How Have You Made Yourself Proud in 2023?

Photo by Guille Álvarez on Unsplash

Happy December!

As the year winds down, it’s time to reflect on our writing goals for the year. How did you do? And what did you learn from your progress (or lack of progress)?

Writing goals

My biggest goal for 2023 was to finish a first draft of my zoo mystery, which I did on March 31. I learned that making writing a habit was the key to accomplishing this goal.

I attached this new habit to an existing one—writing a morning page—and set myself either a daily time commitment or a word count. The word count worked best for me. I started with very small goals, like 100 words, to make sure I could achieve them and built up from there.

Does that mean I’m still using that habit? No, not at the moment. But it’s definitely a habit I’ll get back into the next time I write a first draft.

My next writing goal was to revise my zoo mystery by the end of this year. I’ve been systematic about it with the help of some tools I learned from my Author Accelerator training, including a course in revision that I took this year.

I created an as-is outline of the whole draft to get a big picture view of the story. Then I made a next-steps outline to figure out what changes I needed to make, like fixing a plot problem.

I also created a list of changes in order of most impact to least, like adding a new character, solving a plot problem, fleshing out the climactic scene, etc. Once I had a prioritized list of changes, I dipped back into the manuscript itself.

My work on the revision has not been steady this year. Definitely not.

One major interruption came in May when I finally received feedback from my agent on my dog novel. At that point I had a new goal—revise that novel by Sept. 1.

I met that goal too, and I was quite proud of the work I did on it. But aside from my agent letting me know she’d received my dog novel revision, I haven’t heard any feedback from her yet.

Not hearing back can make my imposter syndrome flare up. But now that I know for sure that Fiona likes my work, I’m not going to assume that my revision isn’t good enough and that’s why she hasn’t gotten back to me. There could be any number of reasons. I’ll continue to check in with her periodically. That’s all I can do for now.

Meanwhile I’m sending a copy of my dog novel to my friend Diane to read. She’s not a fiction writer, but she is a very careful and astute reader. I’ll be eager to chat with her in a few weeks to see what she thinks about it.

For my zoo mystery, I know that I need to work on character arcs for some of my characters to make them more satisfying and engaging and connected to each other. More character interviews may be in order.

I also am taking advantage of being a member of Author Accelerator and offered up my zoo mystery as a practice novel for a book coach in training. She’s reading the whole draft and will give me feedback in a few days. We’ll have a call after that.

Getting feedback can be so motivating!

Life goals

In terms of goals unrelated to writing, I had a few this year.

After training for a 5k road race during the summer, I decided to train for a fall half-marathon. When I have a specific race in mind to train for, I’m much better at training consistently.

That effort paid off. I finished a half-marathon in mid-October. It was a personal worst time for me, but that was because of my seasonal allergies and the lack of a hard freeze to help wipe out the pollen. Next year, I’ll choose a race in Madison in November so I can either ensure a hard freeze, or drop to a 10k.

Part of my consistent training was thanks to a new hybrid bike, which I ride on the grassy ski trail near my house. The dogs get to run along off leash, so we all get a good workout. That cross training supported my running too.

Another goal was to paint the living room, dining nook, kitchen, hallway, and stairwell. Painting is not particularly fun, especially when there are lots of obstacles like windows, doors, and cabinets. But I got that done too, with a satin-finish paint that should make it easier to wipe off mosquito guts in case we get another spring infestation like we did last year.

One final goal that I’ve been toying with for a while was to try being a mentor. I had two different opportunities crop up this year—one with local high school students and one with college students from my undergraduate alma mater.

Both experiences have been happening this fall, so it’s been interesting to compare them. I’ve determined that I’m better with college students.

Quality, not quantity

It can be so easy to get wrapped up in statistics at the end of the year. Depending on what you’re counting, numbers can be valuable, but they’re probably not the whole story.

I feel like I’ve made huge strides this year in the quality of my writing. I can see it and feel it in my zoo mystery and in my dog novel revision.

That alone is something to be proud of.

What makes you proud in 2023?

What progress did you make? What skills did you learn? What goals did you achieve?