Well I didn’t meet my writing goal for the month of November, although I can at least say that I didn’t fall short by much. I was actually right on schedule for the month when two key things occurred: I went on a weekend vacation to visit family and got no writing done while I was there, and then I collected about a hundred pounds worth of papers that I needed to grade right away in order to get them back to the students before finals week.
Excuses excuses. You’re right, but you know what? For once I actually don’t feel ashamed of not having met my goal. I know full well that it isn’t that I didn’t want to write, or that I was claiming I was just not “inspired,” or that I was choosing to do other things instead. In fact, I stole time here and there that I really should have been using to grade papers because I had this or that great idea and I had to get it down now. The truth is there were other things that were more urgent and I think that’s okay. It’s okay to just live your life sometimes, too.
But even so, I’m going to set that hour a day goal for December and I expect I’ll be able to meet it. Finals week is next week and once I get final grades posted I’ll have nothing to do but hang out with my husband and friends, and write. Next month there will be no excuses. There will be nothing standing in my way.
Which means my goals are. . .
- Spend a minimum of 31 hours writing
- Submit to 10 journals
- Query 5 agents
