Writing Goals for the New Year

I haven't posted in a while, but I have been writing. Yesterday, I finished the second draft of Blood Cries and submitted it to a group of readers. Based on their reactions, I'll give the book another pass and a polish before publishing.

Which brings me to my New Year's writing resolutions for 2017, also known as my writing goals for the new year.

1) Finish Blood Cries. By this time next year, I would like to have either self-published the book through KDP and Createspace or have an agent preparing to submit the manuscript to traditional publishers. That decision will come later and will be the subject of a future blog post.

2) Complete another draft of Dashboard Hula. For those who don't know, Dashboard Hula has been the great white whale of my writing career. I started the novel in 1996, and though I have produced flashes of good writing, I have never managed to produce a coherent story. Anyone with common sense, would have retired the manuscript and written off the lost time as a learning experience, but clearly I have no sense. Year after year I bring the book out of the drawer and year after year I have to put it back again. And guess what? I pulled it out of the drawer again this morning. I plan to spend every morning from now until May working through another draft. Will this be the year I produce my masterpiece? Not if the past is indicative of future success. Either way, I'm putting in the work.

3) Work through a draft of Franken-Bubba. I started this book about a redneck brought back from the dead by a deranged backwoods medical dropout in 2009, but have only produced about 15 chapters. I'm budgeting August through September to work through a complete draft.

So, what do you think of my goals? They seem pretty realistic to me. All I need to do is to stick to my plan and write a little every day. I can do that.

CV