Writing Goals 2008 in a Nutshell

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had no money for a writing class, so I designed my own personal workshop. I broke down the year 2008 into six periods of eight weeks, with a few extra weeks in between to catch up. Each week, I would focus on one of my goals, which I also broke down into sections to make sure I stayed on track.

My list of goals for the year included:

• Read six classic novels


• Read The American Short Story (edited by Thomas K. Parkes), an anthology of about 60 stories written by American authors from Washington Irving to Joyce Carol Oates


• Finish writing my YA novel (Generation Peace)


• Expand one of my short stories into a chapter book and submit it for publication


• Study my two books about creative writing and do three exercises per chapter

By the end of 2008, I had accomplished most of my goals:

• I read 20 classic novels


• I read my book of short stories, discovering O. Henry in the process (more on that later)


• I finished writing Part I of my YA novel (it ended up being longer than I had planned)


• I expanded my short story into a chapter book, submitted it once, and received a rejection letter (which I expected, but I was happy to have gone through the whole cycle at least once)


• I studied my two books and did writing exercises. Five of these exercises became short stories

I read a lot more than I wrote, which wasn't part of my plan, but reading classics and short stories exposed me to many writing styles, which is always good.

As a bonus, in November, I discover two great websites which helped me tremendously in my writing endeavors for the following year:

www.writing.com
www.book-in-a-week.com

I also found out about NaNoWriMo, but it was too late to start and I was absolutely not prepared to write 50,000 words in a month. I'm still not ready. Maybe next year.