Writing Goals for 2011

Okay, goal time again. I accomplished one of my four writing goals from last year - finishing the family cookbook. And really, that was the most important goal. Now, for next year's goals.

• Rewrite and edit my End of the World book in order to publish it through Lulu this year.
• Finish writing my Dragons of Aneirin book.
• Update each blog once a week: so if I update on Mon, Wed, and Fri. I'll be good to go.
• Work through a book such as Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.
• Start a new novel.

I always go into the new year with lots of hope that I'll accomplish all my writing goals that year. So, here's to hope and the ability to turn hope into success.

NaNo 2010 Winner!

Ugh! Those last 500 words were the hardest to get out! I ended my novel-writing-month with 50,177 words, according to the NaNo site's word verification application. While this year's story did not go as planned (that villainess I really wanted just didn't pan out)I reminded myself that yes, I can write thousands of words a day. However, I think 2,000 is the maximum amount of words I should write per day - having one day of 10,000 words, one day of 7,600 words, and one day of 5,800 words is not the proper way to do this thing, but it is done!

This story will not get developed into a real book. It was an idea that needed to be fleshed out, but it just didn't turn into a creature worthy of seeing the light of day. But I have fond memories of creating it and it will now join several other creatures that will never see daylight in the recesses of my hard drive. Goodnight, dark world.

NaNo Stand Still

I'm working on my NaNo novel and have actually gotten to a point where I'm just incredibly bored with the story. I tried jumping to a different chapter and picking up with different characters, but their stories bore me, too. I'm about 3500 words behind schedule at this point. It would only take me about two hours to type that much, if only the ideas would come. Each paragraph is like trying to get out a splinter embedded deep in my finger. I'll eventually get it, but it's frustrating work. I've never been frustrated with a story before. I have 34,600 words written of the 50,000 I'm supposed to write by the 30th. If only my characters would do something interesting, I know I could do it.

On another note, of the four writerly goals I set myself this year, the only one I accomplished was finishing the Memories and Recipes book. That was the most important goal, so I am proud, but with a better time management schedule I could have reached all four goals. I'm already working on my writerly goals for next year. The three from 2010 will roll over into 2011, with a few additions.

The Cookbook is Finished!

It is such a wonderful feeling to have this cookbook in my hands! Two years of work went into this and I think the book is superb, considering I had no experience making a photo book/cookbook/history book. It ended up being over $50 once you pay for taxes and shipping, but I had no control over how the site prices their books. I chose not to add any profit for myself, since I didn't expect to sell many books and I wanted to keep the price as low as I could for family and friends.

As of today, 3 people have bought my book and a few more intend to do so soon. I'm happy just knowing my creation is bringing other people pleasure. Profit would be nice, but not for this book. I'll make oodles of profit from my fiction novels.

Now I can head into National Novel Writing Month without the cookbook distracting me. Just 7 more days until I write 50,000 words in one month!

Adding More to the Cookbook

My mom was a big help with the editing of my cookbook, but now I need to add more pages to it to make it worth the higher price point it fell into. So far I've added seven pages, but I think I can add at least five more, possibly ten more. I guess this is draft number 2, which I will hopefully have finished before September. I need to come up with a few more anecdotes, photograph a few more of the recipe results (if only this heat wave will end so I can use the oven!), and revise the Recipe Index and Table of Contents to accommodate my new pages. I can't wait to have this book published!

I did start editing my novel - I got up to page 77. But then I got the cookbook back and all other projects had to pause while I finish this. I was so into reading my novel that I didn't want to stop to go to bed - that means something good, right?

Cookbook Rough Draft Finished!

I am so relieved to have finished the rough draft of my family cookbook. I gave it to my mom today. She will read it at her leisure and make any corrections to facts and add in her suggestions, story-wise or format-wise, for me to consider for the final draft. Now that this piece of family history has been created I can get my focus back on my fiction. Granted when my mom finishes editing I will need to finalize everything, but I'm proud to just have gotten it all put together! My niece asked me today what book I was working on and I had to disappoint her with the news that the cookbook was such a feat that I had not done any fiction writing lately. After a week or so down-time, I will get back to my novels.

I Can See the Finish Line...

I am almost finished with the rough draft of my Memories and Recipes book. I plan to finish the rough draft in the next two weeks and then print off a PDF copy for my mom to review to make sure names and dates are correct and the stories ring true. Then, I will polish it and link up with Blurb to print off a book that hopefully many family members will like - this IS our heritage after all.

Once that is finished, I will devote all spare moments to my two young adult novels - these characters find moments to scream at me and demand to live on paper and not just in my head. Usually those moments are when I am in the middle of something else and I have to shut them up so I can focus. I hope they're still screaming in about a month or so when I can give them my full attention.

Changing Genres

I am considering changing my fantasy romance novel to a YA novel. It wouldn't require many changes at this point because my heroine is young anyway, I'll just have to make her 17 instead of 22. I only have one real sex scene which could easily become a "behind closed doors" scene. Actually, making the heroine younger might make everything a bit more interesting. Her decisions would be more difficult and so would the hero's. I already have most of the second book in that story written - it would focus on a bunch of young adults, too. I think I've just talked myself into it.

I'm also considering offering some sample chapters to some friends to read if they want. I had considered putting them on my blog, but I'm still paranoid that some other writer would come and steal my idea, which is high concept. These characters have been in my head for years, just waiting for my writing ability to get to the point where I can do their stories justice. I think I'm there.

Memories and Recipes

Working through Blurb dot com, I am creating a book I hope will be passed down through the generations. It could even be a series of books, but I have to finish this one first. I have quite a few photos going back through the 1950s and further, even some as far back as the early 1900s, of my mother’s side of the family. I also have many handwritten recipes from my grandmother and her mother. And then there are those stories that family members have shared over the kitchen table. I am combing all of these into a book tentatively titled, Memories and Recipes.

Over the weekend I finally figured out a layout that will work for just about all of the recipe/story pages. Creating those pages will go much quicker now. The time-consuming part will be in testing the recipes and photographing the results. So far, I have only photographed one outcome. Winter is the best time to get all this cooking done, though. My goal is to have the rough draft completed by April. If I do at least one page a day, that will be no problem.

I’ve been trying to find a book similar to mine that has already been published, but they aren’t set up just like mine. Most focus on much more of the storytelling than mine does, only throwing in a recipe every few pages. None of them combine a family photo, recipe, and story all on one page as I’m doing. Most of the stories I have are just anecdotes, slices of life, not fully fleshed stories, which I think is more indicative of what people know of their families anyway. But my book will be something my daughters can hold in their hands and say, wow, I would have loved to have known my great-grandmother - she seemed feisty, like me.

Writing Goals for 2010

• Finish creating the family cookbook/story book and have it ready to publish by summer.
• Do final edits on "End of the World" and publish on Lulu.
• Finish writing "Dragons of Aneirin" with the goal of finding an agent and publishing through a brick and mortar publisher.
• Post more frequently to my blogs.

This list is shorter than last year's since I did not accomplish all my writing goals in 2009. This list is much more realistic. Here's to a profitable 2010!