2017 Writing Goals

For some reason, I completely forgot about New Year's Resolutions for this year until someone asked me what mine were on New Year's Day. I hadn't thought about it at all - their existence just completely slipped my mind. Still, it wasn't at all difficult to come up with an answer. I've made so much writing progress recently, and I really want that to continue. So, I decided that I want 2017 to be the year that I get truly serious about writing.

Since planning rather than 'pantsing' my novel seems to have gone pretty well, I thought I'd try the same for my writing life! So without further ado, here are my monthly writing goals for 2017:

January: read through my completed 2016 draft and make notes on what I want to change. Also to start working on better characterisation.

February: start my own edits, and start finding critique partners.

March: finish my own edits, based on my notes and my improved characterisation. I'm also considering getting a work-in-progress copy printed - if I do, it would be at this point, once I have a completed and edited second draft to go along with my printed first draft :)

April: start brainstorming ideas for the rest of the series, with the aim of deciding the length of the series (trilogy/duology/etc) and the major events of each book.

May: start discussions and feedback with critique partners (assuming I have found suitable critique partners)

June: outline Book Two while continuing edits with critique partners. Discuss Book Two outline with critique partners (CPs).

July: write the first 50,000 words of Book Two during Camp NaNoWriMo. Continue CP edits.

August: continue writing Book Two until the first draft is finished. Continue CP edits. Start finding beta readers.

September: finish CP edits and start gathering beta reader feedback.

October: start editing based on beta reader feedback.

November: start researching agents, and keep editing.

December: complete beta reader edits.

I'm aware that I may be being overambitious here, but I'd like to push myself and prove to myself that I can commit to something like this. Obviously, I won't be disappointed if I don't complete all of the goals. Some of them rely on others, while some depend on how much editing will be needed. And all of them are going to make my year quite intense - the end of my year abroad in the first seven months; the start of my final year at uni in the last four months... Plus all this writing and editing on top of it!

But hopefully, no matter how many of my goals I actually achieve, they will motivate me to make progress on my book. And progress is the important thing here!

Nevertheless, if I do manage to stick to this schedule, then I could have a manuscript that's ready to start sending to agents by this time next year... I'm not sure whether to be excited or terrified!!