Every month we gather here to discuss what we’ve achieved and commit to making more progress in our creative lives in the coming month. We call it our Serious Writer’s Accountability Group or SWAGr, for short! (We’re serious, not sombre!)
Leave a comment below telling us how you got on last month, and what you plan to do next month, then check back in on the first of each month, to see how everyone’s doing.
(It doesn’t have to be fiction. Feel free to use this group to push you in whatever creative direction you need.)
Did you live up to your commitment from last month? Don’t remember what you promised to do? Check out the comments from last month.
And don’t forget to celebrate with/encourage your fellow SWAGr-ers on their progress!
Download your SWAGr Tracking Sheet now, to keep track of your commitments this month
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Examples of Goals Set By SWAGr-ers in previous months
- Write a story a day in May – everyone!
- Revise at least 10 short stories – Iraide
- Write two short stories. – Jami
- Attend one writers’ conference – Julie
- Write fable for WordFactory competition – Sonya
- Re-read the backstory pieces I wrote in May and see if I can use them within my novel – Monique
- Research the market – Jami
- Focus on my serial – Maureen
So, what will you accomplish this month? Leave your comment below (use the drop-down option to subscribe to the comments and receive lovely, encouraging notifications from fellow StADa SWAGr-ers!)
(Next check-in, 1st of the month. Tell your friends. )
Don’t forget, if you need inspiration for a story you can still get ALL THE PROMPTS from StoryADay May 2016 and support the running of the StoryADay challenge at the same time. (I’m really proud of last year’s collection!) Give a little, get a little 
Click here. Now only $2.99
Met my February goals and am now looking forward to making March more productive.
My goals this month include:
1) Keep a personal diary of a month long road trip through Eastern and Southern U.S.
2) Review at least one restaurant and post that review on Yelp
3) Read flash fiction and at least one novel as time permits while travelling
4) Write one or more pieces of long fiction > 2000 words
5) Write multiple short-short stories < 1500 words
6) Add ideas to a list kept for the short story a day month
Yeah, February was tough for me. It always is because both my kids’ birthdays take over (even though one was born in early March) and the lack of daylight always affects me badly. Add in the political WTFs of this past month has chewed up a lot of my reading/writing time as I struggle to stay sane (I try to stick to writing topics in my posts here and to avoid being divisive here, but I don’t think it’s too partisan to say “WTF?” about some of the stuff that’s going on at the moment…)
Anyhoo, throw in a little thyroid surgery, and my month went a bit off the rails. (Anesthetic and pain mess with your attention span, apparently.)
However, I’m happy to report that I produced some content for the site that I was really happy with, and I got back on the podcasting wagon a mere week after someone slit my throat with a surgical scalpel, which felt like a huge win 😉
This month I’m going to commit to very little:
* Write one short story for the #12For12Stories Challenge
* Write one big (or several smaller) posts for the Publishing Theme Of The Month
* Post 4 writing prompts with associated publishing deadlines
* Critique work for some writing friends
* Work on the StoryADay ebook A Month Of Writing Prompts 2017
* I’m also going to write Morning Pages every week day instead of staring at my phone.
* Doing my taxes!
OK, that’s not nothing, but still.
So I didn’t get 100% of my February goals, which is probably to be expected seeing how busy I was (we made the move successfully; I would not wish the Greyhound bus service on my worst enemy, though). I did get some practice using Duotrope, but I couldn’t quite finish ‘Mortmain’.
So this month:
– I’ll attempt to finish and send out ‘Mortmain’.
– If possible, complete a rough draft of another short story
– ‘featherweight’ just got rejected, so I need to send that somewhere else
– and in nonwriting news, I’ll be following up with my old job’s location in this area and try to make them hire me. Fingers crossed.
Good luck with the job search and with the submissions.
Hopefully you’ll have been inspired by Ray (above) committing to sending out rejected pieces within 24 hours. I think that’s a great policy 🙂
In February, I tried to start a “write at least 300 words a day for 100 days” challenge. I made it through 3 days, but I’ve started over for March. I’ve made it 6 days so far, and I’m confident that I can get through (at least!) the rest of this month. I just discovered this website, so this is really good timing for me!
If it’s any consolation, I always find these kinds of challenges really tough to get through until about Day 15. If you can make it to Day 15 you can probably make it the whole way!
So, Day 8, how’s it going?
Still going strong! On a different note, is there any way to sign up to get notifications for these chat messages? I just happened to come back and see your comment, but I’d love a little “oh hey!” to get me to come look if that exists. 🙂 If not, no worries.
I have taken too much time away from writing the last four months and March is about getting back to it.
Write a new first draft of a short story.
Finish revising my WIP that I last touched in October.
Create a schedule of dates that I will dedicate hours to my writing work.
Schedule artist’s dates.
Register for a nearby Festival of the Short Story and book lodgings.
These things matter to me because my fiction writing has been neglected for the past four months while I answered some big questions about my vision for my life.
Other things happening in March include my birthday and March Break. I will be spending as much time with my family as I can during that week, so I will have to be vigilant about scheduling writing time as well for that week, even just an hour.
Good stuff. Sounds like you have some positive, measurable steps in there and are planning for Life to happen too. Good for you.
March seemed to come very quickly!
So, my (overly ambitious) February plans were to:
*finish a partly done short story : This … changed; it didn’t work as a short story, there was too much stuff going on. It would work better as a novel or screenplay (I think). It’s on the backburner for now, but I do like the concept (a fun, adventure story about sisters who build & launch a rocket in the late 1950s).
*further edits on a story I wrote/submitted in January: I re-submitted the story. We’ll see what happens. (I am not 100% good with how it turned out. So.)
*submit to one other source with a story I already have: Finished a new story and submitted that.
*more on the novel. I have got a lot done on this, actually. I am reading my first draft, taking notes, and thinking through some of the problems/changes that have to be made. I still like the story (about a mission to explore Saturn’s moon Enceladus).
*screenplay course: Was sadly cancelled (low enrollment).
*2-3 blog posts on my blog: Also didn’t happen.
And now March.
*Definitely working more on the novel. I’m almost finished reading it and will then re-do the scene-by-scene outline with new ideas/changes.
*Another short story to keep on track for #12for12stories.
*I signed up for an online 6 lesson class on plot with Sisters in Crime starting this weekend.
And I’m going to leave it at that. (I am super busy work-wise until end of April.)
Hope everything is well with all of you.
You are working hard on your goals, even when it doesn’t work out as you set out. Keep on keeping on!
Sounds like you did pretty well with those ambitious goals! And I like the sound of the not-short-story that you started!
I’m a little behind with my own #12for12Stories efforts. Februrary’s did not happen. But I hope to catch up this month.
This year in the first in the last 5 yrs where I haven’t started out making a New Years Resolution that involves writing.
If I can write 1 story a month I’m fine with that. If I write more, I’m equally good there too.
I’ve mostly dedicated myself to submitting more stories out to markets this year.
I’ve set a personal proviso too. For every rejection I get, I MUST sub a new story to a new market within 24hrs of getting that rejection. I feel it’s a good way to stop yourself wallowing in self pity over the rejection and making a positive out of a negative by channeling that energy into getting another story out there.
I finally got my submittable p/w working again so I’ve opened up a ton more markets I can be sending things out to.
Love that goal!
Do you use Duotrope too? I find a ton of interesting markets and themed deadlines here (I’m sharing some as writing prompts this month)
After two very hard months, I’m so ready to get back to writing again.
My current goals:
Use the SWAGr worksheet to keep myself on-goal
Start posting snippets of work on Patreon
Write down at least one new idea a week
Finish one WIP
One blog post
Small goals, but if I can manage these I’m in good shape.
Hope everybody’s goals go well!
Great goals for yourself! You sound like you are in the same place I am right now, ready to get back to it. Have a great month, I look forward to hearing about your progress when we check in again in April.
Good luck with these. Small, manageable goals are definitely useful and get us in the habit of good work.
I saw this post from Seth Godin yesterday, that plays into the same idea: Drip by Drip And The Thunderclap