2014: A year of massive change?

by Suw on January 1, 2014

I have high hopes for this year. Last year, 2013, was a weird year. After a great first half, the second half became one giant effort to just cope with everything that was going on. I had my oophorectomy, but lost four work leads because I was off recuperating. As a freelance, that’s really frustrating, because every lead is valuable. Kevin’s job evaporated into the thin air of small organisation politics and so he rejoined me in consulting whilst carrying out a job search that was longer than either of us had hoped for or anticipated.

Ada Lovelace Day ate my brain. Seriously, it was so much more work this year, not least because I decided to put together an anthology of writing about women in STEM, which I called A Passion for Science: Stories of Discovery and Invention. I’m very glad that I did – I got some just gorgeous writing in and the book has been very well received indeed. I’m looking forward to starting on organising a Kickstarter project to get a physical copy printed up. So that’s something to get started on when I’m back in the office properly next week. 

But most frustratingly of all, last year started off really well on the writing front but then it just got lost in the morass of ALD organisation. By the time that was over I was so behind with actual paying work that I spent every waking moment either working or so knackered that I couldn’t do much more than crochet. 

So this year, I’m taking my writing by the jugular and shaking it up. To that end I’m setting myself some goals: 

Write morning pages every day
I wrote recently on Forbes about writing to discard, and how as writers we really need to practice in the safety of our own notebooks. Self-publishing has a nasty habit of making you feel that everything you write is and must be for publication, but that takes away our permission to be a bit shit, to experiment and to mess up. Morning pages are an idea from The Artist’s Way that allow you to write without judgement, write without your inner editor looking over your shoulder and, hopefully, free up those creative cogs. So, starting today, I shall write at least a page of whatever comes to mind every day. 

Blog at least once a week
In both 2013 and 2012, I wrote just 28 times on this blog. In 2011 it was no better with just 29 posts, and in 2010, it was 38. In 2004, I was doing more than that in one month. So, I’m going to try to up my output to, erm, 52 posts in 2014. That’s one a week. You’re going to have to hold me to it, though, because blogging is always the first against the wall when the revolution comes, or when I get busy. And this year, well, it might get busy. 

Publish fiction at least once a month
Last year started well for me as regards writing. I got Queen of the May done and published, wrote The Lacemaker, jotted down lots of ideas, got two new stories drafted, and then it all went to hell in a handcart. So this year, I’m going to promise to publish at least one thing each month. It may be a short story, a piece of flash fiction, a chapter from something longer, or even just a vignette, but something will get published. In fact, I may even join Patreon, a micro-patronage site, to provide some motivation. I’d love to know what you think of that idea – is it a good one? Or just a distraction? 

Restart my author’s notebook
A while back, I started carrying round a small notebook with me, in which I jotted down ideas. It really does help to get the ideas flowing, as the more you write them down, the more they come to you. I need to get back into doing that, and not just shoving stuff aside when I think of it “to remember later”, because I invariably forget. 

So, those are my plans. This year has some sharks lurking in the shallows, sharks that I know are there and which could easily eat my plans for lunch, but I hope to be able to make friends with them using age old shark whispering techniques so that they don’t leave more than the occasional bite mark behind. 

Wish me luck, and keep me honest on Twitter

PurpleCar January 3, 2014 at 3:08 am

I think these are all great ideas! I have been doing morning pages everyday for at least three years. I’ve found that it improves my ad-hoc writing and my shitty first drafts aren’t nearly as god-awful, bum-scrape shitty as they were. I, too, will strive to post once a week on my blog. And I carry my phone around but I don’t always write down ideas, which I’ll do more often now. Thanks for this, and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Suw January 6, 2014 at 10:39 pm

Good luck PurpleCar! I hope it goes well!

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