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Writer's pictureMary K Gowdy

Writing Goals for February

Hey all! Hope you're having a good start to your year.


My year's been pretty good so far, though it's also been slow on the writing front. I haven't gotten as much done as I had hoped. Though I did a year resolution post, I didn't go over my past monthly goals or set new ones. For this post, I'm going to review the ones I made in December (and technically in that post, I didn't say if these were December or January goals).


Also, a year ago this month I did my first monthly goals post. I can't believe it!


December (and kind of January) Goals:

1. Finish Re-Outlining My NaNo novel (Chervaux)

Accomplished! It was a lot of fun, and I'm happy with how the new outline has turned out. Though,I haven't done anything else with Chervaux, I want to return to it sometime soon. I've done some research to help with the world-building. The next step will be to re-read the first draft, and after that, I'll start re-writing it into the actually usable second draft.


2. Re-read The One and the Other Volume 1

I didn't finish this till some time in January, but it's done as I'm writing this post so I call that accomplished!


I marked the book up as I re-read. I mostly found instances where I need to cut unnecessary words or places where I told and didn't show. There's also scenes I want to rework some, but those types of revisions are getting less and less in number with each draft.



3. Post 4 YouTube Videos

I did post 4 videos in December and January. I'm not calling this goal accomplished though because I didn't upload as many as I had hoped. The big reason for this being because I got a cough over my Christmas break, so I chose to rest my voice instead of making videos. Not to mention it's difficult getting time alone to film during the holiday and back to school season.


I feel like I haven't been focusing on my writing as much, and I'm dying to get back to it. But I'm also trying to balance what I can realistically do so I don't get burnt out.


Either way I love doing these monthly goal posts, and I do believe they help increase my productivity.


February Goals


1. Send out the first of my monthly newsletter

I meant to start this last month, but oh well. It's going out early February. As soon as I can write the newsletter. It's next on my to-do list after this.


In my new years resolution posts, I made sending out a monthly newsletter one of my goals. My newsletter will include a summary of all that I've been working on on my blog and my YouTube channel, and it will also have updates on my writing projects and the occasional sneak peak--whether it be a never-before-seen poem or some insider info about my novel.


It's not too late to sign-up and get the first one!


2. Get 5 reviews of Sensuality.

This goal is a small step towards a bigger one of promoting my chapbook Sensuality.. I released it into the world last year without much fanfare, but now it's time to start making some noise about it. I have plans to reach out to some booktubers and book bloggers to see if they're interested in reviewing Sensuality. in exchange for a free copy. Speaking of, if you're interested in doing this, feel free to contact me.


3. Finish analyzing my beta reader feedback and make a revision game plan for TOATO Volume One

I feel like this has been on my goals list for forever though this is the first I've made it explicitly a monthly goal (it was a year goal for 2018. Spoiler Alert: I didn't accomplish it.)


I almost done with it. Most of the feedback I still have to deal with is my own from when I re-read my book. I use Scrivener, and I'm adding all of the comments from my betas and myself into a Scrivener document so it's all in one place.


After I finish, I need to figure out how I'm going to talk this. I thought of color-coding the comments based on which ones I like, which ones I'm not sure about, and which ones I don't like. I've also considered making a list of big--or more abstract--things I want to address. I'll edit the manuscript from the beginning to the end again because revising that way makes the most sense to me.


4. Post a YouTube video once a week

I know I sound like a broken record at this point. I'll stop including this goal every month once it becomes a habit.


5. Write 2 poems

It's not my focus at the moment so that's why it's only two. But two's better than none. Revisions of old poems also counts towards this goal.


Those are my goals for February. Hopefully I'll be able to manage them. Most of them are fairly small.


Do you have any goals for February? What have you been working on lately?


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