New Year Resolutions Writer Style

Welcome to the second day of the New Year. Hopefully, the hangover has worn off by now and you're staring at the list of resolutions you scribbled whilst judgment impaired by the adult beverage of your choice. Yeah, I don't (can't) drink, either, but work with me. I need an excuse for looking askance today at the unreasonable promises I made yesterday. The first item on my list: Move to Hawaii. Lovely thought. It misses a really vital step: Win the lottery. Because that is the only way I'd be able to afford a move to the islands. The second item on the list: Learn to love the cold is just laughable. A couple of years in Iceland when I was a kid cured me of cold forever. All I do is whine. Is it too much to ask to live someplace where making contact with the toilet seat isn't akin to planting my tender butt on a block of ice? It's 21 degrees outside and one of the radiators died a cowardly death. It has yet to be replaced because who wants to go outside in this nonsense? Which brings me to my next resolution: Go cold turkey on complaining. Yeah. Banner start to the resolutions.

Kidding. Don't do resolutions. I prefer goals. Minor difference of semantics, maybe, but resolutions seem so absolute. Goals get broken down into actionable steps. And when we talk about how my writing will change over the coming year, I can talk about how I aim for deeper POV, characters who follow you around your house for days after you read their stories, and maybe even a little angst, they're goals I really can't measure or control - they're a learning process that will take whatever time they're going to take. What I can control are these:

1. Finish what I start. No. You don't understand. This is a serious thing for me. I started five things this year. I finished two. Wait. No. I started eight things this year. Finished two. Sure. Those two things were novels. But seriously. That start/finish ratio? MUST get better. (The measureable goal: The equivalent of three novels this year. I'm asking myself for 300,000 finished words this year - first drafts accepted.)
2.z <-- This was the cat's input. One thing I can safely say won't change? Feline editorial input.
MY #2: Genres. More of 'em. We've got yer scifi, yer urban fantasy, yer sword and sorcery, and coming soon to a venue near you, contemporary romance and possibly historical fantasy. Already underway. Assuming proposals don't get kicked back in my face accompanied by the music of mocking laughter.
3. Finishing that which was started many long years ago. I started with scifi. I got stalled in the middle of a series. That series wants to be finished. Book three is half done. It's rattling its chains in my dreams at night. So it looks like this year will be a form of old home week. All year long. (The measurable on this one is a completed book three. It will count as one of my three novels for the year IF I get it done the way I want.)

Do you set goals for the new year, writing or otherwise? Why or why not? What helps you stay on track? That's, you know, legal.

Change Is Good. Right?

 

Solstice sunrise. We've left the dark behind. While news programs overflow with top 10 of 2014 lists, I'm counting something else entirely. The minute and a half (on average) per day of sunlight we're gaining at this latitude. At the equinox, that gain will increase, but for now, watching the light grow in tiny increments plays well with some of the changes I made to writing this year.

 

Marcella's list of how 2014 changed writing:

1. Changed genres - I'd been writing science fiction. In 2014, I wrote and sold two urban fantasies. This entailed going from leaner, more action oriented scifi to a denser, and, I hope, richer narrative voice. The UF meant more internal conflict. Not that external was lacking. It just leant itself to a little more angst. Then, near the end of this year, I changed genres yet again. It's possible that there's a secret joke amongst my crit partners and me - that we're going to rename me. 'Genre Assassin'. Has a terrible ring to it, doesn't it? Other authors assure me that it just feels like I'm single-handedly killing genres, but that I'm going to have to stand in line for that 'Genre Assassin' title because any number of writers got there long before me. I'm not sure I'm comforted. However. If there's a genre you'd like to see murdered in cold blood, hit me up. I'm payable in small, unmarked bills. Or tea. Nah. Not going to name the new genre yet. Don't want it dying of fright before I have a chance to maybe get a story sold.

2. Wrote faster - While on deadline, I wrote 2k per day on a very steady basis. However, my daily average for the year drops like a rock once I delivered Nightmare Ink and Bound by Ink. Trusting that the story would take care of itself, writing 2k per day for 5 days a week turned out to be remarkably sustainable. However. It does require prep work. Which leads to:

3. Classes - Mary Buckham teaches a plotting workshop over two intense days. I'd taken this class once before, but there's so much. There's a clear gap between seeing the material once and mastering the material. I had hoped I'd achieve mastery. What I achieved was a trilogy plotted over those two days. Mastery? Noooo. Maybe that only comes after I finish the final book in the trilogy?

 

I leave you with bright wishes for the holidays, however and whichever you celebrate. In my case, watching the light rise against the dark is the celebration. It's also the secret sauce in any creative endeavor: every tiny gain counts. When you can make tracks, do it. Write all the words. Pour the brain cells out on to the page. But when that's not possible, it's not the number of words that count. It's the consistency. Just like a tiny minute and a half per day gain adds up to summer days that are sixteen hours long in Seattle, a consistent, tiny effort at words every day will add up to a luxuriously long story. It's the basis for a practice like Jeffe's that allows a writer to begin playing challenge games with daily word counts. It gets you in shape for word count marathons. Not easy. But oh so rewarding.

2 Wins and a Fail: 3 Ways My Writing Changed in 2014

Three ways my writing changed in 2014 ... not all of them for the better.  Wha? I'm woman enough to admit when I've tried something that didn't work out the way I'd planned.

1. Writing One Story At A Time: This was the first year I didn't write two books concurrently. In the past, I've done it to give my brain a break and allow the focused distraction to enhance my creativity. This year, one book = one focus. Now that we've reached the end of the year, I can say with all honesty... that was a mistake. I obsessed about the details of the lone book, which crippled my ability to push forward. I was more than tangled in the weeds, I was pulled under and woven into a basket. My productivity tanked to embarrassing and disastrous levels. So in 2015, I'll be cheating on my book with another book.

2. Reclaiming Control: I made the choice to self-publish. That required a different mindset, a different set of goals, a different set of expectations, and a whole lot of different inputs. Then there were the finer moments of adjusting and readjusting product schedules to align with reality. It's been thoroughly satisfying, and I'm looking forward to the Q1 2015 release.

3. Letting Go of the Beloveds: I frame my plots around certain visuals/moments that are crystal clear in my mind--and I do everything I can to keep those scenes in the book, even when the scene no longer fits the story.  Same thing with characters -- fun in the first draft, but superfluous by the final. As part of cutting my way free of the basket-weeds of Point 1, I had to cut those beloved moments and characters.  I like to think 2014 taught me to be more ruthless in exorcising them.

That said, my biggest win of 2014 was the camaraderie found here among my fellow Word Whores.

Merry Winter Holidays!

May your days be filled with joy.

(And your nights filled with red wine, lots of red wine...

...and maybe some feathers, firelight, and pleather. Hey, this is a bordello!)