One of our goals here at Today’s Author is to help all of the writers among us to do what we love to do: write. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by talking to each other and learning from each other. Our Writers Circle series is designed to do just that – provide a chance for us to discuss writing, editing and publishing questions.
This week’s topic is:
The turning of the calendar from one year to the next is an arbitrary, but convenient, time to stop and take a look at how we are doing with our writing goals. What were your writing successes – big or small- in 2014? What things didn’t go quite as planned or expected? Here, on this last Monday of 2014, let’s celebrate and commiserate on the year that was.
Let’s discuss this in the comments and see what our community thinks.
Today's Author 
I STILL didn’t get my three fiction books out. I’m committed to making one happen next year. I’ve even set aside the time.
Happy New Year, crew!
I failed at blogging, at freelance editing, and at writing as much as I wanted to. But I learned a lot about how I work, and I feel I’ve got a good start to picking up some momentum this year. I’m a lot more organized, and I’ve realized that the only way I’m going to stop procrastinating is to just get off my butt and get stuff done. No “easing” myself into productivity. No tricking myself. Just tough love and getting things done.
This year I started to thinking about the idea –everything counts. A sketch on a scrap of paper, a letter to a friend, an essay, a short story or the beginning of a novel. More time spent at the work of creating is good, and brings me closer to the life of a writer.
I write when I can which is not often enough, either to suit my muse or to get anything significant accomplished. I admitted this past year, however, that I cannot control certain aspects of my life as I am bound to a situation I cannot resolve. Can’t go into specifics about this. So I’m going to continue to live day by day, doing the best I can, counting it as a success however small the achievement may seem to others. In the meantime, I’ve completed 4 books, have a great start on another, a sixth in the queue, have edited all the “done” ones for the final time (now that’s a lie, but you know how it is,) and will start querying soon – maybe. Probably not.
Over planning leaves little room for growth, so I have lots of room to grow.
I’m eager to read about everyone’s successes and willing to share my shoulder for anyone who needs a good cry. I am stalwart.
May everyone find that your achievements are also your goals, that your successes are enough, and that the light in your studio is also the light of the stars.
Happy New Year 2015.
2014 was one of the most frustrating years of my entire writing life. Sure I’ve had years where I wrote even less than I did in 2014 (read: years where I wrote not even a single word), but those years I didn’t really have the desire to write. This year, though, I wanted to write. I simply didn’t have time to write when I had the ideas to write. Work, baseball (son), marching band (daughter)… those are my main excuses. Each one required much more time this year than in past years and each one was able to stay at the top of the priorities list, well ahead of writing creatively.
I did participate in NaNoWriMo and I wrote lots and lots of words. I’m reasonably sure that some of the words form sentences, paragraphs and even chapters that can possibly have some sort of value (maybe). But the entire experience of NaNoWriMo 2014 was more frustration than fulfillment. And the novel I wrote will never see the light of day… assuming I even ever open it again.
On the success side, I was able to write one or two short stories early in the year. I’ve been able to add a few ideas to my idea files for use at a latr time. I engaged in conversations about writing here on this site as well as outside in the real world. But I’m reasonably sure most people will agree that if actual words don’t make it to the actual pages… gathering ideas isn’t really much more than the smallest of successes. At this point, though, I’ll take it.
My hope for 2015 is that I will be able to find a way to prioritize writing back toward the top of the list again. I have not yet figured out how I plan to do that, but it is my goal.
I had planned on a short story a month back at the beginning of 2014 and I fell very short of that goal. And the amount of blogging I did was less than I had planned. However, I did have a nice success by being chosen to have a story published in the 2015 St. Paul Almanac. That one was very nice.