Short-term plan

It's already February. January went by way too fast, and I was feeling a little down about that. For some reason, I felt like I didn't get enough writing done or hit any of the goals I set for the month.

But then I realized something weird: I actually hit every writing goal I set for January and then some. I wrote two new short stories, one of them has been sent off and the other one is almost ready. I got a personal rejection from a semi-pro payer on that one, which is always a good sign. I also revamped my webpage, posted a bit more regularly and, most importantly, started the revision process on one of novels and am about a fifth of the way through.  I'm hopefully well on my way to submitting it to ABNA. In other words, what was I bitching about?

But enough about the past. What's important is the next two months. I like the idea of quarterly goals, and I've got two more months in this quarter.

So with that said, here is my plan for February and March.

The second of the two short stories I wrote last month (titled "Waking up in the woods") is so close to finished that I'm going to spend the next day or two on it. As soon as it's sent off, it's back to the novel revisions. The deadline for the first round is March 2, so by 2/15, I hope to have finished going through the novel's plot. That's what I'm currently doing right now. Taking notes, outlining, and checking pacing, etc. After that, I'll spend the rest of the month reading it for language and correcting errors. I suppose most of that will be taking out adverbs and "was".

And then on March 1, I'll lock myself in Scooter's and not leave until I have my 300-word pitch ready.

My plan for March is to sit back and wait to win the contest. Actually, as soon as I send in the novel, I'll pull out my first novel (working title: "Holy Fudgesicles") and start working on the next revision. I know exactly what needs to be done and I'm giving myself the entire month of March to do it.  I'll also rewrite my query letter and start getting that sent out again.

In closing, I've got say that it can be really hard being busy all the time, but in the end I know it will all be worth it.