Keeping Score 2020 v1

Ah, New Year’s Resolutions

The holidays, family, a new year…  I hope that you, faithful readers, had a safe and happy wonderful merry of a time during your particular holiday season. For myself, I took an extended break. It’s not often that the stars, and calendars, align and I can spend some extra time visiting family, so I took full advantage when that opportunity knocked.

I have a personal list of resolutions, naturally, but that’s not what this space is for. I’m still holding to not posting just for the sake of posting, so these are my writing resolutions. I won’t inflict perennial favorites such as more exercise and fewer chocolate chip cookies.

That last one hurts a lot by the way, because I REALLY like chocolate chip cookies.

Writing To-Do List

  1. Do more of it. Yes that’s a cheap and easy one, but it’s very important.
  2. Specifically, aim for an average 300 words per day over a week until the 1st draft of book 2 is complete. The trick will be not to edit myself to death on the first cut. It’s a serious weakness of mine – almost as bad as chocolate chip cookies.
  3. Build a paperback/print option for Orchids Ablaze and drum up the courage for a book signing. And that last part, dear readers, may very well be the hardest item on the list.
  4. Create and organize all story character information (which I should have done with book 1!)  so that character details in book 2 match up with book 1. Hindsight is 20-20, no pun intended, and I definitely do not want to be hunting through book 1 and book 2 to build consistent characters for book 3 when I get there. Therefore, it’s characteristic database time.

And I’m going to stop right there. There are more, but that’s the top 3 (#1 & #2 are complementary). If I’m still on track in March/April, I’ll consider adding another one. The second part of #3 has a lot of variables and planning attached, however. I’ll be posting status reports as I go, but that’s the blueprint for writing for the next 6 months.

DDW

Written by D. D. Wolf

View all author posts →

I'm on my 5th or 6th career depending on how you count them, but ideally this one will be my last with the kind help of our readers. I've traveled to several states across the U.S., but the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina will always be where I'm most comfortable. I've been an avid reader of comics for more years than I'm going to mention, but I return time after time to the old pulps. Obviously the Doc Savage books have been a tremendous influence. There's just something about seeing and hearing those characters in your mind's eye, just the way YOU, as the reader, think they should be.. I've been writing poems, lyrics and stories of varying quality since I was in my teens, which means most of my archives are on paper in three-ring binders! I've been creating characters in various RPG systems for at least that long. I've always thought characters made the story: good characters can live on through story after story. It wasn't until the last 6 or 7 years that I felt I could write characters well enough to be engaging. You'll have to let me know how I'm doing.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *