Hey y’all, hope you are doing well. I can’t believe we’re already in April. It’s been a rough and wonderful year so far. This was the first year that I decided to focus on my writing and my writing career. That meant making concrete goals, making plans for all those goals and giving myself a system that I could use to track them. Since we’re a quarter of the way through the year, I wanted to check in and share my progress, my lack of progress, and my general feelings about both of those things. I broke my goals into four categories, writing goals, blog goals, social media growth and some reading goals, see them in detail here.
Starting with my reading goals: I have not read much this year, but the things that I have read, have really, really impacted me and my writing. Let’s start off with “Story Genius”, it helped me replot my novel which it desperately needed. It also brought me closer to my writing partner. I went over some footnotes from the “Hero’s Journey”. I know it’s basic but the monomyth is my lady jam. I also read a little bit for fun. I’ve been listening to “Mirage” by Somaiya Duad on audiobook, it’s so good. Plus I started and almost have caught up to the end of “Monstress” which is a graphic novel from Image Comics. They are my favourite. They make very good comics. I’ll be talking more about this graphic novel and other things I picked up at ECCC soon. You might have seen me talk about it on Twitter, but I have lots more to share. In an attempt to get in touch with my romantic side ended up reading a lot of Jasmine Guillory. I’ve really enjoyed the books though the content might be too steamy for my YA novel. It had a lot of that relatable romantic anxiety that can sometimes plagues young romantic relationships, and I can use that. If anyone has anyone has any YA romance books they would like to recommend holla at me in the comments.
My blog goals: I’ve not been as consistent in this new year as I had hoped to be. Up is the only way to go though and I love sharing my journey. That’s why I’m super excited about my bullet journal, its helps a ton. Basically tracking things makes them easier to do, who knew. Though at the end of the day I am a writer first and blogger second so of you don’t see me here know that I’m writing somewhere or that I’m on Twitter.
My social growth is actually on track for the year, yay good news. I’m halfway to my end of year goal and a quarter of the way to my stretch goal. I have been experiencing more and more interaction and engagement. Learning from other authors and having actual conversations, which is the best part. For me that is way more satisfying and useful to me then some arbitrary number. While having a high following is cool and validating, it’s not a measure of my worth, value or my writing. Writers get agents with no followers, they get agents with thousands of followers. When I am when I’m ready to query my followers will be what they are and my work will stand for itself no matter what. Now let’s get to the nitty gritty. My writing.
Le sigh. My writing is not going, mostly because it’s not happening. Most of my editing time is spent getting lost in finer details of things that if I’m being honest might not even make it to the final draft. Yall this blog is for honest accountability, and honestly I need to focus on editing one aspect on my novel at a time instead of bouncing from character to theme to plot and back again. I’ve done character, theme and I’m moving on to plot. With a lot of hustle I can still complete my goal of getting to query this year. Till next time, create, hustle and love yourself!
