Allyson Whipple

Category: goals

  • Exceeding expectations

    Back in December, I set myself several writing goals for 2012. One was to submit a total of 52 poems in 2012.

    Tonight, while trying to decide where I wanted to submit some writing, I took a look at my WritersDB.com home page and found that I’ve already well exceeded my plan for the year.

    That’s correct! I have submitted a total of 70 poems so far in 2012! Which means theoretically, I could stop now, having accomplished my goal. But of course that’s not going to happen. Eight months without submitting anything? That wouldn’t do me any good at all. It’s just nice to know that I’ve already more than taken care of one item in my list so early in the year. Especially because I’m a little behind on the prose aspects of my list…

     

  • New year, new goals

    I turned twenty-eight yesterday! Huzzah! And with that comes an update of my page of life goals. Now I have twenty-eight things I want to do before I turn twenty-nine. Except I currently only have twenty-one. But as it says on the page, I have a whole year to come up with stuff.

    I thought about copying the “27 Goals” list and going through what I did and did not accomplish, but I decided against it, for a couple of reasons. First, there were a lot of things on the list I started at 27 (learning math, starting a west coast swing routine) that were too large in scope to finish before I turned 28 (with the routine, it was largely because I started so late in my year). But I don’t consider myself to have failed at goals-in-progress. In addition, there were some goals I didn’t accomplish because I made them soon after I turned 27, and as my year progressed, they became less and less important for one reason or another.

    I put my monthly goals on this blog in order to have some level of accountability (and you will notice some overlap between the items on this list and the things I report on at the start of each month). But many of the 28 Goals are just for fun, and I don’t want to report on every single success or failure. So enjoy the list, check back periodically to see what gets crossed off, and enjoy my adventures!

  • March Accomplishments

    March was a busy month! I ended up not being as productive as I would have liked, but considering how frantic I was, I’m pretty pleased with what I did pull of. Here’s what I ended up doing this month:

    • Wrote 41 poems
    • Submitted 24 poems
    • Submitted my chapbook manuscript
    • Finished the March stage of my ghostwriting project
    • Made progress on completing my unfinished short stories, as well as submitting three of them
    • Began doing research for NaNoWriMo 2012 (Yes, I know it’s months away. But my idea is going to require a lot of research, so it’s best if I start now.)

    I did not:

    • Complete a first draft of a new fiction piece
    • Do enough research on the epic poem I plan to write this month. Oh well. I’ll be writing it anyway. I can always fill in the gaps during the revision process.
    • Finish my poetry table.

    I wasn’t as productive as I would have liked, but considering how busy I was and just how many weekends were devoted to either a wedding or dance, I did pretty well for myself. April is a new month, and though I’m busy with dance stuff, it’s pretty much all local. There’s the possibility for a Dallas rehearsal at some point, but not until after the Austin competition mid-month.

    So here’s what I hope to accomplish during National Poetry Month:

    • Continue my regular write/revise/submit poetry practice
    • Finish one more in-progress fiction piece and submit it
    • Continue with my NaNoWriMo 2012 research
    • Finish my poetry table
    • Take a second stab at writing my epic poem.

    My literary year is definitely shaping up! Even though only a handful of the poems I write are ones I choose for further revision and submission (5-10), I’m well on my way to having a first draft of a full collection  by the end of the year. That, ultimately, is what I want. Not that I don’t want to be successful with fiction or my NaNoWriMo project, but poetry has always been my first love, and I feel like things are finally starting to move in the direction I want. Eyes on the prize!

  • February Accomplishments

    February didn’t feel all that productive at the beginning, but I was working at a pretty good clip at the end. Here’s what I accomplished:

    • Wrote 31 poems
    • Submitted 11 poems
    • Submitted my chapbook manuscript twice
    • Finished the February stage of my ghostwriting project
    • Attended both February Wingbeats workshops
    • Went through my fiction folder and organized all the prose drafts in various stages of completeness, and made progress revising some of them.

    I did not:

    • Complete a draft of a prose piece
    • Finish revisions to my epic poem. However, I at least have a good reason for that. While attempting to revise, I realized that the draft was more of a practice piece. After reading Bryce Milligan’s Alms for Oblivion, I realized what my epic poem could be, and that the draft I had written was not working toward that ultimate goal. That was more like a long prewriting session. I’ve decided to trunk the epic poem for March and return to it in April. Making progress on the new version of that piece will be my goal for National Poetry Month.

    Here’s what’s on the docket for March:

    • Continue my regular write/revise/submit practice
    • Finish a first draft of a fiction piece
    • Continue to make progress on my list of fiction-in-progress
    • Do reading and brainstorming for the epic poem, so I’ll be ready with ideas when April arrives
    • Finish my poetry table project

    I’m tempted to add more goals, but March is going to be a busy month for my non-writing life as well. My dance partner is getting married, and I’m a bridesmaid (plus I’m organizing his fianceé’s bachelorette party). And the weekend after that, I have a dance competition. So the first three weekends of March are booked solid. So I’ve probably planned enough.

  • January Accomplishments

    January did not go as planned, and I let myself get sidetracked. But it was a conscious decision to let things slide. As Fiona Robyn wrote earlier this week, real life sometimes interferes with your plans. And you can’t always force your mind or heart to carry those plans out. And as Kelli Russell Agodon wrote at some point recently, even if you don’t complete a goal, trying and getting something done is better than doing nothing at all.

    But here is what I did manage to accomplish, in spite of everything:

    • Wrote 49 poems, 30 of which were small stones for the River of Stones challenge
    • Submitted 18 poems
    • Submitted my chapbook to 2 competitions
    • Went out on a limb and applied for a creative writing fellowship (not part of my initial goals, but I decided to follow my heart when the opportunity came up)
    • Submitted a short story
    • Completed Kelli Russel Agodon’s Poetry Resolution Party
    • Attended one of the Wingbeats writing workshops 

    But, I let a few things slide:

    • While I did write a lot of poems, I did not sit down to write every day
    • I did not actually write 31 small stones for the River of Stones challenge
    • I did not complete any drafts of prose pieces
    • I did not complete the revisions of my epic poem

    Ultimately, though, taking a pass on January was the best thing I could have done for myself. I’m ready to start February anew. Here is what I plan to accomplish:

    • Continue my regular writing, revising, and submitting practice
    • Finish a ghostwriting project I have under contract. No, I can’t say anything else about it. I’m Casper-ing it up!
    • Complete a draft of a prose piece
    • Complete the first round of revisions of my epic poem
    • Attend at least one of the February Wingbeats workshops
    • Go through all the neglected prose drafts on my hard drive and decide which ones are worth finishing and which should be trunked indefinitely
    • Make progress on at least one of the prose drafts that I have decided to keep

  • Goals for 2012, Part 2: Writing

    As I mentioned in my previous post, I tend to be overambitious, and set more goals than I can possibly achieve. But I’d rather try to do all I can and set my sights too low. So without further ado, here are my writing plans for 2012, with my focus still on poetry (I don’t plan on this changing in 2012, but if it does, these goals can and will be revised).

    Writing

    1. Write 365 poems
    2. Write 6 short stories
    3. Write 6 essays
    4. Finish a first draft of a full poetry collection
    5. Finish my one-act play

     

    Submitting

    1. Submit my chapbook twice a month
    2. Submit 52 poems
    3. Submit 3 stories
    4. Submit 3 fiction pieces
    5. Submit my one-act play

     

    Writing Challenges

    1. Complete the River of Stones project in January (these do not count towards my daily poems)

      2. Find a meaningful way to participate in National Poetry Writing Month (which is concurrent with National Poetry Month in April), since I’m already writing a poem a day. Maybe I’ll use the month to write another epic poem (“Another epic poem?” you ask. Yes, another epic poem. I know, you don’t know about the first epic poem yet. I’ll get around to writing about it eventually. But it’s a very rough draft at the moment.)

    2. Give National Novel Writing Month another try

     

    Continuing Education

    1. Participate in Kelli Russell Agodon’s New Year’s Poetry Resolution Party, which Jon gave me as a holiday gift. It’s odd to say that someone gave me a class, but it’s true! And I’m very excited for the opportunity.
    2. Participate in at least two of the Wingbeats workshops being held in Austin early this year. I know I’ll be out of town for at least one, but I want to make it to the rest. Yes, I already have the Wingbeats book, but getting to do the exercises in a communal setting is also a worthwhile experience.
    3. Attend at least four workshops at the Austin International Poetry Festival.
    4. Find and participate in at least two more opportunities for further writing development.

     

  • Goals for 2012, Part 1: Reading

    I’m going to start out by saying that the goals I’m setting for myself for 2012 are ambitious. And I’m not going to meet all of them. That will be in part because my goals will change more than once throughout the year. Plus, I simply don’t have time to do every single thing I want to do. That’s life. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to aim high. Life is short, so I’m going to do all I can to make the most of it.

    I’ve always been a reader, though since graduate school, I’ve mostly read for fun, without any specific goal in mind. I found that in 2011, I missed reading with some sort of intention. So I’ve set some reading plans for 2012, with an emphasis on the fact that my writing life is focused on the cultivation of poetry.

    1. Read 52 poetry collections or chapbooks
    2. Read 12 novels or short story collections
    3. Read 12 nonfiction books or essay collections
    4. Read 12 books about writing
    5. Read a year’s worth of the following periodicals: American Short Fiction, Bat City Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, The Kenyon Review, and Poets & Writers magazine

    I’ve never particularly enjoyed writing book reviews, but I will want to share what I read, so I think my plan will be to do a roundup at the end of every month of all the books I read, with some way to note the ones I found particularly worthwhile.

    Coming up next: my (very ambitious) writing plans for 2012…

  • Tracking Submissions: A New Approach

    I’ve been seriously writing and submitting since April of 2009, and was briefly using the submission tracker at Duotrope’s Digest to track my work. But as much as I love Duotrope, their particular tracker didn’t work for me (they’re still one of my favorite places to find submission listings, though). So I switched to a spreadsheet of my own design, which worked find for quite a while. But now, 2.5 years later, it’s just not working for me anymore. It was fine back then, but I need something new.

    Over at the Speakeasy writer’s forum, I put up a post asking for suggestions, and someone suggested I try Sonar3, a submission tracking software. Since it’s a free program, I decided to give it a whirl. For the past two weeks, I’ve been updating my market listings and adding them to the software, and using it to track my poems.

    So far, I mostly like what I’ve experienced, though it’s not completely ideal. But the interface (though sparse) is intuitive and user-friendly. Manually entering all of my market entries has been a bit tedious, but not all that bad. It’s easy for me to see which poems are out for submission and which are waiting to go to a journal.

    The only major downside is that it assumes I’m submitting to journals and not contests. When I was working with my spreadsheet, I had a separate page for journals and a separate page for contests. Having those markets on two different lists worked well for me. Sonar3 puts all the markets in one long list. My workaround is to label contest listing with [CONTEST] so they’re grouped in order, but then I still have to go and manually delete them so they don’t sit in the system forever. Really, this isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it’s not quite as efficient as I’d like.

    Minor drawbacks aside, this is the best new system I’ve found so far. The other option is to redesign my spreadsheet and create something of my own, but so far, Sonar3 seems to be working well enough, so I think I’ll stay with it for a while.

  • November Accomplishments

    November was a tough month for my writing. Between moving, having out-of-town guests, and traveling to New Orleans for Thanksgiving, it was a struggle to get things done. But I kept my regular writing habit up nonetheless.

    In terms of successes:

    • Wrote 41 poems
    • Submitted 13 poems (5 rejected; 10 pending)
    • Submitted the chapbook manuscript to two competitions
    • Continued adding potential poems to my manuscript folder
    • Managed to complete the move, despite issues with our old place and the various utility companies being completely difficult.

    In terms of failures:

    • I did not accomplish that nonfiction project, because at the last minute I decided to spend November writing my horror story idea for NaNoWriMo….
    • ….And then I dropped NaNoWriMo. Oops.

    Still, not every month can be perfect. Things happen. Sometimes life does get in the way. What matters is that I kept up my daily poetry practice, and thus managed to keep my focus on my primary creative endeavor.

    And now for my December goals:

    • Maintain my regular poetry practice, which includes writing, submitting, and working towards the development of my next collection.
    • Actually write a draft of one of three prose projects I have bouncing around in my head.
    • Develop a new system for tracking my writing submissions. The one I had worked for almost three years, but for some reason, it’s not serving me well anymore. I want to experiment with a few new methods so I start the New Year off organized.

  • October Accomplishments

    I was slightly less productive in October than I was in September, but only slightly:

    • Wrote 41 poems
    • Submitted 7 poems
    • Submitted my chapbook manuscript to two competitions
    • Started assembling a folder of potential poems for my next manuscript
    • Started a spreadsheet to keep track of writing guides and whether or not they helped me
    • Figured out a good work/life balance. Finally. That only took six months.
    • Completed October Unprocessed (I’m typing this as I eat a completely unprocessed yet utterly decadent mushroom and zucchini lasagna).
    I did not get around to developing a recording system for chapbooks/poetry collections I’ve read and liked, but I’m beginning to think that’s not necessary.
    Goals for November:
    • Continue with my regular plan of daily poetry writing, weekly poetry submissions, and biweekly chapbook submissions
    • Continue developing my folder for the new manuscript
    • Begin a long nonfiction project I’ve been thinking about since April
    • Do research for the coolest horror story ever. I can’t wait to write it. But it’s the kind of thing I want to prepare for first.
    • Survive the move to our new townhouse relatively unscathed