2009 Writing Goals

Better to be ambitious than not, right?

I’ve been posting daily to this blog for six months now, and I feel confident that it served its purpose: to get me back in that habit. I hadn’t written consistently (read: 1,000 words written a day or 1 hour editing a day) since the previous November when I finished re-writing my 1999 novel Kirana. But daily blog posting is all I have been doing, and I’m itching to produce some more works for possible public consumption.

Kirana’s complete as far as I’m concerned. A 2009 goal would be get to that out on the market.

The Whale of Cortary is my second novel; I finished the second draft in July 2007 and a few people have read it with generally positive reviews. However, I’m slightly disappointed with the 40-page “Endgame,” or final part / long ending chapter of the book. It needs to be tightened up, made more suspenseful, made more clear. Probably I need to trim it in half, down to 20 pages maximum. So that’s another 2009 goal. Then, send it out.

I’m thinking of possibly expanding my short story “The Treatment” into a novel. It’s got an inherent ragged lunacy that would make it fun to write. I need to spend a few days working on a potential outline and see if the story has legs.

I have two other novels inside that have been nagging to come out. First is a short, mystery-slash-SF story dealing with immortality. I’m having structural difficulties, though, as to whether to make it a first-person narrative or focus on an alien Hercules Poirot. Also, I’m admittedly not a fan or a reader of mysteries. The plot as I have it so far appeals to me; however, I am at a loss at how to wrap it up at the end.

The other novel I’ve been pondering is a longer work, an epic, kind of a cross between fantasy and SF (has that ever been done before? - Just kidding). The idea of building a cohesive world appeals to me. I’ve taken all my notes and plotlines from my nerd D&D years in the early 80s (yes, I’ve saved them in a box in the attic) and have perhaps the barest of skeletons of a world. And I have an idea that might make it unique among the thousands of books in the fantasy-slash-SF market.

I have about fifteen or so short stories gathering dust in a desk drawer. Maybe three or four are good enough to get published. Another 2009 goal would be to send ’em out. Get experience in the fine art of rejection acceptance. Aaaaaah!

For years I’ve been toying with a “par” for writing. I think a short story a month is doable, and by short story I mean about 5,000-7,500 words. Which is what I do now in week’s worth of posting. So it shouldn’t be too difficult; just need three things: time management, energy management, and idea creation. And I have a backlog of around twenty short story ideas.

The blog thing has turned out to be incredibly fun and rewarding. With absolutely no promotion whatsoever I actually get visitors from all over the country, and some from other parts of the world. Not a lot by any stretch of the imagination, but more than I thought I would have (which was originally about 1 – my wife). So, naturally, I wonder what the next step should be.

In 2009 I think I will maintain this blog as an archive or a “writer’s business card,” adding to it two or three times a week. But more exciting, to me, is that I want to branch out and start two other specific-interest blogs, and vigorously try to market them. I have four expansive ideas right now, which is too many to be manageable, so I need to either combine some or else whittle them down. That’s what I’m thinking about right now. When I come to definite decisions, I’ll post them here, of course.

Right now my new writing office is half finished. I have a new baby on the way any day now and I have my daughter’s new bedroom to paint yet. Lot of busyness on the horizon, which is why my writing goals are targeted for 2009. Hopefully the littlest one will be sleeping through the night by then …