It’s a brand new year! And, no matter how arbitrary that may be, that means goal-setting. And I have big plans for 2019. So much so, that I’m going to write them down here for all to see (though I reserve the right to discover they are wildly unrealistic later…).
First of all, by the end of the year, I want to have a concrete publication plan for Artisan. Hopefully, the publisher who asked to see the whole manuscript last summer will contact me in February to say they want to offer me a book deal. The next best option would be for them to offer feedback on revisions and ask me to resubmit once I’ve done them – this would at least give me a direction for rewrites and a reasonable chance of a favourable response later in the year. If that doesn’t pan out, I’ve already made submissions to a few other places, so maybe one of them will pick it up. And I still have others I can try, including Unbound, which seems like an interesting option. If I haven’t had any luck by September, I’m going to look into self-publishing options. So, come 2020, I hope Artisan will be on its way into the world, one way or another.
My second goal is to complete a first draft of Colours. I started really strong with this one back in December 2017, and made good progress through to the end of March 2018, getting to 25,000 words. After that, I pretty much didn’t work on it for the rest of the year, apart from a brief spurt in August to add in an extra POV stream. It’s currently with an editor for developmental feedback and I’m expecting to hear back from her soon. I’m hoping this will kickstart me into getting on with it, and also help me with the best way to move on from where I’ve got to. So, come 2020, I should have something reasonable to show whoever is going to publish Artisan, as a follow-up.
Thirdly, I’m going to find another paying market for my non-fiction articles about the creative process. I really enjoy researching and writing these, they’ve had good feedback from the places I’ve submitted them up to now, and I think it would be another good revenue stream for me. I have an idea for a first attempt, in terms of both content and destination, so that’s high on my list for my first proper writing session of 2019.
In fourth place, not to be forgotten – I don’t want to let my short story writing drop by the wayside while I’m focusing on bigger projects. I’m going to keep adding to my rolling submission spreadsheet and try to keep my out-for-consideration pieces around 20. Ideally, I’d like to write an entirely new short story every month for a competition or anthology, but this may end up not being feasible.
Because, fifth and lastly, I have a new major project on the horizon. A couple of years ago, as a result of an amusing brainstorming session to come up with possible titles for Artisan, I had an idea for a non-fiction book. Over Christmas, this idea rose back to the top of my mind and I started getting really excited about looking into it. Now considering in 2018, I decided to learn how to write comics and quickly discovered it was way too hard, this project may well falter before it even gets off the ground. However, I’m currently very keen to research how to write a non-fiction book, and then research the particular subject of the one I want to write. It seems like something that should be possible to work on at the same time as my fiction projects, and also like something that should have a fairly predictable trajectory and process. I suspect it will prove much more complicated than I anticipate, but I’m enthused about giving it a go.
Ambitious? Well, absolutely! And it’s likely some of these goals will be abandoned somewhere along the way. However, I work best when I have multiple projects to work on at once, and I’ve definitely been coasting with my writing in recent months. So, I want to launch into 2019 with a whole load of exciting plans, along with my intention to maintain a better and more rigorous writing schedule. I have all my January sessions booked in my calendar, so here’s to motivation and productivity!