WriYe and the New Year

Once again, we’re doing WriYe (short for Writing Year, formerly NaNoWriYe in the ancient past of the aughts). This is…*counts on fingers*…year four since I came back at the beginning of 2019. Every month there is a blog post prompt, and I tend to do them, because it allows me to not have to think too hard about a blog post every so often.

They’re doing a different format this year where, instead of a series of questions, there’s just a single prompt. So, for January, the prompt is:

Tell us about your plans for the year.

Not unexpected. It is that time of the year.

(Also, hey, did I tell you guys that I sold a short story last weekend? 2022 is already going better than either 2020 or 2021.)

I’ve talked about working on overcoming the procrastination habits I’ve fallen into over the last couple of years and my video gaming goals already, so I guess let’s talk about everything else I have planned for the year.

Let’s talk about reading first. Back in, oh, 2009 or something, I set a goal of reading 50 books a year, which I have managed every year since then (sometimes squeaking through, sometimes with easy sailing). That’s about a book a week, though I tend to read several books at a time. It’s inefficient, but whatever.

Occasionally I add modifiers to the challenge. 2020 I believe I had a requirement to read something lying about the house (which apparently cumulated in me reading a lot of things I’d bought at library book sales), and I think it was 2019 where I tried to read a book per book shelf. (Made it through four or five shelves before I got distracted.)

This year I’ve got two: 1) book per month that is lying around and 1) book per month off either my Goodreads Want to Read shelf or my library’s For Later shelf.

The thing I have to look out for is the same thing as 2020, where I focused on the library book sale books, i.e., books that I knew I would read and then get rid of. The spirit of the challenge should be to read books that I really want to read that I haven’t gotten around to yet. Something to think about.

Writing-wise, my main goal for the year is to do a final revision on Book 1 of my trilogy (as identified as my main writing goal in my life when I did my soul searching last fall) and create/revise submission materials for it.

(Also I’m going to finish the first draft of the Gothic horror novella I started during November. Almost done, only have about 8K left to go and have already written 10K on it for the month, so hopefully that’s done relatively quickly here.)

Now, submission is a horrible, confidence-draining process, and I will need to do something else once we reach the submission period. So here’s what I’m thinking, in some vague order:

-Revise my scifi horror novella (got lots of good beta feedback, and it sounds like the book is in pretty good shape in general)
-Create/revise submission material for that so I can be in double submission hell, I guess
-Revise the cozy mystery I wrote for Nano 2020 (some feedback, pretty good, though)
-Create/revise submission material for that? (Misery loves company, ha ha)
-Finish my serial (only Part 4 still needs to be done, and should be out March or April, I believe–I forget the schedule and will have to look)
-Release serial as an ebook

The cozy mystery, if it gets anywhere, will be under a penname. I have one picked out and everything.

I also have a goal of releasing two more SkillShare classes, but SkillShare is making some massive changes to the teaching side of the platform (changing how many minutes people have to watch before you get royalties, changing the platform they’re paying through, etc.) and I will need to look and see if I still want to stay there or try out a different platform.

Anyway, that’s the general plan for the year! I have to do the Book 1 stuff, but the rest of it is kind of fluid. Still, I predict a lot of revision, though what specifically I’m revising may change.

Any big plans yourself, squider?