At the end of each year, I like to look back at what I’ve accomplished in my writing world, measuring that against the goals I set for the year. Given how screwy life has been for the past two years, I’m not sure how valuable an exercise this is, but I’m going to do it anyway.
Last January, I set out my Writing Goals for 2021. So, how did I do?
- Finish my new novel. I had hoped to finish a draft, polish it, and begin querying agents with it by early fall. That did not happen. Thanks to a late-year residency, I did complete another draft (to be honest, I’m still inputting to the computer copy changes I made on a hard copy during the residency), but it’s not ready yet. I need another draft or two before I will consider it done.
- Write a personal essay. Nope. Didn’t even start one. Damn.
- Write a short story. Well, I did this, although I’m not happy with it. I was briefly a member of a critique group and needed to write a story for the group, so a hurriedly wrote one. Later, I was asked by a magazine editor to submit a story for consideration, so I did one revision of the story and sent it in, but I knew it wasn’t good enough yet and it wasn’t accepted. More work to be done on that story.
- Write poetry. Hmm. Nope, didn’t do that either.
- Write book reviews and interviews. I published quite a few book reviews in 2021 and one interview. Also in this category, though, I submitted myself to interviews in support of the novel that was published in May. That counts, too, I think.
- Update the Literary Magazine Rankings. Did that in December, and here they are.
I wouldn’t say the year has been an unmitigated success, then, although “progress was made.” For some reason these goals don’t include the fact that my latest novel was being published in May, and there was a fair amount of work surrounding that event, including online events, a few in person happenings, and doing interviews.
So much for 2021. On to 2022!
