Jactancy January 500 words/day--all genres welcome!

heyjude

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Welcome to 2013! I hope that this year brings you all the words you could ever dream of, and in the correct order, too. :)

You know the rules of the thread--PLEASE put off-topic posts in other threads (like the Braggatorium or the Life of Crime and Chocolate threads). This is the place to encourage each other to write and edit.

How did you do in December? What are your January goals? Do you have a goal for the year you want to share?

I can't remember my December goal but I'm fairly certain I failed. :tongue No, I think I didn't have many goals, knowing that between vacation and Christmas I wouldn't get much done. So, if "not much" was my goal--success!

(What does it say about me that I keep typing gaol?)

My January goals are thus: 1) Write a query :scared: 2) Redo changes I lost to the WIP I want to query and submit and most importantly 4) Write 500 words a day at least 3 days a week.

How about you?
 

MsDashwood

Getting back to writing...
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These threads are so great :Sun:

I think I did ok on the december goal. Could have written more, but... got SOMEthing done.
According to my plan I won't get much writing done in January either. I need to finish the course I am taking for work. I want it out of the way to free up time for the writing, so I want to try and finish it altogether. But I hope to write a little bit in January, too - maybe some in the weekends. If I manage to finish the course for work, I will set much higher writing goals for February and March, that's when I want to really dig into this WIP.

As for writing goals for the whole year, it is to finish the WIP. I want to finish the first draft by Spring, actually. I think I can do that, with the detailed outline I have.
Then to continue working on it and rewriting during Summer and Fall, and hopefully finish.
It's an ambitious goal, since I feel quite slow. But I'm going to try, even though I do plan to start another course for work, too. It has worked ok to alternate between the course and the writing for periods of time so I'll try to continue on that route.

I've also started taking notes on another story that might be my next one. Will try to continue to let that grow.

But also for 2013, the goal is to start submitting the story I've finished, to publishers. We don't have the system with agents here, we submit directly to publishing houses. That story is finished, so it's time to send it on its way.

Oh and even though it's not directly a writing goal, I want to find time to read a bit more.
 

Ken Hoss

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(What does it say about me that I keep typing gaol?)

My January goals are thus: 1) Write a query :scared: 2) Redo changes I lost to the WIP I want to query and submit and most importantly 4) Write 500 words a day at least 3 days a week.

Not sure about the "gaol" thing, HJ, but I was curious as to what happened to goal #3. ?? :tongue

Didn't reach my goal, which was to have at least 40K on the WIP before the end of the year. :cry: Fell short by just over 3K words. Ces't la vie, there is always this month. My number one goal is to write every day, even if I only write 50 words. Second is to get at least 10K words added to the WIP, or approx. 5 chapters.
 

heyjude

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Math is not my forte. :D

(Actually I rearranged some things, but it stands. I suck at math. :tongue)
 

knightrunnermat

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Goals for January:

1.) I want to get my WIP up to 45K words. I'm at just over 12K right now, so this is a lofty goal. Still, I have a lot of stuff written and outlined already, it just needs to be applied to the actual ms.

2.) I want to read more. I read 37 books in 2012, goal is 38 for 2013. So if I read 4 books in January, I should be set here.

3.) Completely outline the story idea that I have been brainstorming. It's a straight up horror novel, similar concept as to Pet Semetery right now, so I definitely need to figure out why my book is different pretty soon.

4.) Participate with AW a lot more. I have been off and on with visiting this site, but I definitely am at my most productive when I am visiting here regularly. Also, posting here creates a sense of accountability for me, so it's definitely a good thing.

(See HJ? It's not hard to count past three!)

Will keep everyone posted! Happy 2013!
 

Ken Hoss

Storm Rising A Kelli Storm Novel
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Well, already have the New Year off to a good start. Pounded out 302 words to wrap up a scene that was giving me trouble and broke 37k! :D Only 2957 to go for 40K!
 

PorterStarrByrd

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1. I want to start and finish a final edit of Dead Roses and sell it
2. Take Dust in the Till to at least 70K from 5K or to finish
3. Finish edit on Carbunkle Wine (abt 10%done now)
4. Beta read at least six WiP's (got two under way in the last few days)
5. Review Toodur and see where it needs to go (trunk maybe)
5. Lay out Thumbing It


(I'm retired)
 

Saoirse

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I totally love these threads. :D

My goal is 1000 words a day, and/or hit 90k on my WIP by the end of this month. It's at 78k right now.

I did pretty well last year (wow, feels weird to say that). My WIP is about 3/4 done, and then it's revision tiems.
 

lizmonster

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I always think of these threads as my Vocabulary Word of the Month. :D

December wasn't bad. I didn't hit the 1K a day I was working toward, but I got some good solid work done on this one, and I have a much better idea now of how I want it to look.

My goal for January is to finish the first draft of my WIP. I think that'll be something between 15K and 25K words, so if I shoot for 1000 a day, I should finish even if I slack off a few days.

Welcome to 2013, everyone!
 

IAMWRITER

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I really want to find a way to slip "jactancy" into my WIP or even a conversation! Such a cool word.

December was pretty good. Some days I did little, others I did quite a bit. So overall it was quite productive.

For the year, I want to finish my WIP (my first ever completed one) and hopefully I can do this by the end of the month - hopefully!

So January, I want at least 1k a day. But today I did nothing but it was New Year and really consisted of me stuffing my face all day - ah well!
 

franky_s

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December I was probably twice as productive than I would have been without AW. Thanks guys! :D

In January, I'm aiming to write 15K words. So need to average 500 words/ day.

My secret goal is to get up the courage to crit something on SYW.
 

Zelenka

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December was pretty rubbish, as usual. January, my goal is to carry on with the rewrites, and get at least the beginning to a state where I'm happy with it, as I want to enter it into a competition that closes in February.

Today, 1,326, but I don't think they count as I'm actually rewriting a rewrite I'd already done!
 

knightrunnermat

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1,507 words tonight. Not all new words, though. Still copying and pasting and refining the story so that it makes sense. About 1/4 of the way done with my first draft now. Should officially pass that point tomorrow, but I'm still excited.
 

franky_s

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Great start to the year.

I wrote up a rough but complete outline yesterday. And it's amazing what having a proper outline has done for my writing..

2070 words today!!
 

onesecondglance

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I'm in.

I'm still trying to work out what my monthly goal is - but I am aiming to finish the second draft of Archangel by the end of June, which will require significantly more than my old target of 10k per month. Wish me luck!
 

heyjude

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I did lots of editing yesterday and wrote about two sentences of a terrible query letter. :)
 

tarak

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This is my first post in ages. A year, maybe? I've lurked a lot and tried to keep up, especially with the lines of the day. For some reason, I felt weird posting if I wasn't writing. It's been an odd year - the most stressful of my life, but maybe the best, too. I finally got back some of my writing mojo, and realized I still love it. Finished revising my old MS (based on feedback from the amazing Namatu). If I could ignore the eight months during which I wrote not a single word, other than the occasional blog post, it only took me three months. Considering how much of it was completely rewritten, I'm happy with that. I'm not sure whether I'm going to query it or trunk it. But I finished revising it, which was a huge goal for me in 2012.

My goal is to get 500 a day. I had about 1000 on New Year's Eve, so I'm going to take the liberty of adding that to yesterday's total, which was a paltry 200. I've gotten about 175 today, so if I'm lucky, I'll hit my target over lunch.

Much luck to everyone with their goals in 2013!
 

muse

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I'm not sure what my goal was for December, probably to finish this 1st rough draft = FAIL!:Shrug:

My goal for January is the same. (Yup, I'm an optimist:tongue)

I had a lot of 'thinking' time in December, and I have a feeling that my MC isn't working out. In fact, she may need to be written out altogether. I've also started the novel with a dream scene filled with back story that will have to go. (Will I ever learn?:e2smack:)

I am determined not to go back and correct these things now, but to continue on and finish the damn thing!

After almost a week of not being able to write I am proud to announce I wrote 965 words yesterday. *Does happy dance*
 

lizmonster

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muse, I had two dream sequences in the first draft of my beta - AND an imaginary sister. They all made sense when I wrote them...and then they had to go. :flamethrower But they did help to support the story structure until I figured out how to make it work.

1,368 tonight. Also, I've figured out a tweak to the ending that I like much, much better.
 

franky_s

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Wow, 80K congrats Saoirse!

Today, I wrote 1600 exactly.