My 2023 Writing Plan

At the end of every year, many of us reflect on what has passed (See my 2022 reflection post here). How have we changed, and how have we stayed the same? This year, my reflections brought to mind how much I’ve grown as a writer. Not only did I complete my first series, but I also did it through my new job as a ghostwriter! That’s right, folks, I got paid for my writing!

I learned so much through my experience, but one of the most important lessons was that I can’t improve if I don’t practice. With that in mind, I’ve given myself some big, but achievable, goals for the year ahead! Yes, I realize that this post is going up a little late (February already!?), but it’s still something I wanted to share now that I’m becoming more active on my website again.

Writing my first full series taught me several things about the way that I work best. I learned that I actually can draft a complete, 25,000-word novella in less than two weeks. I learned that I can draft 4 such novellas back to back. I also learned that doing so is an excellent way to get creative burnout. That's a lesson I'll be taking with me into 2023.

My goal for myself this year– which I came up with in December as the ghostwritten series was drawing to a close– is to complete a novella draft of at least 20,000 words once every month for the entire year. It’s a reasonable amount of work to expect from myself that will promote consistency without as much of a risk of burnout.

Twelve completed drafts would also give me a great starting point for building a backlist and launching my author career for real! Of course, I had no editing goals, let alone publishing goals in that plan. After all, my goal last year was to publish something– ANYTHING– while I was still 25 years old. That was it. I met that goal, but I wanted something a little more ambitious without going overboard.

Well, if you know me, then you’ll know that going overboard is kind of my MO. Historically, I haven’t had much success with outlining and drafting the same story without petering out and getting bored. For the first 6 books I had intended to draft this year, though, I had a super basic idea/outlineish thing prepared.

One novella for each month of the year. That’s the plan. I did, however, give myself a little wiggle room in that plan. Should I receive a new ghostwriting contract, which has already been promised by the client, then the novellas I write for them in half the time I planned for myself will also count as my monthly goal. That way, I may not achieve my 12 novella backlist, but at least I won’t be so overworked that I can’t stand to write another word for myself. That’s the hope, anyway.

As you’ll learn in my Q1 update post, my mind is a fickle thing and often amends the ways in which I plan to achieve my goals. The base goal is still the same, but you’ll soon see what I mean. Still, I have a Google sheet already set up to track my word counts for the year. That way, if nothing else, I’ll be building a more consistent writing habit. That will be the real success.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by, and thank you for your support! If you’d like, come again to read my quarterly updates and keep me accountable! Or, you could even sign up as a subscriber and force me to actually send my updates out as a real and proper newsletter (real authors do that!). Here’s to an amazing 2023 for us all!