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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Summer Goals-Year in Review

For me, this time of year is really more of the "new year" than the whole December/January thing. I tend to look back at my year and see what I have accomplished and what I still want to accomplish. But first, I need to check in with my Summer Goals. (I am counting Labor Day as the deadline).

1. Keelie of the Lake, MG. My goal was to finish the first draft. That is SO not going to happen. I am halfway there. I am adjusting my goal to finish a draft by November (when I get my Trinket edits). It would be really nice to have a draft done before I start to work with my editor.

2. Wren Faire-I was supposed to decide what I wanted to do with this. Did I want to keep it YA? Did I want to revise it for more of a tween audience? I still don't know. I finally got brave and opened the file. I was truly scared to do it. I was terrified it would stink to high heaven. But it didn't stink, which is good. However, I was unable to reach a decision, so......time will tell.

3. Surfiesta, PB-I vowed to eat a page of this book if I couldn't write the last poem. Guess what? I am going to have to look up recipes for how-to-eat-bad-poem if I don't hurry up and finish!! Two weeks! Yikes!!!

4. Nix the Naughty, Chapterbook revision-YAY! Done!!!

5. Area 51 Elementary, Chapterbook-Didn't touch. Not even once. (Will probably back burner this for a while.)

6. New PictureBook Idea-Yeah, as if.

7. Chicken Wizard (Was I going to brainstorm a second adventure for him? I don't even remember....)

So, what happened StoryQueen?? Not exactly dismal, but, well....I had higher hopes for my time off. HoweverI did do a lot in the past year:

I revised The Seven Tales of Trinket, finished the draft of Wren Faire, learned how to query an agent, got an agent, revised Trinket a couple of times, wrote two brand new picture books, wrote two easy readers, wrote and revised Nix the Naughty (chapterbook) and wrote synopses for other books in the Nix series, made my first vlog, appeared at six author events, taught a children's writing workshop....oh, and did my other job.

Now I am feeling better. I am going to cut myself some slack on the summer goals.

How about you? How are your summer goals coming along? Yearly accomplishments?

hrh

15 comments:

Myrna Foster said...

You've accomplished a lot this year, and I'm excited for Trinket and for Nix the Naughty (love that title). Good luck with that last poem.

I just blogged on my summer writing, so you know where I'm at. I think I'll borrow your Labor Day deadline idea or even give myself until September 21st. ;)

storyqueen said...

Myrna-I am going to need luck...I keep reading over the drafts of the reject poems. So lame! (And you've done a lot this summer, too!)

Margo Berendsen said...

Goodness, I don't even try to set summer goals. I'm very impressed by yours! Your year was amazing too. Send some inspiration my way, kay?

Sharon K. Mayhew said...

I think you've done quite well...This summer seemed to zoom by...

I'm revising four pb ms to take to a conference with me...two to present one at a one on one and the other at a critique group session and the other just in case I can land some advice....

I came up with three new ideas for pb's...one shy of your 4 challenge...but I think I have a couple days until Labor Day....(I think my house flooding twice should give me a couple bonus days.)

Corey Schwartz said...

OMG, I always feel like such a slouch after coming here. I may have to stop visiting you! :)

Anonymous said...

It looks like you've accomplished quite a bit.

My summer goals have not gone quite as planned. I've gotten some research done, but not nearly as much as I had hoped to do. Didn't get to take my working weekend trip to a lighthouse either. It's on hold until late fall or next spring.
: (

Jessie Oliveros said...

That's the right way to look at things! You were very prolific this year. I wrote more of my book and had a baby. Woot!

Lenny Lee said...

hi miss shelly! when you list your stuff out its a lot you did this summer. for me i got way behind on my dragonfly book cause for the first since i was sick i could play baseball and go swimming and i did it lots. i went swimming today. i could say not getting sick again was a real big goal i did. now i gotta get busy and get writing.
...smiles from lenny

storyqueen said...

Margo-Okay, I have sent some inspiration!

Sharon-That sounds like a great plan! It is always great to have a few picture books around to play with. well done!

Corey-If you stop visiting, I will hunt you down! No escaping! (Actually, I did this post so I would feel better and remind myself of what I DID get done, because I really overshot with expectations for the summer and, well, I didn't get as much writing done as I would have liked.....:(

Susanne-A weekend at a lighthouse sounds perfect. Hope you can go both fall and spring!

Jessie-Baby trumps all!

Lenny-Yay baseball! The dragonfly book will always be there for you, whenever you are ready to write it.

Lydia Kang said...

You did great! It's good to set your goals high, even if that means you don't get to everything. Good for you!

Anne Spollen said...

At least you got some stuff done -our posts are so similar, even with the New Year idea. Brilliant minds...

Jackee said...

You've done great things this year, Shelley! Though it wasn't what you planned, it was what every writer dreams of.

It's funny that you spoke of new year goals now, because I sat down and wrote mine up today too. School started and it's time to move into that mode.

I'm interested to see if people did the challenges you gave them. Are you going to have them report back on your blog? I'd love to see who got what challenge!

Kelly H-Y said...

Sounds like you've accomplished a ton ... you should feel good about this year and the goals you've met! Congrats!

Lola Sharp said...

You're summer goal accomplishments look pretty much like mine. I think my eyes are always bigger than my...fingers? Um, that play on words didn't really work, did it...anyway, I always think I can do more than I actually get done.

I loved #2...I get afraid to open older files too...fearing the hot mess I may find. You know what? They're never bad. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Anyway, I'm new here. *waves* Nice to meet you. :)
~Lola

storyqueen said...

Lydia-Thanks! It helps me to reflect on stuff from time to time.

Anne-Sooo true!!

Jackee-Oh, yes...the dares of summer! I am still waiting for reports on a few...not that reporting was necessary...they were dares of honor...

Kelly-Thank you. I didn't get "the list" done, but the other stuff was definitely good.

Lola-Hi and welcome! The unopened file is always one of my worst fears!