Do you how much can change in a quarter of a year? A LOT. Man, I’m going in a totally different direction than I thought I would be when I started 2013. But I LOVE IT. This past quarter has been my biggest and best in the writing world. I have met so many cool people and put myself out there more than I ever have before. It’s definitely been scary most of the time but always worth it!

The biggest thing that doesn’t even reflect in my original goals for this year is that I started up The Writer Diaries – a group blog of writers sharing our deepest secrets. And it has been AMAZING! If you are a writer out there and are scared to jump into the crazy world of Twitter and blogs and meeting people, trust me when I say YOU SHOULD JUST DO IT! Best thing I ever did. To always be surrounded by people who love books and writing as much as you is so great. I don’t feel so alone in my struggles. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t see someone tweet something or see a gif or read a blog from a writer and think “OMG, I know exactly how that feels!” You’re not alone, so stop trying to be!

Anyways, back to my resolutions, I have done “decent” on them so far if I want to grade myself. Let’s go through the list though and see!

• Read 35 Books, at least 5 being classics (Ambitious: 50 Books) I’ve read 12 books so far this year (including friend’s manuscripts). Going to have to step it up to reach that ambitious goal though. I also haven’t read any classics. I attempted to start A Tale of Two Cities and…that didn’t really go anywhere, so we will see!
• Write 12 Short Stories (Ambitious: 24 stories) Uh, I’ve written none. And this will probably stay at zero for awhile. I have made commitments elsewhere and consider my extra blogging responsibilities to be enough. I never was really good at short stories and I NEED to get my first novel done first before I start doing this. So, this might be a goal I throw out the window and am totally okay with that.
• Enter 5 Writing contests (Ambitious: 10 contests) Oh, how I have WANTED to enter contests! But the thing about most of them is you needed a finished manuscript. Yeah, about that.
• Blog three times a week which equals 144 posts for the year (Ambitious: 150 posts) I’ve posted 25 times here on my personal blog. That is a little behind on my goal BUT I have also been posting diligently on The Writer Diaries so I should count those posts too. So I’m just going to say I’m doing pretty good here and leave it at that. Plus, I joined another blogging group. AHH! You will know soon enough 🙂
• Finish The Beholder First Draft (Ambitious: Finish it by March 1st) Okay, so here is where it gets tricky. The Beholder kind of morphed into something totally different after I took a lit class with agent, Mandy Hubbard. Like, TOTALLY different. I started over from scratch and basically have a whole new story that is roughly around 40,000 words deep. So, I didn’t reach my goal here but come on, it’s a whole new story!
• Edit The Beholder and solicit Beta readers (Ambitious: Have feedback from all Beta readers by June 1st) I still plan on having the spin-off of The Beholder ready for betas but June so I can still stick to this timeline I think. We will see!
• Write Query/Synopsis and send out to agents for The Beholder (Ambitious: Send out to first batch of agents by July 15th) I don’t know if this will happen. I may wait until after the writing conference I’m attending. Yes, I’m attending a writing conference in July! SQUEEEEE!
• Complete first draft of Elements, Book 1 of Spectrum Series (Ambitious: By October 8th) I really can’t comment or plan on anything for this goal. I kind of really like writing contemporary which I never thought I would say. But the Elements characters/series idea still has a special place in my heart so I will just have to see how the querying goes for my first novel and go from there.
• Start draft of Fallen (tentative title) (Ambitious: Have up to 20,000 words on it) This is the same as above. On hold until I march into the query trenches and see how roughed up I get!
• Research and be on the lookout to attend a writer’s conference by end of year or early 2014 if I have not landed an agent (Ambitious: Attend a writer’s conference either way!) Hey, guess what! I’m totally completing this goal because I will be going to a writer’s conference in July! The Midwest Writer’s Workshop to be exact! Say hello if you’re attending too!
• Consider self-publishing The Beholder if no agent prospects by the end of the year (Ambitious: I don’t need an ambitious alternative because an agent will be found for it) Well, don’t know exactly where The Beholder will be going but as far as the spin-off idea of Keep Your Eyes On Me, I think I will be holding off on self-publishing for awhile. I ‘d like to have a few manuscripts and few rounds in the query trenches before I make that decision.

Well, I think the first quarter has definitely been a success! Now off to make the next one even better!

Have you guys made any goals for this year that you have accomplished? Or maybe slacked on them? What helps you stay motivated?