Writerly Report Card

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

It occurs to me that I haven't really checked in on any of the goals that I set back in November. Since December got really messy and unproductive, I'm going to cheat and only hold myself accountable for January.

Submissions:
I got an excellent rejection letter from one of the lit mags that I queried back in November. Excellent in that I actually got a personal note that encouraged me to send more stuff (even though they didn't take this particular story). It's a bit confusing to explain how a rejection letter can be a good thing, but it is. Really.

On the other hand, I need to step up on my submissions. December and January passed without sending anything out.

Writing:
I've been doing really well on my writing goals. I completed a two first drafts last month and am on my way to completing one this month. Now I need to turn at least one of those first drafts into second draft. I'd hoped to do so for next week's writing group, but I've failed. Instead they're reviewing two stories that I hope to be sending out to lit mags next month.

The freewriting wasn't as helpful as I thought. While I was in the midst of writing stories, I did some freewriting, but I actually found it distracting. I'll give it another month before I decide whether or not to remove it from my goals.

Reading / Study:
This is going well, though I tend to spend more time on book group selections or research than in going through any particular canon. In any case, being a part of the short story reading challenge will keep me reading authors that I don't have much experience with. Still, I could probably step this up a little bit.

Overall, I'd say things are going along swimmingly. There's still plenty of room for improvement, of course, but I am really happy to be producing new work again. Right now, I want to focus on making that the rule rather than the exception and getting my productivity back to what it was during the MFA years.

So far, so good.