Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Found: A Cup 'o Kindness

My commenters say we all want to write and revise more in 2010, so I'm going to make a real effort to inspire and help you in the next couple of weeks. First, I offer a simple trick for making better writing resolutions blognapped from the newbie publishing blog of Joe Konrath, a writer who's wrapped his mind around e-publishing better than anyone else.

As you whisper sweet literary promises to yourself for the new year, keep in mind this awesomely simple advice from Konrath:

Goals should be within your power. In other words, anything that involves a yes or no from another human being isn't a goal, it's a dream.

... "I want to be a bestseller" isn't a goal. "I want to attend three writing conferences this year, polish my novel, and send queries to ten agents by November" is a goal.

This year, let's be realistic and specific about our goals.

Here's mine:

In 2010, I am going to produce writing every week and query widely.

Now bloggees, be realistic and specific: Set an achievable writing goal for 2010 and make it public in the comments.

8 comments:

  1. My goal is to have my novel adequately revised to apply to the Rutgers one-on-one-plus conference that takes place in October. It is a huge opportunity for children's and YA authors to meet face-to-face with agents and editors.

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  2. I have been thinking a lot about my goals for 2010 and I have had to filter the realistic goals from the non-realistic ones =)

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  3. I have a lot of dreams for 2010, but I also have some good goals. The first is: I'm going to finish my rough draft before we go to NY!

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  4. Writing Goal for 2010: I'm going to title my other WIP, because dang it, it's bugging the crap out of me. :P

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  5. Definitely write more and query far and wide.

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  6. Great distinction between goals and dreams. My goals: to query widely my "completed" YA novel and to do extensive revisions on an older wip.

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  7. I'm going to write 500 words a day in 2010. It's a modest goal, but doable. And man, am I excited!!

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  8. Good advice. :) My goal is to finish, revise, polish, and query my newest MS by the time 2011 rolls around. And to read a minumum of 100 books. Happy new year!

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