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
July want to work on Flash fiction, Novellas and Short stories maybe poetry.
Oh, so late in the month, finally checking into SWAGr. I am a bad blog host!!
But frankly, I needed some downtime. So I didn’t make any formal commitments here for July BUT I did plan to:
– taking an online novel-writing course (beta testing it). Committed to working on it 6 hours a week. Mostly succeeded. Fell behind a bit because of July 4th vacation, but still
– Read
– Work on one of the two novels competing for brain space
– Plan some things for StoryADay’s future (cryptic, eh?)
I did pretty well with my goal of not getting on social media first thing every morning. I definitely want to keep working on it though – it’s an ongoing process! 🙂
I revised and subbed a few stories but none of them were from Story A Day May! I found I needed to let them sit awhile longer.
For July, I’m starting work on a longer project that should carry me through to the end of the summer, maybe into September. Also, I’m going to write/revise/sub two shorter/flash stories in addition to one I have almost ready to go. So, three stories to go out in the world in July!
Good luck, everyone!
I LOVE that goal. I adopted it too, in the latter part of this month (to the point of having to use the Freedom app for the first few days. I set it to block me from 7 am – 2 pm!)
Well, I definitely read a lot last month, so I guess that goal got accomplished. Yay!
This month is the second Camp NaNo, so I’ve signed up for that. I’m taking it easy on myself: 30 pages. I’m trying to work through a BINGO card of prompts, but I thought, rather than force myself to complete all of them (and, thus, panic myself into not writing anything), I’m going to keep them as my ultimate goal, but also feel free to write whatever comes into my head. So far, that’s worked out.
I’ve still got a ton to read (oh, library, my one weakness), but it’s not like any of that time will be wasted, so I’m not worried.
Good luck with your goals, everyone!
I had a huge reading binge this past month which has been glorious. (I deliberately ordered stuff from the library so I’d have a deadline!)
What are you reading? Are we friends on Goodreads? I feel like we are…
My goals for June:
– Write 20k words
– I wrote about 10k. 🙁
– Type up all of what I wrote up in April to edit (about 50k)
– This I managed, and it came to 85k worth of typing
– Edit 60 pages
– Edited 74 pages
– Publish 2 stories/chapters
– Published 6 stories/chapters
* Plus an extra goal, started my ‘Year of Drabbles,’ where I write one drabble every day for a year. Started on the 3rd, and so far so good!
Overall pretty happy with that.
July Goals!
– It’s Camp NaNo time again, and I’ve set a goal for 50k, rewriting my retelling of Beauty and the Beast
– Post 2 chapters
– Edit 40 pages
– 1 drabble per day (31 total)
Good luck everyone!
U love the fact that you exceeded your edit and publish goals. Well done. And 10K words ain’t bad.
Looking forward to hearing how you got on with Camp NaNo and whether the dribbles are still going well. How are you finding your material?
I failed in my goal of writing 1,000 words a day. In the end, I probably wrote around 15,000 words this
month—three blog posts, six new short stories, one freelance article. Not entirely terrible, but a bit of a disappointment compared to the glory that was May.
I’ll try it again in July, this time with a clearer plan of action: focusing on short stories and working on one project at a time until completion. I also signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo for an extra boost in motivation and accountability.
31k words in July. Sounds doable. Let’s do this.
It is REALLY hard to keep up that kind of pace outside the structure of a challenge or a looming deadline. Still, 15,000 words is not to be sneezed at. I usually aim for 10K words of fiction a month. If I’m focused I’ll hit it, if I’m not, I’ll miss it by miles.
How did your plan of working on one project at a time until it was finished, go? That works for me in May but only because each project is only a day long. Very limited attention span 😉
If working on a single project starts to feel like a grind, feel free to switch to something else for a while. Just keep track of everything that you’re working on simultaneously with the understanding that you WILL FINISH THEM ALL.
Hi, all,
My plans for June were to:
*continue with the online class (it ends at the beginning of July) & the story I am working on for it;
*finish the novel backstory pieces that I had outlined but not written for May; and
*back to editing the novel, incorporating material/ideas from the backstory pieces as is helpful.
So, the online class is great and I got two solid stories out of it. (Yeah!). I didn’t get to any of the leftover backstory pieces, but I did do some work on editing my novel and thinking through some of the plot issues I still have.
For July, I’m doing Camp Nanowrimo, with the goal of doing 50 000 more words on the novel (this is a combination of new scenes and editing existing scenes). I’m counting 1 scene = 1000 words for the sake of simplicity (I tried counting by hours in April and it didn’t work for me).
I’m also working on a few short stories for submission (Gigantic Sequins flash fiction contest, submissions by July 15; a science fiction anthology call at the end of summer).
Good luck, everyone!
Sounds awesome, Monique.
I’m doing an online class too, called The Novel Blueprint, from Jerry Jenkins. Some of it is aimed at more novice writers, but I can always use a reminder about things I thought I knew! It’s giving me some structure to break out the next novel too, and I really like his “we’re all in this together” style. I’ll have to see if I can get him to come and do a podcast here, because some of his technique stuff is really useful. Nitty-gritty.
I love the fact that you tried counting hours and decided it didn’t work for you. That’s all we can do: try stuff out, push forward, never give up, never surrender!
Accomplished my June goal of sending my book out to beta readers. For July I plan to try not to dwell too much on the fact that my novel is being read by other people and get enough rewrites done on the project I’m currently working on to get past what I’ve already written and finish the story arc. Given that I’m already having trouble with the first one, I’m pinning most of my efforts on the second haha.
Ha! That sounds like torture. But hopefully you have a good group of readers who will have many wonderful things to say and many lightbulb-inducing questions/insights for you.
I always worry about story arc too, and it always comes back to character.
I’m currently recommending (to anyone who will listen) Donald Maass’s The Emotional Craft of Fiction. It’s a fabulous way to plunge in to deeper character development (and therefore story development) without it seeming forced.
What IS the next project?
In July I will… finish the novel that I’ve been working on since March AND macro+mirco-edit it. (I really need accountability on this one…)
Well, I revised one of my StoryADay May stories, but the revision took longer than I expected. I was at a writing conference (that had its own writing tasks) the week before story Fest, so I didn’t get my revisions finished in time to submit it to storyFest. I have since submitted the story to two other markets. On June 1, I wrote a new flash fiction piece based on the first prompt from May. I didn’t use that prompt originally, but now the story based on that one is revised. I’ve begun to research places to send it, but have not submitted it yet. I’ve been expanding my web presence as an author.
All of the following presences are works-in- progress, but here they are:
Facebook: facebook.com/lisarutledgeauthor
Twitter: @lrutledgeauthor
Website: lisaruedgeauthor.com
In the midst of revising and submitting short stories and building my web presence, my novel started calling me. The 250 words I wrote each day in June related to one of three things: revision, working on the character arcs for my novel, and working on the plot.
In July I will:
-Finish fleshing out my novel’s main characters and their arcs.
-Translate the arcs into a scene outline that I can use with Scrivener. (In other words, be ready to draft the the novel
-Submit the first story I wrote in June.
-Get my writing partner’s work back to her.
There’s a typo in my website URL — not a good start to putting myself out there. The correct URL is lisarutledgeauthor.com.
This sounds great Lisa. I always find that my novels start calling when I’m writing more often. I guess it makes sense, but it does make finishing StADa May difficult! 😉
Looking forward to hearing how you got on with your July Goals!