I certainly didn’t expect to put weeks of effort into the website only to launch it and forget it. But alas, dear reader, life has a nasty little habit of getting in the way. Fortunately, my “day job” has become a bit more manageable and I am finding myself somewhat back on track!
By way of a brief update: I failed. I failed at my very simple goal of submitting two short stories to their respective contests. I won’t say I didn’t have time, but rather that I didn’t prioritize my time accordingly. One story had copious amounts of effort put into it. I just kept getting inside my own head and changed things around too much instead of writing the damn thing. The good news is, the thousands of words I amassed are possibly on their way to becoming a great book idea (or even series).
The other story was a contemporary fiction piece that I’ve been noodling on for several years and had hoped to submit it to CBC’s annual short story contest. Even though there is still time before the deadline, I really think that at this point I need to stick it in the (proverbial) drawer and ignore it. I do not think the muse is in agreement with my idea. Or perhaps it’s like Elizabeth Gilbert describes and the idea is no longer mine (if so, best wishes to whoever may have found it and I hope to read it one day!).
At any rate, one good thing is that it is positively thrilling to have 4 subscribers to my mailing list! Okay, one is my own email as a test, one is my husband, and two are supportive colleagues. But still, it’s more than none! Yay!
This brings me to my next topic: goals. Come 2023, I plan to refine the process with formal goals laid out early in the year and revisited later in the year. A mini, personal performance review if you will (but with far less paperwork than at my actual job). For now, I shall start small and will note a few straightforward goals here and now for my own motivation and accountability.
End of 2022 Goals:
- I will promote myself more on Twitter and Instagram
- I will release my first newsletter before 2022 ends
- I will launch The Science in Your Fiction podcast by January 2023
- I will have a draft of my first novel-length work of fiction ready for an editor by mid-2023.
- By this time next year I will have grown my subscribers at least tenfold in anticipation of releasing WEIRD WATERLOO with Mark Leslie Lefebvre.
- I will publish WEIRD WATERLOO with Mark by October 2023.
Well, there we have it. Despite those goals, I am concerned that the year continues to wind its way towards the end. Between Halloween, a family vacation to Jamaica (thanks, mom!) and the inevitable holiday season, I can only imagine I’ll become even less productive. I hope to at least get some therapeutic writing done in the short term and that putting these goals in writing keeps me on track. If I don’t get any writing in during my two weeks of Christmas holidays I will be very frustrated and forced to blame the puzzles I swear I didn’t mean to buy myself.
In the meantime, I will keep filling the creative well with as much input as I can justify, because I can’t have any output without it! Yes, that’s code for “I watch way too much TV despite knowing I should swap some of that for writing time.” If you are seeing this shortly after it comes out, then stay tuned because the next post will be on that very creative well that we all seem to talk about.
TTFN!
Alyssa
