Writing and Resolutions

[bcomet]

It is the New Year and, as Nathan has just blogged, we have also just crossed through a year of transition.

It made me think soberly.

I have to say, that although I have accomplished much writing this past year and before, that I am starting to feel depressed about it having any significant future, at least at this point in time. Sorry to have to put this in a sort of New Year frame. But maybe the floor dropping out is not such a bad thing.

So as I readdress my writing goals for this New Year and for the future, it seems to me that partnering with fate––and/or the spirits––is in order. One puts their message in a bottle and casts it into the sea knowing the odds, that perhaps it will sink before it washes up on some shore where someone will find the contents still intact and significant.

It is a year in which I feel hopeful and resolute both, as I cast off on a life raft in gentle waves, hopefully leaving a beautiful, but isolated island behind. I think, most of all, after four years of writing full time, that it is time to join the real world again in whatever productive ways I can: still a creative creature, but one feeling that creativity may best serve after the fields have been harvested and replanted and not before.

My writing goals include to finish editing several novels and complete several others, but to look and step out into the world more actively, with eyes-open to the times we are alive in and less in my still ever-sweet, fictive dreams.

Any thoughts by others along this line? What are your New Year writing goals and expectations as we embark on 2011?
How are you feeling about this climate for writers and books?

[polymath]

My New Year's resolution, if it can be called that, it's the same as ever, is to keep on the poet's journey evermore conscious of pursuing growth as a writer, reader, and human being. I know from past epiphanies that they come unbidden no matter how much I wish and try and study and exercise. They come later than sooner because it takes time to process complex elusive concepts. Today's doldrums are tomorrow's joys.

This past year brought a whirlwind of new insights and understandings that looking back on them didn't present because of following tried and true avenues. They're a product of breaking my own trail on overgrown previously worn paths with scant markings and making intuitive leaps across ephemeral divides.

This year's primary goal, narrowing in on the difficult choices of stylisitics. Overt or covert narrator, preacher, visionary, or mystic writer, long form or short form, nonfiction or fiction, mentor or writer, first, second, or third person narration, objective or subjective, irony or straightforward, an endless list of choices to explore and refine.

So it's the beginning of another new year with many favorable outcomes, and not a few failures to look forward to, and a continuing recognition that it is what it will be, not for lack of trying, for lack of good fortune, or because I'll allow myself to pause, be distracted, or go off on wild detours of trial and error, but because it's all good. Time will tell. Time I've got.

[Watcher55]

This is going to have to be a year of major unbundling for me. If you’ve read any of my query or excerpt threads then you’ve seen more of my WIP than any one else (no one else has read a word ‘cept the query). Now it’s almost time let my child out of the house :shudder:.

Goals? The first one’s easy: Stop being afraid to finish it and get it over with. After that – well the goal is to respond rather than react to whatever happens next.

[sbs_mjc1]

Michael and I want to get our final draft polished up and queries on their way (we're already behind schedule, but life happens...).

[bcomet]

You people inspire and humble me on this writer/poet's path.

I love your responses. And think, when this journey is shared, authentically, honestly, there is the essence of the truth that nourishes.

[Bron]

I've sent out a few queries for my first completed novel. My new year's resolution is to keep querying, and start the next one! I was going to resolve to get an agent, but that's not something I can control, so I've changed to query widely.

[Guardian]

My New Year's Resolution... I will do anything to publish my novel in 11/11 (It's a magical number in my story and I believe it would be appropriate if it would be launched in November 2011, one way or another.). This will require 200% or 300% from me, but who cares?

[Watcher55]

My human has the same goal I do so he put me on restriction. Starting Monday, when everyone goes back to work and the house is empty (huge family-long story), I'm not allowed to post between 10 AM and 7 PM.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to lurk when he's not lookin'. :}

[Sommer Leigh]

I'm finishing the current draft of my WIP and sending it out to people to read. I hope to get more done than that but this is the most important thing for me to finish. I've finished 2 drafts that were not suitable for the general public, but the third draft is shaping up to be pretty great. So now I just need to finish it.

[stephmcgee]

I posted my goals on my blog, but the main ones are to revise and query the book I finished last summer. I also intend to write 1 or 2 more books this year, just to prove to myself that I can write multiples in the same year. The other goal is to get one poetry collection publishing-ready and attempt to get it published.

[sierramcconnell]

Considering I drove myself insane on editing a novel that will never be published for the past year I think I'll stick to my secondary plan and wait for the suicide clause to kick in on my insurance. There's nothing wrong with giving up when your right arm is withering away and your life is forfeit because no matter how hard you try it is still not hard enough.

But it was fun to chase a dream while it lasted.

So my resolution is to watch others flap their arms in the sea while I float in a boat.

[Guardian]

There's nothing wrong with giving up when your right arm is withering away and your life is forfeit because no matter how hard you try it is still not hard enough.

Don't give up. If you need help, tell me and we can make some beta exchange. I love to give advices and point out mistakes. Give one more chance to yourself to make a true difference. 2011 sounds as a great year. Don't miss an opportunity, because you feel you must give up before the finish line. If you're interested in a beta exchange or you just need simple help, drop me a PM and I'll do my best to help you out and point out possible mistakes.

[Kenner R. McQuaid]

My New Year's resolution is to stop following 90% of the agents I follow on twitter. Today's tweets were mainly geared toward displeasure with getting back to work, picking apart people who resolved to 'get' an agent this year (we shouldn't assume that we'll get one; we should resolve to make a better effort) and sarcastically apologizing in advance for rejections while wishing everyone a happy new year.

If other professionals acted like this, they'd be sunk. If doctors, lawyers, and engineers tweeted about being less than thrilled about being back to work after the holiday (which everyone on earth is), they might as well turn in their licenses.

My friends tell me I'm nuts to bother reading stuff that's not constructive and probably designed to purposely cut down on their submissions.

[Guardian]

that's not constructive and probably designed to purposely cut down on their submissions.

Here is an advice. Don't bother with those comments at all. First of all why do you care who is going to get the 10% from your future sales? Don't care about it at all. If they're cutting themselves away from the writers, for us, writers it's really matter as we still have the product what we can sell, while these agents are not going to get a job. i.e.: to me it's really matter who is going to get the 10% and the additional money from my future sales. I want a professional, who is not playing the delicate agent, but doing his / her job in the name of professionalism. Remember, you're the writer. You have THE novel to sell. Without THE novel, none of the agents are going anywhere as we're giving them the job with our work. If they want to cut themselves away from novels, go ahead. It's not our problem. What some agent used to forget; writers can live without them, but agents can't live without writers.

[polymath]

My friends tell me I'm nuts to bother reading stuff that's not constructive and probably designed to purposely cut down on their submissions.

About as constructive as worrying over what other people's intentions are and finding fault with the notional conclusions.

A long ago resolution I made recently came full circle: Worry about me, worry less about others, focus on what I have within my sphere of influence to adjust and adapt to, and chuckle, cry, scream, moan, giggle, smirk, commiserate with at what's outside my sphere beyond my control to influence, quietly, silently, without comment whenever humanly possible. Baba Ram Das, "Be here now, now be here, here be now." I can't fix anyone else, nor allow anyone to fix me. Not when the fix is self-serving and subject to personal bias. Things will be what they will be, what I can nuance into how I want them to be. What I can't nuance is as it is, so it is.