52 Goals for 2015

52 Goals for 2015

I was inspired to create this long list of writing/reading goals with a few personal improvement ones thrown in for good measure, by Brooke Warner's post on Huffington on 52 goals/ideas for writers.  I borrowed some of the items off her list but many are just mine. Feel free to borrow.  You can see her post here:
Brooke Warner's post

There are 52 goals for 52 weeks in the year.  

1.  Submit at least one piece of writing for publication.
2.  Get a part time job teaching college in the Fall (1 class)
3.  Take a writing class.
4.  Join SheWrites.com and set up a profile
5.  Set aside at least 1 hour of time every week to write.  Get up early on a weekend day and head to the coffee shop.
6.  Go to the Loft Young Adult Writer’s Conference again this year.
7.  Apply for a writers residency retreat and go.
8.  Participate in Camp Nanowrimo this summer.
9.  Subscribe to a writer’s magazine
10. Learn to meditate to decrease stress
11.Try the 500 word a day challenge for a month (summer)
12. Continue my book blog but limit myself to 5-10 posts a month, use the extra time for working on novel.
13. Go see a counselor to work on being a better human being
14.  Map a book you love. It will teach you a lot to outline a book you've read more than once to see how another author thinks about structure, scenes, and narrative arc.
15. Write and publish an e-book. These can be as short as 25 or 30 pages (single stories or essays) and they can get your work on the map.
16. Enter a writing contest
17. Map out a timeline for your book, or for your next book. Consider when would be a reasonable publication date for your book and write it down. Post it somewhere where you can see it to hold that date as a goal.
18. Find and print pictures of my characters.  Make a poster board or put in writing notebook.
19. Do a literary pilgrimage to see a site where a favorite author lived or wrote about-Kansas & Missouri to visit homes of Laura Ingalls Wilder
20.  Take part 2 of Laura Ingalls Wilder online class offered by Missouri University in April.
21.  Read a book on Writing.
22.  Read a short story every Saturday.
23.  Read a poem a day
24.  Pay off my medical bills.
25.  Revise some of my writing
26  Try to write at least one sentence a day on my novel!
27.  Find a writing routine that works and stick with it.
28.  Find a writing workspace in my home or a coffee shop
29.  Make a playlist called “writing music” and write to it.
30.  Use the journal in my purse to write down my ideas.
31.  Finish Iowa online fiction writing class- MOOC.
32.  Start writing in a journal again- daily, 1 sentence a day at least.
33.  Story map my book
34.  Find my old outline and book in word that disappeared on this computer- put in a help desk ticket- use Geek squad
35.  Create a Google doc with all my story ideas
36.  Continue collecting news articles on my book topic.  Put in writing notebook.
37.  Create a new writer’s notebook for 2015 and make a collage for the cover.  (the pictures in this post are from my 2014 writer's notebook)
38.  Back up my blog posts on Evernote
39.  Read 90 books in 2015
40.  Lose 10 pounds
41. Eat lots of good dark chocolate and drink more tea.
42.  Do Yoga to gain balance and strength
43.  ?Print blog posts and put in writer’s notebook?
44.  Be Brave and post some of my writing on Shewrites or Wattpad
45.  Make time to read other peoples work and comment on Shewrites and Wattpad
46.  Add new people to my writing group.
47.  Create a vision board for your book. This is different than a book cover concept. It's a collage of images and/or words that inspire you, and that can keep you motivated and disciplined with your writing goals.
48.  Participate in First National Readathon Day on January 24th
49.  Set up and participate in Postal Mailbox book club on Goodreads
50. Make a list of your top 10 favorite books in your own genre and reread two of them.
51.  Instead of buying books, read more books from my bookshelves and then give them away to share my love of reading with others.
52.  Create Japanese and England themed weekends for my kids to immerse ourselves in another culture.
53.  Travel to Peru.

Mantra: Love thyself, hug thyself, forgive thyself.
Happy 2015!

What are your goals?

Two opportunities I'm excited about

Two opportunities I'm excited about.

I have two exciting opportunities to share with you.  If you love to read and write like I do, there are two classes that start in September for readers and writers and they are both FREE.  Yes!!

1.  Course Title: Laura Ingalls Wilder: Exploring Her Work & Writing Life

Missouri State University
Sep 22, 2014 to Dec 1, 2014
Cost per enrollment: Free

(This starts tomorrow!!)  You can join anytime.
I'm so excited for this class.  I am a huge Laura Ingalls Wilder fan.  I have read all of her books and have visited 5 of her houses.  I grew up watching Little House on the Praire and we have a lot in common.  First of all we are both named Laura, she was born in 1867 and I was born in 1967.  We both lived in Minnesota, both of us are teachers, writers, and mothers.  I am excited to be a participant in this class and learn more about Laura and her writing life.

If you want to enroll in the class, please visit this link:  https://www.canvas.net/courses/laura-ingalls-wilder

2.  Course Title:  How Writers Write Fiction
Course Dates: Friday, Sep 26 to Friday, Nov 21

Provided by:
The International Writing Program
Iowa Writers
Instructor(s): Christopher Merrill, R. Clifton Spargo


CLASS SESSIONS
Opening Lines, Opening Doors
Putting Setting to Work
Learning and Building the World
Animating the World
Structures and Storytelling
Constraints and Styles
Revision and Rediscovery

I love to write but never have enough time for it.  It is usually what I push to the side while I am busy doing other things.  Well, I am trying to give my writing a chance and so this will be my 3rd writing class of the year.  I am super excited for this class and can't wait to improve my craft.

If you would like to join me in this course please visit this link:

http://courses.writinguniversity.org/course/how-writers-write-fiction

Let's Learn Together!

Summer Reading- Had me a Blast

Summer Reading- Had me a Blast!

Today is my last day of summer vacation.  So sad :(
Tomorrow, I go back to my life of being a high school social studies teacher.

I want to tell you all about my amazing summer of reading.  I broke my foot in 3 places on May 29th and have been stuck in a boot cast ALL summer.  I am still in the boot cast!  Doctors orders were to put my foot up and stay off of it as much as possible, so I read and read and read and read.  I wrote a little too, on this blog and some short stories and poetry.  I actually took a writing class and met with my writing group on a regular basis.

At the beginning of my summer, I made a goal to read a book a day.  Pretty much this is an impossible goal for me because I'm a slow reader and I have kids and I like to do other things.  Yet, I am so happy with the results of this goal.  I have never ever read this much nor come so close to reading so many books in so many days.

I read 45 books in my 66 days of summer.  Yes!

Here's how I did it:  I read a huge variety of books.  I read graphic novels, children's books, young adult, audio books, novellas and full length novels as well.  I read several books at the same time.  I read during the day and I read different books at night and on the weekends.  I averaged around a 100 pages a day.  I did not read books over 600 pages.  Shorter books were my friends and helped my completion rate rise.

It was so much fun!!  It was nice to read books I've had on my shelf for a long time and I was  regular at my public library this summer as well.

Here is to hoping you had a blast reading this summer too.  How many books have you read?

Sit Down and Write

Sit Down and Write

Sit Down and Write begins today and lasts for two weeks.  Basically it is a time to focus on writing instead of some of the "other" things that you usually spend your free time doing.

This is my second time participating in the writing challenge.  I plan to write about 5 book reviews on my blog as well as work on writing the two books I have started.  I am super excited to see how much I get written and how much research I am able to accomplish.  I am a bit worried that my writing progress will be minimal because school has started and my students arrived in my classroom today with 100 degree weather outside.  I will do my best to accomplish my writing goals.

Anyone can participate in this and you can sign up on Stories Inside blogspot.

Happy Writing!!

Sit Down and Write Write-a-Thon Wrap-Up

Sit Down and Write Write-a-Thon Wrap-Up

Well, the Write-a-Thon is over and school has started and life is getting busier as we enter Fall.  Busy, Busy, Busy.  Life is always so busy.

I  did not meet my goals but I am very happy with what I accomplished during the write-a-thon.

Goals:
1.  Write 4 book reviews
2.  Write 7 pages (1 page every day) in my novel.

Accomplished:
1.  Wrote 2 book reviews
2.  Wrote 4 pages in my novel
3.  Created an outline for my novel
4.  Read 7 pages in the Screenwriter's Bible by David Trotter.  This is a great book and it informs and inspires me to write and keep writing.  I think every writer needs to read about writing as it helps keep the creative self at work writing.  So I am glad I included this.

Looking forward to my continued daily battle finding time to write and be creative and the next Write-a-Thon.

Sit Down and Write

Sit Down and Write - Write-a-Thon

The Write-a-Thon starts tomorrow and I'm excited to participate in it.  I also go back to school tomorrow to get ready for students.  So officially summer is over for me and so is most of my free time but this week, my plans are to use my limited free time to write, write, write.

Here are my writing goals for the week:
1.  Write one page in my novel everyday this week.  The write-a-thon is 7 days so that means I need to write 7 pages.  An author I heard speak uses the goal of writing one page a day.  It is very doable for me.

2.  Catch up on my book reviews.  I have 4 books read and waiting for me to write about them.

So if I can accomplish writing 7 pages in my book and 4 book reviews this week then I will be happy.  I will probably have to cut down on my reading a bit.  Wish me luck.

Anyone can participate, not just writers of novels or stories, but bloggers too.  Michelle at The Story Inside Me blogspot says you can participate is you have book reviews or general blogging to catch up on. Writers of all types are welcome.  For details and to sign-up visit:
 The Story Inside Me