Tag: writing goals

Bucket List Visit

We went on a trip to Wisconsin for summer vacation and as a side trip, we stopped in Madison and visited a former professor of mine from when I was at Mississippi State University; he’s now at University of Wisconsin-Madison. We haven’t seen each other in thirty years, but we’ve stayed in touch on and off through that time (basically the whole time the Internet was being invented around us).

We had a great visit, and at the end of it, he said something that will stick with me, I think. He said he admired my persistence and always had.

That will keep me going for a while.

Writing Resolutions

I’m not typically much for New Year’s Resolutions. I tend to take a random day out of the year and think over the past year’s successes and then make a list of ways to improve whatever it was I felt could use more work in my life (I usually do this on my birthday).

But I am finding myself trying to think of ways to improve the writing experience for next year regardless.

–I plan to start back my podcast Imaginary People, Places, and Things. https://anchor.fm/julie-liddell-whitehead

It’s a podcast of short Southern fiction by various writers, but mostly by me. I have a pretty long short story I want to serialize for it. I am of two minds if I want to do it weekly (like I did last year) or monthly for this year. I am going to have to think on that some more.

–I have fifteen more presses I want to send Hurricane Baby to in the new year. I have them written out with the day the press opens to submissions again and will start sending out when we get back from Florida visiting my oldest daughter’s family during New Year’s.

Depending of course on what kind of responses I get between here and next year :). I figure a lot of people will try to clear their inboxes before the end of the year, so I am bracing for a lot of rejections in the next two weeks as well.

–I want to read more books in the New Year. I plan to take my new books into the bathroom and read while I am soaking in the tub to relax after taking a bath. I hope that will help stir my creativity more in the new year as well.

–I also want to complete my new story idea in a first draft by this time next year. I’m not sure where I’m going to squeeze in the extra writing, but either I am serious about it or I’m not. Long past time for getting serious about it if I’m going to do it.

What are your new writing resolutions for the new year?