Jan. 1st, 2015 04:49 pm
2015: Fannish Goals
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subjunctiveThese kinds of posts really only exist for the purpose of looking back at them later and laughing, but laughter is fun, so:
I already mentioned wanting to write 150k this year, so there's that.
Draw more. Right now my goal is a measly five minutes per day sketching (again, let's get those expectations real nice and low, that's the ticket!), and I've modified one of those writing spreadsheets so that it tracks minutes of work instead of word count. It's not perfect, but it'll do.
Finish my WIP. What's really holding me back is all the planning (okay, and laziness and distractability). Fortunately I've figured out the ending and am in the process of working backward. I've gotten that advice twice recently, so I might as well try it. It's counter-intuitive to me, because I've always thought about my stories in terms of the concept or starting point situation, but so far the story is making sense and seems to be working (cue knocking on wood).
Read more books. I miss the feeling of having a book in my hand that is not for graduate school. I started keeping a list of recommendations and I'm going to try to work through them all this year. Lots of variation: high fantasy, historical, literary, etc. If anyone loves a book and wants to pass the name on to me, please feel free. Some of my favorite contemporary authors are Robin McKinley, Cherie Priest, Seanan McGuire, Kim Stanley Robinson, Peter Watts, China Mieville, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Zadie Smith, if that helps. Good nonfiction too; I am a huge fan of Rebecca Solnit, for example.
Keep a commonplace book. I'm a very fast reader, to the point that other people would call it skimming. But if I read as slowly as I speak, I get to the end of a sentence and forget where I started. This is one way of slowing myself down and noticing things, especially language.
I already mentioned wanting to write 150k this year, so there's that.
Draw more. Right now my goal is a measly five minutes per day sketching (again, let's get those expectations real nice and low, that's the ticket!), and I've modified one of those writing spreadsheets so that it tracks minutes of work instead of word count. It's not perfect, but it'll do.
Finish my WIP. What's really holding me back is all the planning (okay, and laziness and distractability). Fortunately I've figured out the ending and am in the process of working backward. I've gotten that advice twice recently, so I might as well try it. It's counter-intuitive to me, because I've always thought about my stories in terms of the concept or starting point situation, but so far the story is making sense and seems to be working (cue knocking on wood).
Read more books. I miss the feeling of having a book in my hand that is not for graduate school. I started keeping a list of recommendations and I'm going to try to work through them all this year. Lots of variation: high fantasy, historical, literary, etc. If anyone loves a book and wants to pass the name on to me, please feel free. Some of my favorite contemporary authors are Robin McKinley, Cherie Priest, Seanan McGuire, Kim Stanley Robinson, Peter Watts, China Mieville, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Zadie Smith, if that helps. Good nonfiction too; I am a huge fan of Rebecca Solnit, for example.
Keep a commonplace book. I'm a very fast reader, to the point that other people would call it skimming. But if I read as slowly as I speak, I get to the end of a sentence and forget where I started. This is one way of slowing myself down and noticing things, especially language.
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