New Writing Goals

While I've always been pretty good at self-motivating, even I need goals and deadlines sometimes. So, I've decided to give myself some writing goals. Not just the usual general "work more on such-and-such" sort of thing I usually do, but solid goals I can actually make myself stick to. So here they are:

• I will write one new short story a month. Sometimes they will be very short, and sometimes more like a novella. Sometimes they might even turn into a novel, which will make the monthly goal a little unrealistic, but I'll deal with that if it ever happens. But every month, a new story.
• I will write fiction for at least an hour, 5 times a week. I actually think this is a fairly modest goal, but I figure it's better to start small and find myself exceeding the goal than to aim to high when I'm out of practice at regular fictioning. Sometimes this will go towards the monthly story, sometimes toward a novel, and occasionally I might switch from fiction to creative non-fiction, but it will all be personal work (as opposed to my paid reviews and articles).
• I will blog at least once a week, but aim for three times. Why three? Because I know different friends and followers read this blog for different reasons. Some are interested in my bookbinding and letterpress, some in other craft, some in writing and some in personal stuff. My ultimate goal is to do one round-up sort of post on what I've been doing in each of writing, bookbinding/letterpress, and miscellaneous craft/life in general. So expect more frequent posting from me, but mostly shorter posts. I will also try to post pictures more regularly, because everyone like pictures.

There are other things I'm aiming for, too, like getting my website properly updated. And I've decided to venture into indie publishing (or farther in, really, as I've done little chapbooks and artist's books from time to time over the years, under my "White Raven Press" name). I plan to start with those short stories that are sitting there on my hard drive. Some were published in small or semi-pro e-zines and others got very nice personal rejection letters from big magazines. I'm going to make them available in electronic format. My idea is to have one free one every month, changing it each month. The others will be 99 cents. Once I have enough of them up, I'll release them as a collection as an e-book and POD.

I'll probably go a similar route with the YA/middle grade books I have done, but I'll figure that out as I go along. I'm not planning on making pots of money, or any money, really (though that would be nice).

So, since this post is already longer than I thought it would be, I'll end with my immediate plans:

1. put together a simple but eye-catching cover for short story #1: "Come-From-Away," either photo-based (it's set in St John's, NL) or something I drew. 
2. Get the story formatted properly for e-pub. 
3. Get myself registered on the appropriate sites and publish away. 

If all goes well, it may be up by the time the weekend is over. Or it might not. But eventually, watch for "Come-From-Away" by Niko Silvester on Kindle, Sony eReader, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and maybe others. For free for a month, then for 99 cents.