My Goals for 2012

Happy New Year, everybody!

I've decided not to make resolutions this year. Instead, I'm having goals, things to aim for that I believe are in the doable realm. I've also thought about how I'm going to accomplish those goals.

Today, the work goal: I want to revise and submit a complete novel by the end of March.

First step is to reread the first draft that I finished in mid-November. In the past, I've always printed a hard copy and read it through, editing and making revision notes as I go.

This year, I'm going to try something different. I'm going to try reading through the manuscript on my computer, not editing and only making revision notes at the end of a scene. This is not going to be easy for me. After all, I've been working one way for over twenty years. So why do it this way? I want to get an overview of the novel, to see what major changes have to be made, before I tackle minor details. And after my long break, maybe it's time for a fresh approach. This may not work for me, but I figure it's worth a try.

I'm also hoping to schedule time at the cottage in January. It's very quiet in the village in winter, and we only have over-the-air TV, which means I get the news and some of the major TV shows, but not cable shows, like HGTV, A & E and TLC. It'll be my own writing retreat.

One thing I'd like to note - when I posted in my latest newsletter about this goal, I received several responses from readers saying how happy they were that I was writing again. Talk about inspirational! It was wonderful to hear that people were anxious to read more of my stories.

So that's my first main goal for 2012. I'll blog about the second one tomorrow.