queenoftheskies

The past couple of years, my writing goals have included big word count numbers and the ability to finish novels. Everything has been go, go, go, finish, finish, finish.

But, real life gets in the way and derails goals sometimes.

This year has been no exception.

But, I'll recap the year in a different post.

I'll also post goals for 2007 in a different post.

This post is for me to get together, in my mind, something that I want to accomplish for 2007 that's a little different for me.

Those of you who have been reading my journal for a while know my mantra: EVERYTHING CAN BE FIXED LATER.

I adopted that mantra a couple of years ago, I think. The purpose? Well, quite frankly, I felt that the more I write, the more I will write, and the better my writing will become.

Simple, yes.

Does it work? Yeah, it does. Maybe not as fast as I'd like it to, but it does work.

Even though all I've got to show for it are rough drafts as far as novels and short stories go, I can tell that the sh*tty first drafts are better than last year's drafts and amazingly better than the drafts the years before.

Does that mean that my writing glows? Well, no, of course not. It means that the rough drafts are actually something I hope can be turned into real life novels some day. :)

It means that I've worked on the art of storytelling, developing a better story, a leaner draft, and making all the words count.

Do I always accomplish that? No, of course not. I've lost focus a lot over the past year or two because, quite frankly, life hasn't been a bed of roses.

That's okay. I learned a long time ago how to get up and keep going. That's the trick.

Same thing applies to writing. Just because a draft is crappier than another doesn't mean it can't be fixed. It'll just take more work.

I don't mind work.

So, my goal for 2007 is to take some of the novels (both completed and half-finished), finish those that I've chosen that aren't complete, and then get those suckers revised by the end of next year.

This doesn't involve submission necessarily. It involves improvement, which is what is really important to me at this stage.

So, I've picked crappy clips that I've written in 2006 and I'm going to post them behind cuts in my LJ.

During the year, I will revise these stories.

Next year, on December 31, I'm going to post the same clips in their revised versions so I can see if/what I've accomplished, how much my writing has grown in 2007.

I hope 2007 will be another year of growth.

But, in the meantime, feel free to ignore these posts. They're more for me than anything else, though I have had a couple of people ask me to post some of my work. It's not something I normally do because it's sometimes hard to take potshots while you're still learning and struggling to do better.

However, another of my goals for 2007 is not to let potshots get me down, not to let them stop me from writing.

If I stop, I'll never grow, I'll never learn, I'll never improve.

Here's to 2007!