I feel pretty good about this past month and I’m pleased to say that 2009 is getting off to a great start. I met all of my January goals, I wrote an average of a little over two hours a day, and I got a lot done on individual projects that I’m working on. I think this semester will be an extremely fruitful one. My thesis should be due immediately after spring break so my committee has time to read it before my defense. This means that no matter what I’ll be getting a lot done on that in the next month and I feel really good about what needs to be done – I know exactly what I want to change and smooth over and I’m starting to think (or is it wishful thinking?) that it might actually be done, ready to decide what to do with, after I defend it.
So that I have time to work on my thesis this semester I’m taking only thesis credits and one workshop class. The workshop that I’m taking is shaping up to be the best class I’ve taken in my entire MFA career. It focuses entirely on the novella and it’s taught by award winning writer David Crouse, whose writing I admire a lot and he’s a pretty cool guy, on top of that. I’ve never taken a class with David but I’ve heard from multiple sources that his classes are absolutely amazing and after starting this class I have no doubt that it’s true. We’re going to have a lot of time to workshop each others novellas and even David will be submitting a novella to be workshopped right along with us.
The novella I’m working on is part of the short story collection I’m working on, so theoretically this semester I’ll get a lot of work done on my thesis and my collection. I’m not dividing up my goals between projects because the semester should be such that I’ll have to work on both my novel and my collection and I don’t know whether they’ll need equal time, or if one will need more, or what.
I expect to have no trouble meeting my goals for February. They are:
- Spend at least 56 hours on writing (an average of 2 hours a day)
- Submit to 10 places
