I’m embarrassed to admit that, in spite of being out of school and not having to work over the summer, I did not meet my writing goal for the month of May. I do have an excuse that I think more than explains it: I was working on a scholarly essay that I hope to get published (or at least use as a good writing sample in the future). I spent so much time doing research and writing this essay that I let my creative writing fall to the side. Now I did get some writing done during May; I worked on creative writing for an average of about an hour and a half a day. But it’s a little disheartening because, looking at my logsheet for 2009, I realized that I’ve only met my writing goals for one month – January – out of the entire year so far.
On top of that I recently realized that, since I’ll be on the road for the entire month of July (in transit between Alaska and Ohio, with many lengthy stops along the way), I may not have time to get as much work done over the summer as I’d like. Even so, with the essay done (for now) I plan to plow ahead and get some serious writing done at least during the month of June. That said, I’m not sure that I want to set hourly goals for either this month or next month.
It isn’t exactly that I’m trying to give myself an excuse to push myself a little less hard – well, maybe it sort of is. Here’s the thing: I’m moving from the far north of Alaska to Ohio this summer, and leaving behind some really great friends. So I don’t want to force myself to not spend time with people because of my own self-imposed goals (not to mention the incredible amount of time and energy I’ll be spending getting packed up and ready for the move). Likewise, during the move we’re going to be stopping by and visiting family and friends in the lower 48 – many of whom I haven’t seen in years. So, even though I plan to keep at it and get some things done, I don’t feel it’s right for me to set hourly goals for the next couple of months.
So my goal for June, instead of the regular 2 hours a day, is to get some serious work done on a children’s book I’ve been writing. I’m about 50 pages into the first draft and what I would like to do is have a complete draft finished by the time we leave at the end of the month so that I can print it out and have it with me on the road to begin revising.
June’s Goals, then, are to:
- Finish a complete draft of my current children’s book
- Submit to 10 journals
