Conquests and Goals

Well, a quick writerly-round-up of last year and what I hope to get out of next year.

2007

Achievements in 2007:

• I took my first attempt at a novel, Coin and Candle (started during NaNoWriMo 2006) to 150k words and the end of the story.


• I spent most of the year editing and polishing C&C and sent it out to people as beta readers. I also got Lulu to print me a few. Having a hardcopy that looks like a proper book is wonderful. :-)


• Feedback from the beta readers was more positive than I'd expected. The result is that I 'finished' editing C&C on the 30th of December, and am going to try to find out whether anyone wants to buy it...


• I wrote my first 90 minute screenplay (which I'll codename Project J, for now). The atmosphere isn't what I'd originally wanted, but it was a good learning experience and a story did come out of it; now I need to go back to the person I wrote it for, and we need to talk the whole thing through (and the practicalities of filming) and rework it for draft 2.


• I started work (for NaNo 2007) on Gasoline, which I now haven't done anything on for a month or so. I wasn't happy with it while writing, but now I'm excited about it every time I read it. I'm probably about halfway through the story.


• I dreamed up lots of ideas. :-)


• Most importantly: for the first time, as C&C came to a close, I decided that I was actually able to write, and started to believe that I might be on to something. You know that whole 'one day, I'll write a book' thing - now I have written one, and the goal becomes 'one day, I'll publish a book'. One huge hurdle in life knocked down and (I think) a slightly lower one replacing it.

2008

Things on my plate for 2008:

• Start along the 'getting a publisher' route for C&C - synopses, begging letters, all of that. It's all a learning experience; and for me, the pressure isn't huge, because it's all a 'nice to have' rather than 'my future depends on it!'


• Finish Gasoline - this will be my default state for much of this year.


• Adapt Project A (an ill-fated but - I think - very promising TV drama pitch) as a series of radio plays. Cast people, record them, podcast it for free.


• Create a children's book (in collaboration with Rachel). It's written, just needs illustrated, so I've got to work on that one now... have graphics tablet and raring to go.


• Try to be more disciplined about writing time - a set time every day. Probably first thing in the morning.

This, of course, doesn't list any of my non-writing activities, which probably outweigh everything on this page. Particularly running a business. Busy, busy!

I think that's it for now...