and arrange a book signing.
November - Continue marketing and hold book signing if arranged.
December - Continue marketing but relax otherwise.

• As I said, that's a big goal and it's all divided up. Also mentioned in that goal are my other goals to finish Book 1 and 2 of the Lwyn: A Space Trader's Daughter Series.


• I will also be participating for the first time in Script Frenzy in April of this year. So I'd also like to win that by writing the 100 pages of script.


• I have already started writing a film script adaptation for Prince Caspian and I'd like to finish that in the new year. I know, a new film has already been made of it, but I feel that I need to work it out myself so I'll feel better, especially if it turns out to be the last Narnia movie made.


• Finish my short story Erlkonig and submit it somewhere.


• Finish The Old has Passed Away... and submit it somewhere.


• Work on my novel with my friend via the letter game and maybe finish it


• Write poems for school and, if any are good enough to publish, try to submit one somewhere, maybe the Q.


• Enter some sort of writing contest.

And I think that covers it! I know, I've got a lot on my plate and some are rather vague, but I think they are reasonable. Enjoy the new year and I hope many things come true! Just remember, your new year's resolutions and goals won't come true unless you work on them, step by step.

Oh, one last thing. This new year I will launch a monthly newsletter that will contain updates about my writing and upcoming events. Sign up by clicking on the button below or the button in the sidebar. The first mailing will go out on January 31st.

Until next time!

Q is out! (And only 23 days till Christmas)

The Q, the school literary magazine of which I am an editor, is finally out. It was printed before break, but I was in charge of distribution today. I stuffed the mailboxes, which was interesting to do as I got to see all the other mail in there, and put piles of the magazine in various other places on campus. Only took less than an hour to complete the whole process as there weren't that many copies printed.

Now, onto my picture countdown till Christmas. This time, I thought we could do with a picture of Mary holding Jesus from the nativity scene set up in the school's library. Very pretty set up it is.

Until next time!

Finals

I'm back, even if it has been several days. The editing process has ground to a screeching halt because of finals for school. The only thing I'm writing at the moment is a paper on Crime and Punishment for one of my two English classes.

I'm still stuck on page 7 and 8 of Firequeen. I just typed all the edits in (including the extended scene) and that actually added about a page to the novella. So the total page count is about 91 (published) pages.

Right now, I'm looking ahead to this summer and the fall and I'm trying to plan out my next move. Over the summer I hope to finish editing Firequeen and finish writing the 1st draft of Lwyn: A Space Trader's Daughter-Adventure at Anwar. Hopefully I can get the latter mostly edited by the time NaNoWriMo rolls around again in November. I've also been looking at several publishing opportunities. One, of course, being the Q (my school's literary magazine). I want to submit The Old Has Passed Away... to them sometime, but first I have to edit it. Also, I wanted to try to get it published elsewhere first because the Q isn't picky about it being a reprint. I've got two places I'm looking at: an anthology that will be coming out at the end of year (deadline July 1st) and an Australian magazine, Andromeda Spaceways. I think I've decided to try for the anthology first as I have a better chance of getting it submitted there. There's no advance payment but there is the possibility of royalties if it sells well enough.

At this rate I won't be submitting The Old Has Passed Away... to the Q for a long time, but I do have another story that might possibly be ready by the fall. I just came up with the idea for a story based around 1 Corinthians 13. I won't explain it all here at this moment, but it has to do with a world where what you name your child comes true--but with a catch. The story would follow two parents trying to outwit the system so there's no catch. I'll see if I can write this over the summer before I forget all the details that aren't written down in my writer's notebook.

Also, in my planning for the fall, I've been thinking hard about getting involved with the Whetstone, the campus newspaper. One of the staff members is leaving and their column would be open. I was considering starting up a column that would feature all the clubs that are on campus. There seems to be a general apathy toward committing to a club and I'd like to see if I can change that.

As another bit of news, to sign off with, I will be working on the staff of the Q in the fall. It's a course that I signed up for. I hope that I won't be overwhelmed in the fall, but the fall semester always seems to be easier for some reason.

Until next time!