Hello, it's that time again when I look back on my writing year and see if it's all worth it! I must admit I set out at the beginning of the year with no real plans other than to learn what I could about self publishing in the hope that I might self publish my own book by the end of the year. I am rather pleased with myself that I kept that goal, though it was touch a go until the last. My Novella in Flash, Where It Ends, came out through Amazon at the end of November (see About Me for details).
To aid my writing, I subscribed to a year of ProWritingAid to see if it would benefit me. It has, so I will be renewing my subscription.
I also signed up for a free 30 day trial of Scrivener. I loved the concept, but found it difficult and frustrating to use, and realised that actually I prefer Word, whiteboards, Post-It Notes and other weird and wonderful ways in which I plan, or rather fly by the seat of my pants, in order to get words on paper. In order to use Scrivener, I would need to use their 'blank' template, due to the way I work. There was no template for poetry, either. I have many writing folders in Word. Why convert them? I'd initially thought it would be easier to convert files to upload to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), but it was easier to master re-formatting in Word to do that, and actually I'm very proud of my formatting in my self-published book!
I joined the Alliance of Independent Authors and attended their conference in October. There were two days of talks and workshops on the craft of writing and being an indie author.
In November, I also took part in a month long writing of flash fiction. I signed up to receive daily email prompts and wrote a new piece every day. That's 30 new stories on my laptop.
I had thought I might also go back to writing a poem a day for a year, but that quickly fell by the wayside after about two weeks. Still, I've done it once before. This time I had used it to motivate me to write. That worked, not!
I don't normally mention how many books I read in a year, but I am on my sixty-sixth book. I'm an avid reader and buy new, use the library and buy from charity shops, as well as swapping books with friends. Indie author books have featured in my reading list this year again, as has a smattering of non-fiction. Picking a favourite is hard, so here is a short list of books I enjoyed the most (in no particular order):
Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo
The Lido - Libby Page
Driftnet - Lin Anderson
Homesick (Why I Lived in a Shed) - Catrina Davies (n/f memoir)
You Can't Hide The Sun - John McCarthy (n/f)
Grandmothers - Salley Vickers
Exit - Belinda Bauer
The Lightness of Sky - Gulwali Passalay (n/f)
Wise Children - Angela Carter
All That Remains - Sue Black (n/f)
Anything by Elly Griffiths or William Shaw that I read this year!
The book I most struggled to read was Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. I watched the TV adaptation when I was only about one quarter of the way through. I loved the TV version, but was determined to plough on through the rest of the book and finally made it. Classics are of their time. I think an editor today would say, 'cut that, and that'. Very wordy book, like all books written around that time.
And now we come to that important submissions data. Before I begin, I have to say that mine are feeble efforts when I compare them to someone I follow on Twitter who submitted 150 poems in the year and had something like 39 successes. Still, one should never compare oneself with others...it's too soul destroying (sniff). However, I know I didn't put a great deal of effort in over how many pieces I submitted. I'd not set out to bother this year, so in all, it's not bad. So here goes:
I submitted a total of 51 pieces of work, 31 one of which were poems sent singly, or up to four to the same magazine. Of these 6 were published, and I have one maybe where a final decision will be made around March next year.
Of Flash fiction, I submitted 12. Only one was published.
Short stories were a no-go. I submitted 6 and none were published. The same can be said for a Pamphlet submission (poetry). But I did self-publish a Novella in Flash!
Future Plans
I don't think I've featured future plans before, but I am in a better place than I was earlier in the year and possibly the last few years. I'm not talking about success, I'm talking about mentally. My outlook on writing suffered greatly a few years ago, and I thought I would never get over that. I think I am just about making it back.
To celebrate, I bought myself a Planner to organise my writing life. The diary is really a life planner, and I have already decided that I don't like planning my life! The book comes with instructions on how to use it. I've abused that unwittingly when entering my goals! I've colour coded it (which was fun), but it remains to be seen whether this will work. What I have learned is that while I don't need to plan my life, I do need to plan for my writing, set goals and commit to tasks.
My goals include editing work that has been sitting on my computer for yonks, and to submit at least five times a month. That might not sound like much, but I don't want to set a goal I'm unlikely to meet. I know this is doable, as I've done it before. I can always increase that target as the year goes on.
My friend (beta reader and proofreader) wants to know when what I shall be self publishing next. That I will also be working on. I have other ideas/goals which I am not prepared to reveal here and now! The Planner comes with several sheets of stickers, some with motivational messages. I'm going to need them.
Thank you for continuing with me on my journey this year. Don't forget you can now follow me on Twitter and Facebook.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
No comments:
Post a Comment