[Beautiful Books] Writerly Goals for 2017

10:00 Cilla 6 Comments

I've talked about reading and blogging goals since January started, and it wouldn't be right to leave out my general writing goals! So I'm joining up once again with Beautiful Books hosted by Cait and Sky. I'm not at the editing stage, but hopefully I'll at least have a complete first draft by the end of the year!



1. What were your writing achievements last year?
I completed 20,000 words for Finchtown during Camp NaNo in July. While I technically failed NaNo in November, I wrote another 10k for the same draft. I also started working on a proper outline for it, as I found out during NaNo that I didn't really have any idea about how to proceed with the plot! Although it's nowhere near the full draft I'd have liked to finish, but I'm pleased that I've at least made some progress on it.

Also, I completed and published three short stories last year!

2. What’s on your writerly “to-do list” for 2017?

↠ Establish and stick to the habit of writing for my novel or a short story one to two hours a day. This is the big one, as this is also my resolution last year and I didn't do so well at it.
↠ Complete the first draft of Finchtown.
↠ Find out about journals that I can submit to, and actually work on those submissions.

3. Tell us about your top-priority writing projects for this year!
I have two top-priority writing projects, both of which still have working titles:

↠ Finchtown, my science-fiction/fantasy adaptation of The Little Mermaid. If you're curious about it, I wrote an introduction to it here!
↠ Atwoods, a novel I'm co-writing with Cor. We've been writing the characters for a long time now in an online format, and we're working on moving them into a proper story. Read a small snippet of its prologue here.

4. How do you hope to improve as a writer? Where do you see yourself at the end of 2017?
I hope to be consistently writing. I'm annoyed with myself for never finishing a novel, so really it's time to stop discussing it and start truly working toward it. Also, I need to improve in terms of persevering with my writing instead of wanting to edit everything I write.

I don't know where I'd be at the end of 2017 in terms of my writing projects, but I'm hoping I'd be happy with the effort I've put in them during the year.

5. Describe your general editing process.
In general, it includes cringing away from the first draft and letting it sit for a few days. 😅 When I feel I'm sufficiently detached from the piece to not want to throw it all out, I read it over. Ideally, it would be twice: one to make sure it's coherent, and another to pick up on any typo or grammatical errors. I also like to get a writer friend to read it for me, in case there's something I've missed.

6. On a scale of 1-10, how do you think this draft turned out?
I haven't finished my Finchtown draft. However, this time I don't feel compelled to scrap it and start over again, and I've been able to build an outline from the chapters I already have, so I think it's turned out pretty good!

7. What aspect of your draft needs the most work?
The plot. 😆 I need to work on making my main character's motivation clear as well as how some of the key events will unfold. Once I have those figured out, it will (hopefully) be easier to write.

8. What do you like the most about your draft?
I like where it is in terms of world-building. It started out as science fiction before I figured out I do not know enough to make-up convincing pseudoscience, and I felt that I was forcing it. Now that I've allowed it to be a fantasy, I feel a lot more comfortable writing it.

9. What are your plans for this novel once you finish editing? More edits? Finding beta readers? Querying? Self-publishing? Hiding it in a dark hole forever?
Weell when I finish editing, I'd love to query it. After all the time and effort I've put it into it, I'd like to try and put it out there.

10. What’s your top piece of advice for those just finished writing a first draft?
I'm not in the position to give any advice, but maybe don't be too hard on yourself. If the first draft is crap, that's what editing is for! At least you have some material to work with. That's better than a blank page.