Saturday, December 12, 2009

These are my goals, and my goals are these.

It's that time of year. Time to think about...well...next year. So, I am hereby setting forth my writing goals for 2010, and posting them here on my blog, which means they may as well be written in blood. I'm putting them here to hold myself accountable...once they're made public, well, I'd damn well better reach them, lest I be mocked and shamed.
  1. Get an agent. Self-explanatory.
  2. Minimum of 4 contracts. Also self-explanatory.
  3. Top Bastian Koehler. In other words, write a book that causes Scarlett to exclaim, "Oh my God! He just PWNED Bastian!" (Bastian being the male main character of With The Band, holding strong as Scarlett's favorite of all of my boys since April 2009)
  4. Step out of my genre...twice. At least two books this year will be outside of my usual genre, erotic romance. I've got one literary novel in the offing, but I intend to write at least two non-romances/non-erotica novels. Undone doesn't count because I started it in 2009.
  5. Revise and submit Behind Closed Doors.
  6. Submit World Enough and Time.
  7. Start and finish my part of a super sekrit skwirrel collaboration with Wayne.
  8. One first draft per month.
  9. Finish Closer. This book will be the death of me, I swear.
Now, to an extent, #1 and #2 are out of my hands. However, I still have to do everything humanly possible to achieve them. Nothing was ever achieved by sitting back and saying "It's out of my control, so why bother?" I will have neither contracts nor an agent without setting out to obtain them. (Oh, and to stack the deck in my favor, I have Scarlett working her magic on some of my queries and synopses, because she PWNs)

This post will be amended as goals are reached.

There. My goals are written, they must be reached, and here is a picture of Robert Downey, Jr.
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6 comments:

  1. Scarlett ParrishDecember 13, 2009 at 1:48 AM

    I know a lot of people say getting an agent and publishing contracts are out of our hands, but to me this smacks of putting it down to chance.

    Okay, we have to actually get the books written, edited and polished, but just lately I've noticed a lot of writers talking about the downturn in the economy (which I haven't noticed) and the fact agents and publishers are turning down more books (which again, I haven't noticed).

    I think a lot of people use excuses when they should be working on improving their own books. Blaming the economy or agents scaling back is a cop-out. It's basically telling yourself "The fault is not with me or my book." Well, yeah, more than likely it is.

    YOU'LL be all right though because you don't make excuses and you work like a Trojan.

    No, you can't make any particular agent pick up any particular book, but the more you write and the more you query, the sooner you'll hit the jackpot.

    Point is, you have to be READY. That's not luck. That's being prepared. Say a big agent comes along and gets you a massive publishing deal - was that chance? Hell no. You would never have been able to take advantage of that opportunity if you hadn't been working for it every damn day up 'til then.

    Aside from all of the above, I approve of RDJ.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Libbie GrantDecember 13, 2009 at 3:18 AM

    Ohhhh god Robert Downy Jr.

    OH GOD OH GOD

    OH MY GOD

    *splat*

    ReplyDelete
  3. Libbie GrantDecember 13, 2009 at 3:28 AM

    Oh, and I must say, I agree with Scarlett. Nobody is buying less GOOD books. Are they cutting back on offers for crap books? Yeah. So write good books, people.

    And I freaking hate the "I can't control whether I get an agent/contract" attitude. Yes, you can. Write a good product, and be persistent.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lori W.December 13, 2009 at 10:15 AM

    To clarify, I mean those goals rely on responses from other people which are, to an extent, out of my hands. Obviously it's up to me to write something worth buying and query the bejeezus out of it. There are still certain factors that are beyond my control, but the goals stand, and they will be met.

    ReplyDelete
  5. April WDecember 14, 2009 at 2:44 PM

    That is an audacious list. You have big cahones.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Scarlett ParrishDecember 24, 2009 at 12:01 PM

    DO NOT STEP OUT OF YOUR GENRE.

    Also. You will NEVER top Bastian.

    EVER EVER EVER.

    ReplyDelete

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