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. )
February was full of distractions.
-Translation project (an hour a day, including investigation and everything).
–> Not really an hour, not really everyday, but I made some progress.
–> New approach for the story. I don’t know how to measure progress now.
-Four characters, four chapters.
–> Done.
Now, for the next month:
-Edit and Translate: 31 hours
-Write (One hour a day).
-Read and review: two books.
Hi, all!
My plan for February was to do some work on my novel — making sure my character arcs were solid, reviewing notes from the late edit, etc. I had a daily plan that mostly worked, although a couple of things interfered with finishing all that I wanted: 1) some non-writing life stuff came up that took up time and mental energy and 2) some of my plan was wildly unrealistic (because I had not thought it through).
So March! I have a more realistic plan for editing for character development on a character by character basis (I say more realistic, but it involves a spreadsheet, a timeline in Aeon, and my actual chapters in Scrivener, so it seems a little complicated…). Anyway, that’s my plan — get through all of these notes and by mid to end of March be ready for a (hopefully final) read through/edit of the whole thing.
Also in February, I unexpectedly wrote the first draft of a short story (just under 2000 words) that I have ideas about editing and hope to submit for an anthology call in early April.
I had plans for keeping up with Duolingo, too, (German, as that’s my partner’s first language) and I did for the most part, but I find it kind of boring after a while. I think I need to find a different language-learning approach.
February proved a better month than I expected. Have a short story in preparation, and I completed two versions–from different characters’ points of view. Need to decide whose story it really is. Also, completed some work on a novel which I have had in process off and on. Feel I am making excellent progress there.
Believe you already have my email. That’s how I got this info.
February was a surprisingly good month for me. I finished a 10k story and a 1k story, both for big fandom exchanges. Unfortunately, after that, I lost a lot of my writing mojo. I’ve been reading a lot, though, which is always a welcome respite when I’m not feeling my writing.
This month, I’m planning on writing at least every other day. My goal is a reading day, a writing day, a reading day, etc. Hopefully that’ll keep my spirits high.
With no outside commitments, no travel plans and few appointments in March, this is the perfect few weeks to edit my NaNo novel…even if it’s just for an hour or two each day. I’m finding editing difficult, as the words poured out in November, but now to re-enter that world is daunting.
I have written 4-5 poems so far this year, and one in particular I really believe in, so will submit that to a couple online sites…fingers crossed.
Here’s what I said I’d do last month:
* Finish draft of novel (this is a bit of a stretch goal) — Ha ha. no. But I did some writing around the edges of it, figuring out what I need the rest of it to say.
* Draft 1 new short story — Almost. I’m most of the way through a long short story I’ve outlined. This is taking a lot more energy and time than I expected, but is really rewarding.
* StoryADay blogs, prompts and podcasts about flash fiction — Yes! Proud of myself!
* Prep for business meeting — Yes, fingers crossed.
* Build up agent list and start sending out again — Have started building list. Not yet sending out.
* Revise previous novel and NF proposal (honestly, I’ll probably only get to one of these) — neither of these are done.
* Knit two rows on current project every day (need to get this done!) – Hmm, some success, but I dropped this commitment a bit.
Bonuses: I lined up two speaking/reading opportunities and submitted a flash fiction story to a contest, and finished a longer short story and submitted it to another contest.
For March
* Finish current short story in first week of March
* Draft a new short story (perhaps shorter than Feb’s)
* Rework non-fiction proposal and send out
* Blog, writing prompts, podcasts for StoryADay
* Plan my April writing workshop
* Re-read novel and send to at least one agent.
That feels like a lot. Like, a LOT. But I need to start pushing. I’m happy with the progress I’m making on my short fiction and on the StoryADay commitments.
Good luck on the stories you submitted, and congrats on the speaking/reading opportunities.
I finished a rough draft of my novel manuscript February 9. ended it in a different place than I originally planned to. I had the sudden feeling that a particular spot would be a good place to end it — at least for now — and that anything I had planned to write after that scene would be unnecessary or too much telling.
Then, I planned to take a couple days off from writing. After that weekend, I had some changes happen in my life that made me question what type of writer I want to be. I toyed with switching to a pen name, but I already have a website and social media accounts and pages under my actual name. I thought about beginning to blog, but it just didn’t feel right at a time when I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to share with the public. I started to have anxiety about what message I wanted to send and about putting myself out there. The thought of writing made me anxious.
I got in the habit of putting words on the screen again only two days ago. Since then I’ve put down A page both days, but it feels like I’m just going through the motions. I’m committed to drafting the short story I started though. I hope to have a rough draft of it down by the end of the day March 7, if only to get myself more comfortable with writing again.
On March 27, if not before, I plan to begin rereading the rough draft of my novel to see where I need to start with my revisions.
I think I’ll set a goal of rereading it for at least two hours each day until I read through the whole thing.
Sorry to hear that life is interfering with your creative side. It is so hard to force yourself to work when other issues are pulling at your psyche. Hopefully you’ll get back to having your creativity as a retreat, a haven, in the midst of everything else life throws at you.
Good luck with the re-read. Don’t forget to look for all the good stuff as well as the stuff you might want to change!
Hi all and happy March!
February was so-so for me. I finished, edited and submitted a couple of flash stories but I didn’t accomplish any of my other goals. And I didn’t really write much during the second half of the month, but this is something I am hoping to change this month.
I am not making many plans for March because I never know what life’s going to throw at me and currently I find that I am almost always lacking the time or energy to commit to my writing ventures. So the only two things I am hoping to achieve this month is to write 15k words on a longer story that’s been taking form in my head for the past months and to submit two short stories.
But, even if any of those two things happen, I’ll still be happy if I manage to scribble something, anything, everyday.
Regards and best of luck to you all!
I love your commitments. Scribble away!
And don’t dismiss the editing and submitting of flash stories. That’s awesome.
Finish, edit and submit. That’s almost all of the process! Congratulations.
Keep on.