March 2006 Goals

Keep my ten queries circulating.
Finish editing my novel . . . again
Get another fifty pages on Book Two.

Uh . . . get an agent?

Maprilynne

1) Write another 20,000 words.
2) Get out of the house and have some fun.

April - that sounds really interesting writing quizzes and other things. I've never thought of doing that, it must get your brain working hard hehe

gee you guys have really ambitious goals. i haven't set mine yet but i will mull it over and see what i think is realistic...

My goals for this March:

- Finish the seventh first draft of my WIP
- Win at least one of the three contests I entered (wish me luck)
- Enter another contest
- Write at least 4 short stories
- Pass my Analytical Geometry class!!

KAM, can I come too?

Here are my goals for March:

-> Send out 10 new proposals.
-> Get out of the city (hopefully, on assignment).
-> Finish all current assignments.
-> Break into one new magazine.

Good luck, everyone!

My goals for March

1. Get my cover to Booksurge and get it ready to go
2. Finish my press kit.
3. Get an outline of my marketing plan ready

hmmm I'd be happy to keep my sanity for the month

Hope you all make it! I don't really do goals, just whatever comes into my head.

Arisa, I definitely have to agree with you about the year flying.

Since I didn't do much at all on my February goals, they will carry over to March. I won't berate myself over not doing any of them. February has been a busy month. (Like March won't be? There'll be twins in our family before the end of the month!)

Anyway, to restate, here are my goals for March.

1. Write the next two chapters of Blue Jeans & Tennis Shoes.
2. Write the next chapter of Confessions of a Fat Chick.
3. Resume researching article and book markets and agents.
4. Resume sending out a minimum of two queries a week.

Outstanding! Good luck on accomplishing your goals, everyone!



Go, team, Go!

hmmm well i have revised my approach to my book so that's making this whole thing tricky

first it was going to be fact based with a bit of my personal experience in it

then it was going to be a personal diary but loosely based around some of the headings i had in the first book

now i looked at it and i think it will be personal but still insert facts so ahem. i wonder if it was such a good idea to plunder the first manuscript??? i'm a bit stuck. i kept the old one intact as a copy. BUT because the new one has had the copied bits edited and played with i can't entirely remember which bits are additional. oh boy this is going to be a challenge!

so my goal for the month is to sort out this mess! basically i have to copy and paste all the stuff from the first fact based ms into the personal diary and maybe even end up with a lot of the same headings!! once that's done i will read it and review. so i'll call that my first draft

yup that's my goal; a rough draft of the ms!

arisa i agree it's much better to get a rejection than not hear. i hate it when you wait months and every time you ring they give you a little bit of hope and then you get a standard rejection letter lol. actually that's happened to me a lot. they'd say it's going to this committee or that and then the book would come back with a little note - not right for our market.

very hard to get it just right with books.

oh and i still want to keep my sanity for the month - that is goal #1
draft of the book = #2

sorry one more question arisa

what sort of quizzes do you write? do you mean like the sort that are in magazines? crosswords and games? or quizzes like in cosmopolitan - is he really in love with you type stuff?

wow april that sounds cool! do you have a psychology degree or do you use common sense with writing the quizzes? i never realised they paid people for them. i just presumed that they got one of their journos to throw something together

i have written quizzes but more for research purposes. from time to time i post them on my website when i am looking for info. also you can use the results of the quizzes for PR. send them along to newspapers etc to let them know you're an expert in the topic and tell people stuff.

can i ask how much it pays? i could see if any of the NZ or Australian magazines are interested. also do you retain copyright to sell to other magazines or give 1 year exclusive use???

good to find out what you don't enjoy it allows you to focus on the other things

i have cut and post everything into one document. so that's 27,500 words. next i have to read it and make it into a draft and check the chapter headings etc and work out which ones need more material or should be deleted altogether

Arisa81 said:

I also sold a quiz to Girl's Life (www.girlslife.com) for $75 for their website. I think that for their magazine, they pay $300. Someone else might be able to back that up.
--April

Click to expand...

Yep, I can back it. $300 is accurate.

thanks

HEY THANKS FOR THAT INFO kitkat and april.

i will put that on my little list. i have lots of quizzes i have created at various times so i will see if i can get into that. i am not in US but hopefully they will send drafts out to nonresidents and i can convert it when it arrives. $300 is pretty good i'd be happy with that. $50 is a bit harder to get excited about as a one off but if it was a monthly thing it could be good

goes to show there is a world of possibilities out there! i have a psych degree so it would be good to put some of it into practise LOL