Sunday, June 19, begins the six week Write-a-Thon.

What is the Write-a-thon?
A fundraiser for the Clarion West writing workshop, which I attended in 2006 (10-year anniversary this year!). Clarion West is a nonprofit literary organization (501©(3), for tax purposes). Fundraisers such as the Write-a-thon help keep student costs down, and support the Clarion West mission to promote speculative fiction.

The Write-a-thon is like a walk-a-thon or a dance-a-thon.

My 2016 goals

I have been feeling  kinda bummed out and directionless lately. I probably shouldn’t admit that. It’s probably bad for my career or something. Wait, is it bad for writers to admit they have angst and ennui and melancholy? Maybe not. Maybe everyone expects it.

I thought about not participating this year, mostly because I’m grumpy and feeling sorry for myself, but the instant I made up my mind to sit this one out I felt even more grumpy and sorry for myself, so… wait, where was I going with this?

Right. Goals. I don’t want to set out any overall 6-week goals right at the start. I want to set myself smaller goals within the time frame of the workshop. I want to be more like, “today I’m going to do this” or “this weekend I’m going to do this.” Set, meet (or not) and evaluate goals as I go.

However, I’m going to pick my first goal right now. I happened to re-read a story I wrote intending to submit to a themed anthology, but didn’t finish in time, and never submitted it anywhere else either, and now it’s just been sitting there on my hard drive for… I don’t even know how long. A year, probably. But when I ran into it just now, I enjoyed reading it.

  1. Goal : submit that one story. Met!
  2. Goal: submit another story. Met!
  3. Goal: Figure out why the Waking Up Naked in Strange Places sequel isn’t quite right and devise a solution. Met!
  4. Goal: Finish revising novel outline based on plan in #3.
  5. Goal: First draft of new story.
  6. Goal: Finish corralling stories and ideas into kind of useful order.

New, bonus incentive! For those who sponsor me (in extremely lucky multiples of $13), an official blessing from Saint Expedite in postcard form!