Goals and Dreams 2014

Goals

These are concrete, specific, and well-thought out, I hope.  They have the force of will behind them and a purpose in the long-term plan of my life.  Whether or not I complete everything on time, I will make a sincere effort.

Get Published!

Entails:

• Revise and Submit "Kinuyo and the Kitsune," "Second Chance," "Necklace," "Julia Kaiser," and 1 more to Ether
• Self-Publish "Lucidity" on Amazon
• Learn how to Format
• Learn how to Design Covers
• Create an Author Page
• Write and/ or Revise Short Stories for Other Magazines/ Contests  

Deadline: First Story to Ether by end of January; Amazon by End of Summer
Purpose:
I'm tired of not being published.  At the very least, I'll self-publish a short story on Amazon.  I might or might not get paid for these stories, but at the least, I'll get my name out there.  Also, self-publishing will create a trial run for when/ if I need to publish The Changelings, Company, or any other longer work.

Finish the 2nd Draft of The Originals (At Least the Middle Section)
(Est. Pages: 400-600)

Entails:

• Read/ Critique Previous Draft 
• Brainstorm Backstory/ Background 
• Create Maps and Collect Images
• Research (Climate, Armies, Revolution, Disease, Etc.)
• Write 

Deadline: Hopefully, the first 200 pages will be finished by spring; the next 200-400 pages should be complete by the end of the year.
Purpose:
I'm starting to realize this epic will be complicated and slow, no matter what I do.  I want to try a new method of writing.  During NaNoWriMo, I spend at least a month researching and brainstorming before forcing myself to spit out a 200 page draft.  I'm going to see if this works for 2nd drafts as well as first.  The focus here is creating a consistent and logical plot, working on my secondary characters, building settings, and making sure my ideas are strong--very basic levels of story-telling.  No one needs to see this draft.

Finish Three Floating Coffins 
(Est. Pages: 150)

Entails:

• Start/ Finish "Isle of Darkness" Segment
• Start/ Finish Ending
• Revise Opening Chapters

Deadline: The Isle of Darkness ought to be done by spring.  I have the rest of the year to finish the rest.
Purpose:
Ideally, I can finish this story this year, and have it edited and sent out to agents by 2015.

Increase Income

Entails:

• Explore New Job Options (Back to Drawing Board)
• Career Assessment
• Temp job in the summer?

Deadline: By end of Spring, come back with more concrete plans
Purpose:
I really can't survive on less than $6000 a year.  Since it might be several years before I get paid for my stories, I'll have to look for a new way of making money.  At the very least, I should get a summer job to increase my income in the months I don't work.

Agents and Self-Publishing

Entails:

• Research and Query 20-30 Agents
• If Rejected, Make Plans for Publishers and/ or Self-Publishing
• If Accepted... Figure out What to Do Next!
• Keep Agent Info... Might Need it for Coffins!

Deadline: I ought to have the first 20 agents queried by February; if I find another 10 agents, I ought to finish querying them by the start of summer.  The second half of the year, I'll have to make more concrete plans.
Purpose:
I still want to try traditional publishing, but my Changeling story might be too long and too specialized for it.  In that case, I'll have to look at self-publishing options, or possibly submitting directly to the publisher.

Write Manzanar Ghost Story
(Est. Pages: 50-100)

Entails:

• Gather Research/ Research Blog?
• Brainstorm
• Write the Story (Use a NaNoWriMo if Necessary)

Deadline: End of Year
Purpose:
I've spent so much time researching this story, I'd like to write it down.  I'd like to experiment with ways of organizing facts, so I'm not all over the place every time I'm forced to do research.  My secret hope is to make money off this story, either through magazine, contests, or self-publishing.

Go to Literary Orange and Los Angeles Festival of Books

Entails:

• Plan for the Day
• Take Lots of Notes
• Blog Afterward

Deadline: Both Events Take Place in Spring
Purpose:
Networking, hopefully.  If not, at least it will serve as entries for blogs.  Maybe someone will want to know what happened there.

Get Company Critiqued

Entails:

• Self-Critique
• Find Online Critique Group
• Find Other Readers
• Decide What To Do With It

Deadline: I'm not sure yet.
Purpose:
First, I need to find a group of Beta Readers--someone to read my story, aside from my dad.  Second, I like this story, but I'm not really sure what to do with it.  Should I self-publish?  Submit?  How should I edit?  I'll have to see.

Blog

Entails:

• Weekly Update
• Additional Content Twice a Month (Reviews, Dissecting Fantasy, Travel, Etc.)
• Read/ Comment on Other Blogs 
• Research Blog?

Deadline: All Year, Excluding Vacation Weeks
Purpose:
Blogging is a good way to market and so I'll keep trying.  If nothing else, it helps me keep track of various stuff going on in my life.

Dreams

The vague and wispy ideas.  I'd like to do these things, but either I don't think I'll have the time/ will to commit to them this year or I have no particular system or I just don't think they'll happen.  At any rate, I'm happy with them floating in the back of my mind.  For now.

• Practice Japanese--I'm going to try to review, but I don't know if I'll have the will to commit to any strenuous study.
• Lose Weight--The usual New Year Resolution; we'll see how it goes.
• Get My Own Apartment and Dog--because, damn it, I want to be independent (and puppies are cute).
• Compile Information on Bakumatsu into Blog--I really, really want to do this, but I don't think I'll have time this year.
• Write Spin-Off Story About Gryphons--I'll probably get to this eventually, I just don't know about this year.
• Get Coffins to Agents--again, I doubt I'll have time this year
• Make Money off My Writing--Sigh, it would be nice.
• Learn How to Network, Market, Platform, and Sell--I'm so clueless about how to do this.

How Writing is Like the Stock Market

Once I dreamed of being a factory.  In discipline, not in product: I dreamed of cranking out page after page, manuscript after manuscript, of setting up a schedule and achieving it without fail.  But the discipline of writing, I discovered, is not much like factory work. 

Driven by emotion, subject to unpredictability, writing is so much more like the stock market.

Please note: I'm not an expert at the stock market by any means.  But my father is, and some of what he has tried to teach me has managed to stick in my head.  These are the lessons I learned from him.  

1.  The Stock Market is Not Consistent

The market goes up and down.  Your energy will go up and down.  Governments may try to stimulate the stock market by fiddling with interest rates or tax codes.  It doesn't guarantee a rise in profits.  Likewise, you may gulp down expresso after expresso, but that does not mean the pages will come flowing out.  Some days are a struggle and you just can't help it.

2.  There are Trends in the Stock Market

My father has a trader's almanac, which tells him that September is historically a low-performing month, while December will usually be higher during the season of Christmas.  Likewise, I know that historically I am most energetic in the spring, whereas my energy decreases from November and December, due to darkness and holiday stress.  This helps me as I work out my goals.

Aside from seasonal trends, you can see the state of the economy based on news and a careful observation of sectors and companies.  In this way, you can forecast your energy levels based on upcoming events.  Moving?  Vacation?  Surgery?  Maybe you'd better invest your time in journaling or just skip writing altogether.

3.  The Most Money is Made in Spurts

Most sectors chug up and down, up and down, and remain pretty flat.  But then, all it once, they have a hot streak.  This is when you need to be in the market.  This is when the profit reels in.  Likewise, when you write.  You chug and chug until you hit a bubble of inspiration that lifts you to the heights of glory.

The lesson seems to be to cash in only when the market is hot, but wise investors know that by the time the general public is aware of a trend, chances are that trend has already topped out.  In order to make sure you're in right when the market is starting to go up, you have to be on the look out every single day.  Writers need to catch burst of inspirations and milk them for all their worth, but to do that, they must be constantly prepared, constantly writing.   

4. You Can Make Money No Matter What

If the market is going down, you can still make money.  You just have to change your strategy.  Maybe you sink your money into bonds.  Maybe you play the "bear market," and invest in the market continuing to fall.  Maybe you take money out of the market and pay off debts, "making" money by getting rid of the life-sucking high interest rates.  You can always do something.

If writing a particular chapter gets you nowhere and you're feeling constantly uninspired, try something else.  Write a short story.  Do some research.  Go tackle that pile of chores you've been meaning to get to which is always in the back of your mind and starting to give you anxiety.  If you aren't productive in one thing, try another.
  
5. You Will Lose Money

No matter how professional you are, how wise, how experienced, you will make bad choices at least some of the time.  If you can't stomach the thought of losing hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, then playing the stock market may not be right for you.  Similarly, all writers throw away hundreds, if not thousands of pages.  If you get too cannot let go of what you write, this might not be the profession for you.  But if you don't get too attached to your every gain, you'll find that you will prosper indeed.

6. Even the Stock Market Gets Days Off

And so should you. 

Goals and Dreams 2013

Every year I do my New Year's Resolutions, aka, goals for the year.  Unfortunately, I tend to lose the paper I write it on sometime in February and by December, I never know if I made it or not.  So, now I'm posting it on this blog, where it will stay safely until December 2013.  Maybe I'll update as the year goes by and these goals are completed.

Goals

These are the serious things that I expect myself to finish before the year's done.  If I don't complete them, I'll probably be very upset at myself.

• Get Driver's License (July)
• Finish Posting Fanfiction (by March) (Finished 3-1-13)
• March-Crunch (500 words a day, 5 days a week in preparation for Camp NaNoWriMo) (Finished 3-27-13, 17499 words)
• Camp NaNoWriMo in April (Finished 4-26-13, 57207 words)
• Finish Editing Changelings (Chapter 24, 26, 27, 28, 29) by summer (Chapter 26: Finished 1-5-13; Chapter 24: Finished 1-26-13; Chapter 27: Finished 2-28-13; Chapter 28: Finished 5-12-13; Chapter 29: Finished 6-3-13; Chapter 1: Finished 6-17-13; Total Words: Approx 220,000 or 800 pages)
• Finish Rough Draft of Originals (Finished 4-26-13, see Camp NaNoWriMo)
• Finish "Three Floating Coffins" (Worked on it consistently but did not finish.)
• Begin Credentialing Process (Didn't even start)
• Crunch-tober (More or less)
• NaNoWriMo (November) (Completed Company in 21 days)
• Keep up Blog for the Year (Up until the end.)
• Keep up Volunteering (Read OC fell though, but still volunteering at library.)
• Start Submiting Novel to Agent (10 Agents: 8 Rejections and 2 No Replies)
• Evaluate Goals and Dreams at the end of the year!  (Working on it)

Dreams

These are all the things I'd like to do that are either out of my control or maybe just ideas to throw out there.  In other words, I might get some of these done, but I'm not going to kill myself if I don't.

• Get published this year (Didn't Happen)
• Make enough money to subsist on (Er... sort of.)
• Learn new, more effective ways of writing (???)
• Read more fiction (Thus far read: Trickster, The Skull of Truth, a few short stories; The Grimm Legacy; multiple Agatha Christie novels; Across the Face of the World; Daughter of Smoke and Bone; The Scorpio Races; The Rook; etc.)
• Exercise or meditate for 5 minutes each day (Got off track in spring)
• Write a screenplay (Ha, ha, No.)
• Write poems for NaPoWriMo (also April) (See Blog)
• Finish "Ghost" Story (aka "Company," Complete 11-21-13)
• Write 12 new short stories (1 per month) (1. The Character Assassination of Julia Kaiser: 2-7-13; 2. Second Chance: 2-10-13... And a few unfinished drafts)
• After finishing the rough draft, write a new chapter for the Originals 3 times a month (Finished rough draft, re-wrote 6 chapters--not nearly up to par with my goal)
• Devote a week each month to brainstorming/ research/ short stories/ new stuff (No time)
• Use Weekly Planner to Keep Track of Events/ Words/ Pages/ Accomplishments (Started Jan and Feb, got off track Mar, April...)
• Celebrate more! (That's hard to quantify)

Update

As of January 2014, I have marked off the goals I completed reasonably well in yellow, the ones that were not finished and/ or ambiguous (though some effort was made) in orange, and the ones where no progress was made at all in red. 

3 Things Writers Must Do (Besides Write)

When I was young and the world seemed easy, I had the foolish notion that writing was just a matter of sitting down to write.  A writer, armed with coffee and a computer, would sit at her desk for hours and hours, letter keys clicking, while the paragraphs and pages flowed out from her brain to her fingers to the screen.  Back when I was innocent, I didn't think of myself as naive.  I knew that there would be times of frustration and writer's block, but I figured that if I just kept at it, those blocks would dissolve and the story would emerge.

I tested this theory the summer I was nineteen, and it nearly destroyed me.   

I was not happy.  I was not even productive.  After three months with absolutely nothing to do but write, I got about two chapters written, both of which I threw away a couple months later.  In the mean time, I grew to hate writing, hate my story, hate that stuffy room with the glare of sunshine and the heat of the computer.

Writing, as it turns out, is not enough.   If you want to create a story, you need to attack it from many different angles.  Half the work is blunt force--sitting down at the computer and getting the words to come out.  The other half is figuring out what to how to write and what to write.

Here are three things writers need to do in addition to simply writing.

1. Goal-set

It's simple enough.  You might be able to write a poem or a short story on the fumes of inspiration, but the longer the work, the more discipline is required.  (And I write 800-page fantasy monsters.)  The easiest way to create discipline is to set goals.  Something specific.  I will write such-and-such number of words/ pages a day.  I will finish a chapter each month.

It sounds easy.  It's not.

Goal-setting, goal-writing, and goal-keeping is practically an art form.  And like all art it needs the magical combination of intuition, suffering. and constant practice to really blossom.  

For instance, you have to figure out what a realistic goal for you is.  If you're anything like me, you're going to horribly over-estimate yourself and then mentally berate yourself for not finishing.  You're going to agonize about what the definition of "finishing" a chapter is.  What if it sucks?  Also, different drafts create different production rates.  I can type 3 pages an hour when I'm writing a first draft.  I barely make a half a page when I'm doing close editing.

What if you have a nice writing schedule and something happens?  Maybe your grandmother dies.  Maybe you get a free trip to Europe.  Maybe you just can't write on that particular story anymore, but this other story interests you.  Should you set goals every year?  Every month?  Every day?  Are there rewards for achieving your goals?  Punishments for failing?

At some point, you start to wonder why you bother to spend so much time on goals that always seem to fail.

You do it in order to learn how you write.  You do it in order to get things done.  You do it because you have to.  Period.

2. Brainstorm

For me, this takes two forms.

First is the note-taking form, which I tend to do whenever I'm stuck.  Here I ditch my computer for a notebook and pencil and start throwing out various ideas to see which one sticks.  Or, if I'm not that far along, I whine about all the reasons I hate writing this scene until I figure out what the problem is.  Complaining is a surprisingly effective problem-solving method.   My hypothesis is that your brain gets sick of your ranting and begins tossing out solutions just to get you to shut up.

I guess that this technically counts as writing, as words are going on the page.  Initially, though, I never counted it because I wasn't "in" the story.  It was like trying to climb a mountain and finding a fallen log in your path and stopping to hack away at it.  It's all part of the experience, but you don't feel like you're going anywhere at the time.

If I didn't count note-taking, I really had a problem with the second form: daydreaming. For me, this usually involves lying on my bed with my eyes shut or staring at a single point, trying to act out a scene in my head.  Or else I start pacing circles around a room, muttering to myself.  Believe it or not, this is a good sign.  Whenever you see me talking to myself, you can bet my imagination is kicked into high gear.  It was fun, but it didn't feel like anything was being accomplished.

Yet something was.

Either form of brainstorm forces you to pause and think about where the story is going.  It's a slap to the face of the myth that stories appear fully formed in writer's brain.  They don't.  You constantly have to stop and figure out what's next and will this work.  Trying to move forward without brainstorming is like trying to drive across the country using side streets without stopping to check the map.  Good luck with that.


3. Research

Yes, even for fantasy writers.

This has two major purposes.  First, it helps you to avoid looking dumb.  Now I write high fantasy, and this genre, more so than others, gives the writer the power to say, "my world, my rules."  And that's fine.  But know that people will be using the real world to gauge things like, oh, battles and medieval villages and the effect of religion on social mores.  If you strain too hard on their credibility, they lose their suspension of disbelief and there goes the story.

The other reason to do research is to gather ideas.  Ideas don't pop out of nowhere, after all.  I've found that I need external stimuli of some sort or another to get the creative juices in my head flowing.  While it would be nice if this stimuli came in the form of, say, a vacation to Europe, the easiest and most efficient way to do this is to read books.

For example, let's say that you're trying to write a battle scene, but you're not a military expert.  You can either try to imagine your way to something and hope that you fool the experts.  Or, you can research weapons, armor, castles, and famous battles similar to the one you want to fight.  Now maybe you'll never be an expert, but at least you can see how expecting a poor farmer to transform into knights in shining armor in a week is just slightly unrealistic.  You can see how weapons and armor (or lack thereof) determine the kind of battle you want to fight and how you might lure your enemy into a trap.

It's much easier than just squeezing your eyes shut and willing a cool battle into existance.

Musings on Limited Willpower

Is willpower finite?

I'm so used to thinking of willpower as limitless, like brainpower or human potential or air.  I had never considered it might be something we gets in daily allowances to be budgeted throughout the day.  Yet this is exactly the argument I stumbled upon while reading the November 2012 edition of Writer's Digest.  Mike Becktle's article "Overcoming Writer's Block Without Willpower" began by throwing out this idea:

"Here's the problem with willpower: It's limited. [...] Simply put, when we use it up by resisting a chocolate doughnut all morning, there's none left to stay disciplined in our writing an hour later."

I'd never heard of this before.  But I suspect it's on its way to becoming the hot new idea, because just one day later, I read about it again, this time in a recent Cracked article, "5 Ways Your Brain Tricks You into Sticking with Bad Habits" by Dennis Hong.  (http://www.cracked.com/article_20028_5-ways-your-brain-tricks-you-into-sticking-with-bad-habits.html)

I'm not entirely certain I believe the scientific explanation, which contrasts making healthy decisions with brainteasers.  While resisting temptation may utilize willpower, I would label solving puzzles more a trait of concentration.  Either way, as a speculative writer, my reaction to these sort of ideas is to hold it as true in my mind (whether or not I actually believe it is) and see what sort of conclusions you can draw.

So, if we you a limited amount of willpower, what will your reaction be?  As with most limitations, you can either use it as an excuse or start getting creative.  Is the limit the same day to day, or does it vary with other factors, say how sleepy you are or how much time you've had to relax?  Are some people born with more than others?  Can you grow it?  Can you trick it?

For example, if you take something you hate, such as going to the gym, and make it a habit (which according to the Cracked article will take you ten weeks), does it no longer count as exerting willpower?  Or if you make something you dislike fun, will that also lessen the discipline?

And if you find the absolute limit, how will you spend it?  If you try to be absolutely efficient with your willpower, will that effort actually drain you of it?  If you dole out your efforts spontaneously, will you ever get anything done?  What's the fine balance?

These are some thoughts, I like to throw around.  To be honest, I've been trying to discipline myself into steady writing for some time now, and it's difficult.  The more deadlines and word limits I impose, the more time I spend worrying over them.  My willpower goes into maintaining my system and then I wonder why I'm not inspired.  How can inspiration come if you're constantly yelling, "You have to write 9 pages by bedtime, hurry up, you're wasting time, you're never going to finish if you don't write already, just get something on the page, I don't care what it is, just do something!"  On the other hand, if I didn't force myself to write at least 5 times a week, I'd make excuses and get out of practice.

What are your thoughts on willpower and discipline?  Do you find the idea of a limited amount depressing or refreshing?

Comments would be nice.