2010 is 2/3 over! I figured it was a good time to check on my writing goals for this year (not including any of my work-for-hire writing or hourly work I do) and see how I’m doing. Various changes over the past few months have affected my time, energy, and income level, so it’s a good time for re-evaluation. This way I can see what I’m doing well, what I want to focus on, and what I want to abandon, guilt-free, for the remainder of 2010.
Here’s the tallly:
DONE. FINITO. ACCOMPLISHED. CROSSED OFF. WOOHOO!
Do 20 days of school visits
Read 3 collections every month
Offer my Writing Children’s Nonfiction for the Educational Market class in workbook form
Offer a guided writing retreat (It didn’t fly, but we did offer it)
MAKING PROGRESS
Write 3–5 newly finished trade manuscripts to submit (2 down, 1 to go)
Read 5 poems daily out loud (Was doing great on this one until a couple of months ago–time to get back to this activity, which I miss when I don’t do)
Write a daily poem (Ditto above)
Write 2–3 rhyming nonfiction picture books (1 down, possibly 1 to go if I get my dang chapter book revision done in Sep/Oct)
Work during workday, not nights and weekends (After a crazy busy, winter, I settled down to a more regular workday. But at the moment, I’m way behind. Created website materials for 2–1/2 hours last night while we watched the Jets lose–yay!)
ABANDONED (FOR NOW)
Submit a batch of poems to kids’ magazines and another batch to adult markets at least twice this year (Though I did submit and sell a poem to Highlights)
Participate more regularly in writing exercises–Poetry Stretch, 3‑Word Wednesdays, 15WOL, Princesses, Word of the Month, etc. (I’ll keep just doing what I can and what appeals to me, but no pressure.)
Try younger poems–preschool-aged. I work on this, but mine always end up older. I’ve found a couple anthologies I love recently and will use them as mentor texts to hopefully improve my efforts. (Maybe next year!)
What about you? Have you checked in on the goals you set at the beginning of the year? How’s it going? Any adjustments needed? Share your own tally here in the comments or leave a link to your own blog entry. Would love to see how y’all are doing!