Kate Larking's Blog: Anxiety Ink, page 42

Writing Goals for 2016

It’s interesting. Every year we, the Inkettes, make a bunch of goals. By the end of the year, we don’t make them all. And, really, that’s not a huge issue. Because we are still stretching and growing and life changes from the fixed point when we made our goals.

For my writing goals for 2016, I took a different approach to my goals. Last year it was the “be specific, set deadlines” type goals. Instead of making a list of goals on a sheet of paper, the first thing I did was print out a calendar.

This is the calendar I used. Feel free to print one for yourself, too. I like it. It’s colourful. (Source)

And I wrote all over it. I made things into a timeline. I accounted for:

Times that my workload is highest at my job (publishing seasons, textbook seasons, rep meetings…)
Conferences and conventions I was attending (three so far)
eBook publishing timelines for the comic
Physical Print-on-demand book timelines for various ventures

And there are a lot of goals. But this year I’m trying something a little different. I’m not just focusing on creative goals. I am also adding in administrative aspects as goals that need time budgeted and need to be executed.

So, are you ready? For the mega list of Kate Larking’s writing goals for 2016?

Writing + Publishing Goals:

Comic – WRITE ALL THE CHAPTERS. Okay, kidding. But do my best to write a chapter per month and keep ahead of the comic. The sooner the entirety of the script is written, the sooner I can help with storyboarding and typesetting to a greater extent.

The comic goals at this point are to have new chapters published as ebooks on the below schedule:

Chapter 1 – March 1, 2016
Chapter 2 – June 1, 2016
Chapter 3 – November 1, 2016


Tame the POD monster – I have to learn all the ways of print on demand. My goal is to have both Novel Marketing and Prologue-Chapter 2 of the Crash and Burn Comic available August 1, 2016. Formatting a black and white nonfiction book is TOTALLY different from formatting a full-colour comic. And that will pose quite the challenge, I’m sure. But I want to do it this year. Which means planning ahead and setting my proof ordering deadline in advance–which is when the work will need to be done by.
Keep Anxiety Ink going – Anxiety Ink is really close to my hear and I have found myself really really exhausted when it came to posting more than once or twice this year. I am going to working on doubling down, working on posts ahead of time, and making sure I take care of this site.

Administrative Goals:

Set up the Crash and Burn Patreon – This is pretty much essential. In order to make working on the comic more feasible, we need more of an income on it. A patreon will lead to easing expense woes when working on our first print copy–which may include an offset print special edition. We want to do that so badly but we need the help of our fans to do that. So this must be completed within the first quarter of 2016.
Website Redesign – I have to redesign KateLarking.com big time. To encompass both non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and comic writing. So this is going on the official goals list.
Tidy up Twitter and tumblr – My Twitter is like a a room in the house where I put everything and don’t look at it. I should start using it more, even if it is mostly linked in with other platforms for posting. But I have to make it so I actually *want* to read the front page of that monster. For tumblr, I think making a space for myself on tumblr would be a good idea now and in the long run. I have a sinking suspicion that either Twitter or tumblr will be accomplished this year, if one of them is done, but I want the idea planted and to come up in the quarterly accountability reviews we do on Anxiety Ink.

Learning Goals:

Continue learning Japanese – I started the process this year taking Japanese 1. I want to keep it going and avoid the “I am binge studying an hour before class” study timeline I had for Japanese 1. Hopefully Japanese 2 will be offered this year.
Study comic book writing – Hilariously, most of the scripting that I have done is very ad hoc, a mixture between screenwriting and the general impression I have of what comic writing should be. So, I have a few reference books coming my way and I am going to sit down and learn more about how I can do this job better to make my artist’s life easier and to smooth the production of the comic.
Read more – I really hit rock bottom in reading this year. Goodreads says I read 71 books. Out of that was: 5 YA books, 2 picture books, 3 fantasy novels, 1 short story collection, 1 non-fiction audiobook, and 1 poetry collection. The rest were manga or graphic novels. I just feel I should try to be more balanced about what I read next year–more fiction, more poetry.

I got onto a good start for this goal: I purged a lot of books from my TBR (to be read) pile. About 130-140 books, at that. Books are no longer threatening to take over my office, so that’s nice. The only issue I have with this goal is that I get A LOT of books now. Working as a book buyer means I not only ask for some ARCs (advance reading copies), I get them sent to me unsolicited. So I have PILES of reading available. I have to be much much pickier with that I ask for and what I bring home.

So there is no point in making this list and making sure I mention a few things I left out from my writing goals for 2016.

NaNoWriMo – Nope. I’m not doing it again. I get really really excited before NaNo and I think it will serve me well, but, ultimately, it does not. I end up crippled from NaNo. I need to work on balancing myself and my writing output, not binge-writing and placing so much of my self-worth on a goal that isn’t personally mine.
Timelines for my own writing projects – I’m really conflicted about not mentioning my own projects on this post. I have my spacepunk book, I have a poetry collection started, I have my cyberpunk book that is roaring back from the dead, I have my first fantasy book begging to be written because it’s complicated enough now to not be Mary-Sue-y and even if it was who cares! Write me because you love me! *ahem* My life charges rapidly and I have one fully structured project on the go at the moment. So if I can make a fiction project published and happening, I will. But it depends on all the other stuff that is above this bullet point.

So this has been one of the longest posts I’ve written on Anxiety Ink but I think it was a really important one for me.

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2015 Goals Recap

2015 has been good. Awesome. Strange and awesome.

So it’s that time again where I take a look back on the goals I started the year with and see how things turned out.

Theatre, for a start, has catapulted into focus. Going from someone who laughed off the thought of majoring in theatre – not because I didn’t love it, but because I wasn’t “good enough” and didn’t believe I ever would be – to someone seriously considering auditioning for professional theatre has been a rush. (Please note: I’m not great and I have no idea what I’m doing, but I don’t completely suck.)

Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray. Photo by Andrea Littlefield. The notebook I’m holding is one of those I write my stories in. And I’d already filled it. Using it as a prop was terrifying.

My goal was to audition for two shows. I auditioned for six. Of those, I had to withdraw from two before casting, due to schedule conflicts. So I was cast in one show, out of four auditions, and that was an ensemble casting initially. (See my note above. Tons to learn.)

I created a spreadsheet to track my story submissions. All two of them. For the year. I planned for six, so that’s one major goal not met. And I apparently have more issues to work through than I figured.

Another goal not met? Reading more. If anything, I read less. Have I mentioned how much I hate what the day job does to me?

This is my house. We’re in the woods, within a mile from the bay. It’s a little like living at a writer’s retreat.

No rooms painted, but we did get a deck on the house. Finally. After three years of having doors that open onto a four foot drop.

Change hair color: check.

Start learning Korean: check. I started! Just hit a snag when it came to the written system and, ah, let it fizzle.

Gifting: I made a lot of gifts this year – more than any year since I was a kid – but I’m not sure I hit the balance of making more than I bought. Still feels like a win, so I’ll take it.

Recipe: learned.

Art class: taken. It was awesome.

Sewing: with my grandmother’s patience, I made my Halloween costume this year. All right not all of it, but the parts that pulled it together and made it a peacock, rather than something mildly steampunked.

Travel: had an awesome time hanging out with friends in NYC last spring, then had an amazing time at World Fantasy. Met some absolutely amazing people.

In other things accomplished this year, I took a class that has hopefully improved my writing and checked one thing off my bucket list by teaching a writing workshop. Also, I turned 30 and had an epic birthday party where we did a ropes course and went ziplining in the rain.

Overall, I think I’ve done pretty well for myself. What about your goals for 2015?

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2015 Goals: Final Check-In & Wrap Up

I can try my best to hold on to 2015 but I have a feeling 2016 is going to march in all the same come January 1st. Where on earth has all the time gone!? I know I say that every time I touch on my goals, but come on. The year is finito in six days. Yowzers.

It’s been a topsy turvey one, as usual, but I feel like I kept my goals in my sights this time around. I wasn’t as diligent as I really could have been, still I didn’t let them fall to the wayside either. I’m content with how I did.

Here are the goals I think I excelled at over the past 12 months and am checking off as completed:

For every 4 “new” books I read I want to pick up an “old” book off my TBR shelf.
Continue going strong with Anxiety Ink –we’ve all been all over the place this year, however, we’ve all managed to keep up our commitments to the blog. Good work ladies!
Walk/bike/exercise more for better energy and health –I have made enormous strides exercise-wise this year. And I feel pretty good because of it. I have a few personal goals regarding fitness come 2016 so that should help me keep it up!
Be accountable: put everything on the calendar, make time, and budget accordingly –I did really well with this goal this year, I’m really happy about it.
Be POSITIVE –another difficult task I took steps to work at over the year that showed legitimate payoff.
Keep the personal website going –it’s a goin’!
Get my current WIP RA1 done by the end of the year and continue work on other projects! –this one was very recently accomplished but it’s given me momentum that I intend to carry on into 2016. Kate and I set a deadline and I plan to clean up my manuscript for it. This is a goal I have been waiting to cross off my list for a long time. I had to amend “WIP” too because I have so many projects I’m moving between that I can’t refer to them as merely WIP anymore.
Participate in NaNoWriM0 2015 –I participated, won, finished RA1 and started RA2, and got my writing mojo going again. I conquered this one.

Now for the goals I wish I’d worked harder on and can’t in good conscience check off:

At MINIMUM I want to double the amount of books I read in 2014 –I did fine this year and finished 44 books (likely 45 tonight), and I figured out why my annual number is so low. I figured it out too late though. This one bugs me more than I care to admit.
Take time to go outside and breathe a few times a day –as I did with being more positive, I need to take active steps with this one.
Don’t take on more than I can handle but push my limits comfortably –I have too many things in my life making me anxious that don’t need to be. I need better coping mechanisms or to get rid of them entirely. So this goal needs more work.
Shop my literary stories around –I submitted one and heard nothing. I need to get my butt moving again.
Be greener –I can do better.
Be more driven at work –2016 needs to see me take better steps at the day job because I think it’ll help with the writing work I do. Dedication is dedication and I take satisfaction in a good job. I can do better all around.
Write. As often as possible. Fill in all the pages of my word tracker -2016 will see this change, I vow it.

Then here are the goals I let slip badly, I hang my head in shame:

Edit and submit my story for the latest anthology I’ve been invited to participate in –radio silence from the group has seen me completely ignore this goal. I still want to polish my story because it’s a good concept, I think.
Shop “Brew Disaster” around until it’s picked up –I ignored this one, plain and simple.
Make dinner twice a week –I ignored this one, too.
Show more presence at ARWA: get to more meetings and continue working on the newsletter –while I think I play a good role newsletter wise I haven’t made a meeting this year. Oops.
Read two Shakespeare plays –again, this is a time management issue for me. I really just didn’t make time to read the plays and now I’m out of time. I’m totally bummed about it, too.

Like I said, January is right around the corner and some of these goals are such old hat for me I don’t think they’ll grace the list this year, which is awesome as far as I’m concerned. I’m in a good place and I’m ready to tackle this New Year. 2015, you were hard and fruitful and went by way too fast.

I’ll finish with a Merry Christmas if you celebrate it since it is the 25th . I hope you get spoiled, eat too much, and connect with or avoid lots of loved ones, whatever you prefer.

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2015 Goals – Final Check-In

2015 is coming to a close. It’s been an extremely long year for me. Multiple jobs, changing industries of work, settling into a routine. And the goals changed as I went.

Writing Goal—Non-fiction: Write, edit, and publish my planned Street Teams edition of Novel Marketing for August 2015. The outline and research were done in 2014 so the bulk of the formation of the book have been completed. The rest is just execution.

Update: I think they may get done, next year. The research is done and the draft is started.


Writing Goal—Fiction: Create, write, edit, and publish at least one edition of my space serial. I’m going to just bite the bullet and make my fiction happen. I’m excited and terrified.

Update: This is interesting. It started as a goal for my fiction but instead turned into a goal for Crash and Burn. In the end, the first chapter, the prologue, is was, edited and published in December. The serial is still coming along but Crash and Burn squeezed in front.


Writing Goal—Development: Take a writing course. I have one planned for the first part of the year.

Update from 3/4 check-in: Done! But perhaps it didn’t help as much as anticipated.


Writing Goal—Conferences: Attend two writing conferences. I have already picked up When Words Collide in Calgary and Sirens in Denver, CO. If there is an opportunity to attend a third, I will. With conferences, I will work to present at least once at each conference.

Update: WWC completed. Sirens completed. Things went very well this year.


Writing Goal—Blogging: Continue to establish my new partnership, ArtIsMyBusiness.com (I post Mondays! Marketing Mondays!), as well as maintaining Anxiety Ink (every Wednesday).

Update from 3/4 check-in: Keeping up with Anxiety Ink. AIMB has changed direction.

Side quests completed: 10K hike, maintaining purple hair, passed probation at work, reading books again, and adding comic writer to resume.

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The End Of A Notebook

I love to be reminded of why I write longhand.

Seriously.

I am two pages away from filling the current notebook. This means an(other) entire notebook filled with my words. It’s a total rush.

There is something about smoothing my hand over the page and feeling the impressions of the pen on the paper. The handwriting identifies it as mine in a visceral, tangible way. Holding my manuscript, still hot from the printer, is similarly satisfying, but not nearly so intense.

Not to worry: I’ll be cursing this odd quirk of mine when it comes to the transcription.

But in the meantime, I will luxuriate in the curling, feathered edges of pages, the growing rip in the binding, the coffee stains and ink splotches. This notebook is marked by every trip it’s taken in my bag, every spot where I’ve stolen a few moments to jot down a word, or a thought, or a phrase, and every person who’s smiled at the cover quote: “There is a certain happiness in being silly and ridiculous.”

My biggest dilemma now is starting the next notebook. Which should I choose?

You see, I made the mistake of going notebook shopping. Specifically notebook shopping. My tendency to pick them up as I see ones that interest me and live up to my exacting standards is much safer by comparison for both my wallet and storage space.

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Strategic Narration of a Tough Topic

A while back, and I’m talking months back, my Goodreads Quote of the Day arrived in my inbox with the following:

Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.  

Emma Donoghue

Happy birthday, Emma Donoghue! The Irish-born novelist was inspired to write her 2010 bestseller, Room, after hearing about Elisabeth Fritzl, a young Austrian woman who was held captive in a basement for 24 years.

As you may have heard a while back too, Room was made into a movie. So yes, I’m jumping on the Room movie bandwagon far too late, but I’ve been crazy busy.

For the record, I read Room, and there is no way in heck I am going to watch the movie. I have a long history of refusing to watch movies based on books I adored, The Hunger Games, The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit, are the only exceptions. Really.

Anyway, this quote arrived in my inbox and obviously spurred my mental wheels to turn since I have a very visceral reaction to all these real life stories about women escaping years of heinous captivity. Those women in Michigan escaped a decade of captivity only a couple of years ago, right?

It happens, and that puts my stomach in knots. Many people probably had this quote arrive in their inboxes, read the footnote, raised their eyebrows, and thought “Wow, that would be terrifying,” then likely deleted the email without a second thought. I’m not pointing fingers, I’ve done this myself on more than one occasion.

It. Happens. Is likely happening right now. As a human being, I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to be in those women’s shoes. 24 years? That’s my entire life! As a writer, I don’t know how I could even attempt to understand that kind of emotional void, that situation, let alone translate it onto the page. I have a good imagination, I can put myself in a lot of places, I don’t know if that’s one of them.

Honestly, I don’t think Donaghue knew either when she first came up with the concept of Room. So she got strategic. Not only did her first person narration from the perspective of a young child add power to the story, it allowed her to skirt the unrelateable –the captive woman’s perspective.

If you want to tackle a tough topic that is nearly unimaginable, get smart about it. Donaghue did and she wrote a great story. It’s doable. Hard, but doable.

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Writer Burnout

It always surprises me when I feel writer burnout. But this time is especially surprising because I was doing *all the other stuff*.

I haven’t done much creative writing for a while because I’ve been bogged down with the details of the Crash and Burn launch, I used up a lot of my writing batteries with things like front matter, back matter, blurbs, uploading, coordinating content in a epub file, and seeing how each platform dealt with multiple authors/artists. Tiny things that just exploded into one huge, work-intensive project that took up all my free time.

I find myself just starting to surface now. I have a promise to keep with Elisa. I have more work to do with the Crash and Burn comic. I have things I still want to do with Novel Marketing. I even have books I want to read (and a lot of them. Working at the bookstore has given me back my access to Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) and I tend to hoard all the neat new titles).

The biggest obstacle? The holidays.

The biggest opportunity? The holidays.

I get a week off from work between Christmas and New Years. And I plan to use it to sink back into the words. I’m lucky in that there isn’t much shopping I need to do when the sales are great (but the crowds are not). I have a few friends to connect with but we are all for taking over a corner of a coffee shop and chatting between words, both written and read.

The best thing I can do for myself right now is to offer myself forgiveness as I get back on my feet.

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Holiday Gift Ideas

If you’re reading this, chances are you are either a writer being hounded to provide a holiday wish list, or you have a writer in your life and you are grasping for gift ideas.

For someone newly embarking upon a writer’s life, may I suggest notebooks, pens, or books on writing? Writers are constantly figuring out what works and doesn’t, and the newer we are, the more we focus on it. These are all excellent tools to help with that. And to show acceptance and support of a loved one wanting to do something as masochistic as be a writer.

I used to love getting these as presents. But I’ve had more than twenty years of them.

I am entirely too picky. Notebooks can’t be too small or too large, the paper needs to feel good to the touch and not bleed. I can’t tell you how many unused notebooks I’ve gotten rid of over the years. And maybe your writer doesn’t much use them.

Pens? I’m equally picky. Books on writing? There are so many and not a lot of them terribly helpful. Just grabbing one off the shelf is not usually the best approach.

My recommendations: Zen and the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas, and anything by Natalie Goldberg. Those are the ones off the top of my head.

I still need to get my hands on a copy of Jeff Vandermeer’s Wonderbook.

But the absolute best gift you can give a writer is experience.

Give your writer an art lesson or martial arts class. Take them horseback riding. Go on a trip. The list goes on.

And you don’t have to spend a lot of money, either. Take your writer to the beach. Go for a walk. Doing something special and out of the ordinary can also be something incredibly simple.

Experiences feed and fuel writing more than anything else. So if you’re desperate for a gift and exhausted all the usual options, give an experience.

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Coming Out the Other Side of NaNoWriMo 2015: Lessons to Re-Remember

Although no one brought me coffee during November, or afterwards in celebration, I managed to win National Novel Writing Month and set a new word record for myself. 52,083 words over the course of 15 writing days in 21 documented hours that don’t count my short free writes.

I have zero selfie taking practice, fyi.

Considering this is where I started, I can’t believe where I ended. I’m really proud of myself. And tired.

I relearned a lot about myself as a writer and person over the month, more than I had anticipated. I don’t want to bore anyone with the finite details, so here are the writing lessons I re-remembered over the month that I think others (and my future self) will find fruitful:

Let yourself wander. Outlines and plans are marvelous things, I wouldn’t have succeeded without either, but you have to let yourself deviate from them. This is one of my biggest issues, I always worry about the amount of editing I’m possibly creating for myself later on when I wander from my outline or that I’m not getting to where I need to be fast enough. Those worries have no place during the initial writing process! Writing is part plan, part organic creation for me. I need to give myself permission to simply write, to let the words lead me where they will. I’ve talked about this topic before, here, and I need to keep reminding myself.

Have a side project to cleanse the writing pallet. I made sure I had other story ideas ready to go before NaNo started because one of my biggest concerns was hitting a wall with my main WIP and not being able to climb over it. However, I worried in fear. I had one day where I worked on a different story for 40 minutes before I returned to my novel. At no point did my words stop flowing mid-writing session. I still think it’s important to have a different piece to work on in order to clear your head space, especially if you’re handling difficult topics or emotions. Whatever keeps your flow going, do it.

Creating is exhausting. Writing is exhausting, period. It’s rewarding, but nothing drains my mental batteries like writing. I can’t do anything that requires thinking after extended writing. Planning ahead if you suffer from this is a must.

Stretch and move. Getting out of your chair and getting your blood flowing are essential to the creative process. If writing is mentally exhausting, it’s just as difficult physically. Just think about the your basic writing position: back arched over keyboard, arms and shoulders folded tightly inwards, eyes almost unblinking and laser focused on small print, neck held stiff with your head titled forward. It’s hard on your body. Be nice to your body.

Breaks are undervalued. See the two points above? Mental and physical fatigue come hand in hand with writing for me, and I would assume you? Breaks are not only important to schedule so that you have an opportunity to stretch, but your mind needs the boost too. Plus activity boosts brain power! I found the days that I started writing earlier and allowed myself more and longer periods of rest turned into my highest word count days.

Be tired and unmotivated, but write anyway. In all of November I skipped one non-voluntary designated writing day because I was genuinely ill and it just wasn’t happening. But there were other days over the course of the month where I felt beyond tired and completely unmotivated to write. I sat at my desk, stared at my computer and said, “I really don’t want to do this today.” However, I made a deal with myself. I set my timer for 30 minutes, my regular sprint time, and I’d see how things went. Guess what? Once I started, I hit my goal on each of those days. Starting is the hardest part, but you get into it, and it’s really not so bad. Even if I’d only ended up writing for the first 30 minutes, those would have been words I hadn’t had before. Every word counts.

Set the bar low, but aim high. This point is all about my mental perception, and it won’t work for you if you’re not a writer who sets a daily word goal. I find that if I set aside a day to write without any set goal to accomplish I get absolutely nothing done. Nothing. NaNo was all about the math and hitting small writing day targets in order to hit the big goal for the month. I have learned the hard way that every day I set aside to write I need to have a goal in mind. And it must be a goal I know I can crush but feel satisfied with when I make it. That happy endorphin buzz I get from winning cannot be undervalued –positive reinforcement goes a long way. Challenge yourself, but don’t place the bar out of reach.

Speaking of NaNo math…

Work writing into your schedule, don’t schedule around writing. This is something that counters a lot of writing advice I hear regularly, but it’s one that fits my reality. I have a day job, chores, and social engagements that take up a lot of my time. I can’t get out of them. Even if I were to someday write full-time, the other aspects of life would still get in the way. The first NaNo I did in 2013 involved me working my whole month around word goals. Monday to Friday every week I had huge numbers to hit, and I did because I wasn’t working at the time. I did the same this time around, allotted myself extra time by taking a week off work, but I’m not going to have that opportunity every month going forward –and damn straight I want to keep up my writing now that I’m in the habit of it. I can’t schedule my existence around writing. It’s not conceivable for me at this time, but I can squeeze it in, and that’s going to have to work for now.

NaNoWriMo was long and exhausting, but far more rewarding than I anticipated. Not only did I write 2/3 of my starting WIP, I wrote 1/3 of book two in my series. My big picture plan came to fruition in that the challenge got my creative juices flowing, I’m jonesing to get back to my two manuscripts and I don’t recall the last time I felt this way. I desperately want to hold onto it -that’s my major win.

How did your NaNoWriMo 2015 challenge go?

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Book Release! Crash and Burn Comic Prologue

This last week has been insane. Long days of work and more work on comic followed by a great launch event on Friday evening, December 4th.

And now I am going to share it here!

The first issue of the Crash and Burn comic has been ebookified! The Crash and Burn Prologue is live. It was a totally different experience to set up a comic ebook than it was for a non-fiction one (Novel Marketing). If you want to see what I have been up to, please visit Crash and Burn or buy the prologue of the comic at any of the retailers below:

Gumroad

Kobo

Smashwords

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