Post your goals for this month and let us know how you got on with last month’s goals.
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!)
For August I did character profiles and a longer second draft of two stories I had started. I planned to do four by the end of August but I was much slower than I expected. I’m pleased with my routine I’ve established though.
Producing stuff always takes longer than I expect, too, but I refuse to be any less ambitious!
September is crazy busy, so if I write two stories, I’d be happy.
Two is infinitely better than none…
August 31 True Confessions
Well, I did work a little bit on my WIP…not as much as I should have!
My characters are better than they were.
AND I did take Julia’s timely suggestion to write something totally new–decided to do a followup for my 6-book cozy mystery series with a series of 6 novellas (what happened later) and got a whole TWO chapters done on #1. Otherwise–I have been a sloth. Tomorrow is September–will try again.
Hi -I’m late but I want to post my goals. I want to have drafts of short stories, possibly more, by the end of the month. It would be great if I got them into a finished state but drafts will be fine. I’m aiming for drafts of three. I also want to go back to writing my novel but only after I get the short story drafts.
Hi Jane! Glad you’re here, late or not.
Good luck with those drafts. Eyes on the prize 😉
Sorry I’m late posting here. I was away from technology for a few days at the beginning of the month. In July, I submitted two personal essays to a website. They were published. I also published a blog post and continued with the first rewrite of my novel. Lastly, I joined an online critique community and submitted three poems for critique. So far I’ve revised one of them. In August, I’d like to get at least one poem submitted somewhere, and I’d like to rewrite at least one scene on my novel. I’d also like to submit one personal essay for publication.
My blog posts, as well as links to my online essays, poems, and stories, are available on my website.
That’s great, Lisa, congrats on getting your work out there.
And thanks for highlighting StoryADay in your blog!
Actually, you got me thinking about a little project…I really, really need to finish the WIP, BUT maybe something new would motivate me…might give it a try!
I sense a shiny object looming 😉
Hi,
this is a first post for me so here goes. My aims for August
– write 10 complete pieces of writing (rather than lots of incomplete short bits and pieces I wrote in JUly- although was proud of over 10,000w but there was nothing complete.)
– write entry for furious fiction flash ficiton comp which ends tonight and I havn’t finished it yet
– try to organise my blog which has been sitting for months with just a welcome post.
Welcome Caitlin!
I hope you got your furious fiction flash done.
Are you combining your ‘ten complete pieces’ with ‘organize my blog’? I’m a big fan of combining goals where I can!
Well, July was a bust. I didn’t finish a scene for this one story, so it’s still incomplete, but I did finish another fic and began work on a second.
This month, I have so many fanfics to finish for exchanges. I think my work is ending in a couple of weeks, so that should free up some writing time. Hopefully this weekend will give me some time, too.
I love that your ‘bust’ is so much more productive than most other people’s 😉 And with a new job, too!
I hope your fanfic communities appreciate you!
My goals for July were:
IWSG monthly post – WRITTEN and posted today. So, DONE
WEP/IWSG Challenge – Flash Fiction with theme ‘Red Wheelbarrow’ for August: write first draft of story already outlined. ALMOST DONE – Scribbled
Reviews of the six books read outstanding – as I keep reading faster than I do reviews. – FOUR DONE
Finish novella entitled ‘Kindled Casket’ – before my followers complain. POSTPONED (or evaded)
Revise and submit novella ‘Azure Spark’ to editor 1 – if I get down this far. PASS
Eventually, I might get onto my NIP = Novel In Progress – called ‘Fevered Few’. PASS
Which means for August the goals are:
IWSG monthly post – due next week.
WEP/IWSG Challenge – Flash Fiction with theme ‘Red Wheelbarrow’ for late August: nearing the edit stage.
Reviews of the four books read and outstanding – stopped reading to do reviews. One posted today.
Finish novella entitled ‘Kindled Casket’ – before my followers complain. (But might get forgotten instead).
Work frantically on short for IWSG Anthology – MG historical fantasy. Deadline September 4th.
Revise and submit novella ‘Azure Spark’ to editor 1 – if I get down this far.
Eventually, I might get onto my NIP = Novel In Progress – called ‘Fevered Few’.
Interesting that you are evading the novella. Is it something you feel you ought to be writing, rather than something you want to write? Any way you can get yourself excited about it again? Throw in a sharp left turn? Introduce a surprise new character? (Even if you write them out again in the edit)
Is there anything we can do to help you with deadlines on that novel that keeps getting passed up? (I know, I know, it’s hard to work on the stuff that’s the hardest work!!)
My health decides my writing schedule. Shorts, reviews and monthly posts get prioritised as they have fixed deadlines – for instance, I need to write my monthly IWSG post today, due tomorrow. I have a short due on 21st and another by September 4th. These are challenges on their own for me.
So, the Azure Spark novella is not so much being evaded as awaiting some days when I can focus on just the one project. That applies to Kindred Casket as well, since it’s triggered during AS. Another case for the same detective, Sparkle Anwyl, who is also the MC in my novel, Fevered Few.
In many ways, the hold-up on these related Sparkle projects is my need for (a) beta readers, and (b) sensitivity readers. I keep putting feelers out but get no bites.
Hello all, first time post here so here i go:
July goals: Camp NaNoWriMo, world building for November project, goal 50 hours. Result: 27 hours, so not as much as i wanted to do.
August goals: one novella and another 10 hours of world building.
Thank you all and good day
27 hours is 27 hours! Consider that’s more than a full day of writing non-stop. I’ve never tried world-building. Have to do tons of research and set my stories in an actual (past) world. But it sounds like fun–and hard work!
Hello Judy,
thank you for your reply. Yes it is still 27 hours and a very fun endeavor. A lot harder than i thought too but it’s still so fun! I just wonder how deep i should dig to create this world …
Thank you and good day
Wow, that’s a ton of time you’ve spent on that world already.
My suspicion is that, once you start writing, you’ll realize what pieces you still NEED to figure out, so maybe it’s OK that you haven’t put in quite as much time as you thought you would.
I bet you’re learning a ton!
Hello Julie,
Thank you for your reply. I’ve learned so much already and you’ve just taught me that I’m not done learning. The best lesson so far is that I only need to do world building enough for me to be able to write that story. The rest of it will come as needed. Thank you for that Julie! 😊
I can’t find my post for July but I planned to do 2nd draft of 2 stories from story -a -day -may. I did this and plan to do at least 2 more in August. Each time i produce character studies for the main characters first. You are all inspiring me and encouraging me as I read your posts. Thank you.
Woohoo! Here’s to inspiration. I love your aims, they seem to be manageable but still challenging.
Use Write-or-Die to write 500 words a day. Write anything.
I think I can defeat my inner editor and achieve this goal.
Awesome! I love ‘write anything’.
July goal: Write the first draft for a book-length series of interrelated short stories during Camp Nanowrimo. Completed.
August goal: Edit the draft for publication.
LOVE the idea of a series of interconnected stories.
Keep up the good work!
My goals for July were:
Outline NF project and assemble all the mostly-written pieces. Review them. Maybe rewrite 1/4 of them – NOT DONE because I deliberately moved this project to October’s To Do List
Write two short stories – I definitely wrote one. I did other fiction writing too, so calling it a win.
Give two workshops – did this and accidentally committed to doing a third too. Went well.
Plan for StoryADay September – Oh, so much!
My goals for August
* Brainstorm 30 stories from five different ‘universes’ I like to write in before StoryADay September starts
* Novel revisions
* Write 6,000 words of new fiction
* Give three workshops
* So much prep for StoryADay Sept…
I am already tired!! And since I REtired, I’ve gotten lazy…need all the inspiration I can get!
Wow! You are so focused! It’s awesome! Something to aspire to!
I spent July doing Camp NaNoWriMo with the goal to revise (for the umteenth time!) a novel I’ve finished at least twice and decided it stunk! Basically, it’s turned into a complete rewrite. So August goals are:
1. Continue to revise/rewrite (notice I didn’t say FINISH).
2. Make sure ALL characters are fleshed out and not flat.
May I make a blasphemous suggestion?
What if you wrote something new? Something that didn’t matter? Something you just leaped into, for a short time-span, to try out all the things you’ve learned?
How does that idea sit with you?
That sounds good!
For the month of August I am going to do some work with a longer story idea in addition to my daily writing practice. The goal will be to write at least 5 blog articles a week.
I am going to revisit the character section of my story course as part of the longer story idea above.
I will continue to have fun writing and living the writer life even though I go back to teaching here in a couple of weeks.
I’m a retired teacher, Tammy, so I wish you a successful school year with some time to write, too. Love your commitment to “have fun writing”. That’s the whole point, published or unpublished. I used to blog five days a week but found that was too much to handle, so I’m down to three days now–and sometimes still struggle for a relevant topic! Good luck with your August writing goals!
I think you are brave to commit to a blog. As yet I can’t do that as I think I’d dry up!
Oof, five blog articles a week? Do you have a list of topics in different styles? I find that helps keep me from going stale, thought it has been a long time since I’ve done that kind of output for a blog.
Living the writer life…yay!
Hi, all!
My plans for July were:
1) Camp Nanowrimo (60 hours on planning a novella): I did this, although I didn’t get as far as I would have liked, story development-wise.
2) Finish a story I’ve been working on for an August 1 submission date: Did this, submitted it yesterday.
3) Maybe submit elsewhere: I submitted one other story and a guest blog piece.
I had also forgotten to include that I had signed up for a Writers Studio class on speculative fiction that started last week.
So, for August!
1) continue with the Writers Studio class (it goes to the end of August).
2) Write and submit two pieces (Uncanny and Fireside Magazine are both open for submission for all/part of this month).
3) Maybe work on a couple of blog pieces.
I hope everyone has a good writing month.
Hi, Monique! Great goals, especially the submissions. I don’t do nearly enough of those. BTW, Authors Publish is a free online newsletter which often posts lists of places to submit. (You may already know about this one.)
Good luck with your goals–you’ve set some definitely reachable ones! I hope I can do the same!
Thanks for sharing that, Judy!
Excellent! Good luck with those submissions and thanks for sharing the open deadline!
Goals for August:
Write 2 non-fiction articles and submit.
Write 2 chapters on work-in-progress.
Love it. Concrete. Significant. Manageable.
Good luck!