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!
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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 2015 and support the running of the StoryADay challenge at the same time. Give a little, get a little 
Click here.
I’m super-late this month, but I’ve been writing.
last month:
Be realistic – I’m moving house this weekend and I’ll be away for my brother’s wedding for two weeks. Still, I hope I’ll manage a 100-word story a day (even if I don’t publish them on the day I write them). — did that
In addition, if possible:
– write fable for WordFactory competition — nope, but deadline was moved to 31 July
– novella editing notes — nope
– I just bought Julie’s guide to releasing short story collections and I hope I’ll get round to reading it this month — nope
July goals:
July is traditionally my least productive month, so my goals are modest ones:
– 100-word story a day
– write fable for WordFactory competition
– novella editing notes
Glad you showed up. Keep plugging away!
September and January Story A Days – yes, please! 😀 Look forward to it!
If this list was supposed to be for June, then uh… I’m a little late… but July is still halfway! Woohoo! I’ve set my bar really low for this month: Just get a C on my algebra class. I would be *so grateful* to my teacher. And keep the B on my computer class. Wish me luck!
I started typing that June was a hectic month, but it seems like that is my norm, and I know it is something others experience. So, June was just another ordinary month around here, with a few little differences. One: the job I have been doing for just over a year ended abruptly with absolutely no warning. Two, I got a new job which I started two days before the first job ended. Three, two family members were hospitalized. So, plenty of changes happening around here.
As for my writing goals, I set three for June:
1 Write morning pages daily. For two months, I ended up having to carry over missed pages into the next month. I was determined to avoid that happening again. I spent a marathon 3 hour morning pages session catching up on June 30 so I could start fresh in July.
2. Complete a Short story first draft. I did not complete this task in June, but I did finish it a couple of days ago by making myself write a couple of sentences whenever I could make time. My husband kept borrowing my laptop which I use to write, I kept putting off getting the file from it so I could work on it elsewhere. I finally got it and bought a bluetooth keyboard for my tablet, so I have another alternative to my laptop. It is such a fun toy that I finished my work in progress on there and also wrote a short piece right after that start to finish.
3. 60 story sparks for the month. I did complete 50 of these. I don’t think of it every day, it is a new habit I intend to build on. It’s great to have an inventory to start from, so grateful for this idea!
I finished reading The Right To Write by Julia Cameron and I have used many of the tools she outlines in this book. They have all been helpful and I still have over 10 tools to try for the first time. My excitement about writing just keeps growing the more and more I explore.
My goals for July are not going to be that different. I am in a transition time in my life with my new job and this issues in my family, so I will keep it simple again.
1. Write my morning pages daily for a total of 93.
2. Complete a short story first draft.
3. 60 sparks.
4. Have at least one artist date.
5. Try at least one new tool from The Right To Write.
Half way through the year already! It looks like I was wonderfully non specific last month, but I still seem to be on track.
My comments for June were:
I’m already looking at another three competition entries over for the next three months.
I’ve just finished the first draft for the first of those competitions. I’ve scribbled over 5,000 words, but the word limit is 4,000, so a bit of editing to do! The story is about a journey and sprung from your Writing on Wednesday prompt two weeks ago.
I’m actually using one of the prompts rewriting one of my recent stories in the subsidiary characters POV, to get a better understanding of their feelings.
This worked well and improved the story greatly, I received excellent feedback from my writing group.
For July:
I need to finish my journey story and submit it (deadline 5th August) and come up with an intriguing title.
The second competition entry deadline is end of August, so I need to start another short story, but this is only 2,000 words.
I’ll no doubt research some more competitions for the coming months.
What I promised for June:
– Type up all those May stories (I write first drafts by hand) and get one ready for StoryFest; DONE
– Continue the short story mayhem with one every other day; MOSTLY DONE (missed the last two)
– Finish editing my novel from last year’s NaNoWriMo; DONE,
– Outline two novel ideas and one series idea gained from May; DONE (a little rough, but there)
– Write one chapter to a long standing project; STARTED, but not finished
– Write two scripts (comic strip scripts, really short); DONE
– Finish getting my blog all set up; DONE
(I’m so proud of me)
For July:
I’ve signed up (again) for Camp NaNoWriMo, so the goals this month mostly come down to word count.
– 40,000 words by the end of the month
– Write out at least 75% of scene cards needed for November novel
– Buffer up some blogs posts
– Finish the chapter started in June
– At least one other chapter for another project
– At least two short stories
I’ve got a lot of projects all going on at once, and keeping them all organized is almost more work than the projects themselves!
So impressed you kept up the short story mayhem. I managed to crank out a few too, in part thanks to a short story workshop I took at the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference.
Looks like you got a lot done and have some serious goals for July, too. Good luck!
Thanks! I’ve been going like this since April’s Camp NaNo, and I think after four months of heavy hitting I might force myself to take a week off to just read. 🙂
What I promised to do in June:
– focus on my serial story, Mostly Dead Girls: did that! I’m updating again today, actually. I’ve only got a one-chapter buffer at the moment, but that should change soon. Oh, and I just now saw Julie’s comment asking if I was publishing it somewhere; for anyone interested, you can find it here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/39022702-mostly-dead-girls
– write another short story – didn’t happen, but I polished the one I wrote before and submitted it.
– work on Dame Fortune: not as much as I’d like, but I got a bit of time in.
This month’s goals (which I’m using July Camp NaNoWriMo to accomplish):
Week 1 I’ll be writing three MDG updates, building up my buffer.
Week 2 I’ll be pushing to finish Dame Fortune so I’ll definitely have revision time before the deadline (it’s for an anthology call, fingers crossed I’ll get in).
Week 3 I’ll be going back to MDG to write 3 more updates,
and Week 4 I’ll be finishing a short story that’s been languishing for a while. Possibly writing another if I have a spare day.
Excellent! I’ve subscribed to ‘Mostly Dead Girls” at Wattpad. Looking forward to getting into it. Do you find Wattpad a fun/useful platform?
Good luck for July!
Oh, thank you! I hope you’ll like it.
Wattpad’s serviceable, but I’m not used to it, so it’s a little hard to network on. (Especially since MDG is hard to sum up into one genre or a catchy pitch… it’s a supernatural horror/humor/YA possibly?) Hopefully I’ll figure it out.
So!
My plan for June was:
*re-read the backstory pieces I wrote in May and see if I can use them within my novel in some way. DID THIS I have inserted them into the appropriate places in my novel (they need to be edited in)
*re-read what i have already written and outlined for the book and decide what, if anything, needs to be altered before I return to chapter by chapter writing MOSTLY DID THIS I re-read the material and did add/change some things
*ideally, write 5 or 6 chapters of the book DIDN’T FINISH I wrote 2, which isn’t bad, of course
What I did in June that I hadn’t planned:
*I signed up for an online mystery short story writing class with Stephen Rogers (http://www.stephendrogers.com/learn.html). It’s great. I’m using one of the short story ideas I came up with in May (with my series main character) and it’s developing very nicely. Of course, this is also utter procrastination.
*started developing an author website for my mystery series (along with social media) separate from my blog; a big part of this is settling on a pen name. TOTAL PROCRASTINATION (though useful when the time comes)
*wrote 1 book review on my blog
Plan for July:
*finish the short story I’m working on for the class
*write at least 5-6 chapters of the novel
*write 2-3 book reviews on my blog and 1-2 other posts
*perhaps write another short story from the ideas I had in May
We shall see.
Oh those busy-busy procrastination tactics. I know them so well! Still, as you say, all leading in the right direction.
That mystery course wounds interesting. Glad to hear it’s good.
Good luck with your goals this month!
Here’s how my month went:
WHAT I PROMISED TO DO
*Working on two pitches, one fiction and one non-fiction, to share with agents at two writers’ conferences this summer- STILL WORKING ON THESE. (If I’m honest, I haven’t really worked on one…)
*Organize and promote StoryFest 2015 – DONE
*Finish reading “The Book Architecture Method” by Stuart Horowitz and apply it to my completed novel draft – DONE. HOLY MOLY, THIS IS GOOD STUFF!
*Apply the Snowflake method to next novel idea- NOPE, this was a bit ambitious.
*Write one Christmas story. Share with critique group – WROTE A STORY FOR A DIFFERENT HOLIDAY…
*Read and critique work for Critique Group – DONE
*Send out feedback form to StoryADay Live attendees – OOPS
*Think about running a version of StoryADay in September this year. And maybe next Jan – STILL THINKING
*Attend one writers’ conference – DONE (Can’t recommend this strongly enough, if you’re in a rut or ready to take your writing more seriously).
I also submitted a couple of stories to a couple of markets. One went to a contest with a healthy prize that won’t be announced until Oct. Another one I sent out to two different publications both of which rejected it (one because of a timing issue. The other one just rejected it. It’s fun to have stories churning in the world).
THIS MONTH
*Write 2 short stories
*Revise novel
*Go to Writer’s Digest Conference in NYC and pitch novel and Non Fiction book.
*Plan for StoryADay September. Maybe a story a week? Or all-scenario prompts (i.e. I tell you what characters/setting to write about). What do you think?
Wish me luck!
Oooh. I like the all scenario prompts idea.
And thanks for doing the monthly accountability. I know I haven’t been doing it long, but it’s really helpful.
Good luck! That’s an impressive list. 🙂