Back to School Touchstone

Technically last week was the first week of school for my kids, but I wrote that post at Dragon*Con, so here I sit, back in a Starbucks in Canada, back at writing, back to composing my weekly writing tip.

In my Quarterly Tune-Up post, I discussed the act of checking my progress with respect to my yearly writing goals.

Well, yikes! We are more than three-quarters of the way through the year, and it's time to check to make sure I can hit all of my goals before the year is out. Because no one wants to endure the head-hanging-in-shame of missing a bunch of goals, and me in particular, because I am extremely goal oriented.

You can read the blow-by-goal-blow details at the Good Goal, Bad Goal post on my personal blog. For brevity, I'm including only a couple here, to keep you all motivated to stay on track for the rest of 2012.

Goal #2: Write, edit, and submit to market at least four NEW short stories.

Reality check: Wrote one flash piece, totally reworked an existing story to more than double its length (not sure that counts as "new"), and wrote a new story during the SWG write-in. I definitely need to write another story this week, maybe next, for an invitation anthology. So I might be able to squeak through this goal before the year is out.

Goal #7: Sign up for NaNoWriMo.

Reality check: On the roster. As a matter of fact, this morning I was discussing possible novel ideas. Looks like it's either steampunk or paranormal romance this year.

Ha! NaNoWriMo looms its ugly head. How many of you are planning on joining me for the November craziness? Because you're not allowed to write a word until the first of November, but you can be planning, plotting, brainstorming, and yummy stuff like that RIGHT NOW!

As if you don't have enough to do on your writing agenda?

I'm not in a great position for accomplishing all of my 2012 goals, but I am proud of what I have accomplished, especially the weekly writing tip blog entries.

Sometimes a little bit of pride helps to fuel the next day's work, especially if I'm facing another blank page.

As always, comments are welcome below!

Do It Now:
Look up your own resolutions and check your progress.

Don't pull out the whiskey (or the chocolate, or the box of tissues) yet. Wait...you have to do two more things.

1) Map out your time and set project goals for the rest of the year.

2) Start thinking about a novel idea for NaNoWriMo.