Happy New Year! A (nother) new start?

---

Well, there goes 2016 and good riddance for a number of reasons, including my failed attempt at reaching the goals I set myself at the start of the year. You can see what I “planned” HERE and just need to know that I didn’t make it! Not that it was all bad, I did get some rewriting done and got some great notes on a couple of screenplays, but I didn’t rewrite four.

Why? Well probably because I am easily distracted. Although I didn’t get the screenplay work done, I did get reading more as I had hoped and also, towards the end of the year, got involved with Twisted 50, Volume 2, a social approach to writing, that provides peer review on short-stories (up to 2,000 words) all with the aim of publishing the best in a final volume. Check out CREATE50 and have a go, it is open until the end of February.

And therein lies the rub… distraction. Distraction is bad enough at the best of times and I am very easily distracted; exacerbated by poor planning. Actually, CREATE50 was a ‘good’ distraction, but it still stopped me reaching the goals I had set myself.  It is great saying at the start of the year that I am going to do A,B and C but, without any sort of plan as to how I am going to get there, it is all going to go wrong very quickly.

So, this year, feeling fresh and ready, I am going to plan more carefully. As Lucy Hay says in this New Year post (among other useful tips) you need to keep track of what you are doing or you will lose your way very quickly. As a lone writer without much “physical” peer support, accountability can be a problem; who is going to keep shouting at me from behind the chair to keep me writing?

So this year, I am going to set a task to write a novel. I had a go at writing a novel with NaNoWriMo in 2015 and while, at the time, I didn’t feel it was for me, the experience of CREATE50 has made me rethink that and I fancy having another go and I am going to use the Writer Accountability group set up by Gary Graham via his webpage and Twitter. Through that system you can set yourself goals for outlining and writing a project and get support through the other members of the group and via the twitter hashtag #WRAC17. I am hopeful that, being in the same boat as a load of other writers, and having specific, measurable goals in place, there will be a lot more incentive and motivation to stick with the plan and, shock horror, achieve the objectives I am setting myself for 2017.

I’m not stopping the screenplays though and I have a couple that I will continue to focus on and rewrite. Another problem in 2016 was constantly wanting to write new ideas and I started yet another screenplay without finishing the others. While I guess it is important to have a “portfolio” it is probably no good if none of them are finished. So I will try and limit the distractions by working on just two screenplays this year and banning myself from starting any new ones.

Well, you know… unless they are REALLY good ideas! 🙂

Whatever 2017 has in store for you or whatever plans you have for your writing, keep at it, don’t get disheartened and make sure your goals are measurable and achievable. Not meeting goals can be frustrating and demoralising, so start as you mean to go on and don’t set yourself up to fail!

Happy New Year and Good Luck!!

Advertisements