La-Tessa Montgomery

Hi all & thanks to all of you for your positive comments and emails you sent me in response to my first post of year, detailing my writing goals for 2009.  Some of you have been wondering (or just flat out asking me daily -LOL) how my progress is going.  So I decided to do a quick update on my progress.

Write for a hour a day, minimum

Ok, I have NOT been writing for a minimum of one hour a day–  with my hectic schedule this is just not always feasible.  BUT I do think I average close to an hour a day  since I’m able to write for several hours a few days a week.  Does that count? 

Ok, ok, I won’t start the year out with excuses– I’m actively working on getting that minimum hour a day, promise.  In fact, I’m currently trying out a few things that make it pretty simple for me to get this hour in a day.  But more talk on that later in the upcoming months.

Enter at least one contest this year

CHECK.  I entered a contest this month, yea!!!.  

It’s a weekly contest that ends in March, so I have until then to see if I am one of the weekly winners.   

I’m not resting on my laurels, though.  I do have at least more contest I want to enter and I’ll need 3 polished chapters for this one, so this one is the biggie.  The weekly contest was the “dip my toe in the pool”, slow introduction to the contest game.

Cycle through my craft books

I am currently about 15% through with Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass.   So far, it’s  excellent and full of key writing exercises that are proving very useful during my current project– the complete outline revision for my wip.  (I will spare you the details, but the story was just not working , so I had to institute some sweeping changes)

Thanks again to everyone for your support and encouragement.  So far, so good.

~La-Tessa
Someday I’ll fly, someday I’ll soar

Happy New Year’s to everyone.  I wish you all a successful, safe, and prosperous year.

I love January 1st, it’s one of my favorite days of each year.  The new year is always a time for reflection and goal setting for me.  When I look back on 2008, I see that I spent a good deal of time actively pursuing my goal of becoming a published author.  And for me, that entailed a lot of time spent reading, contemplating and learning about the actual craft of writing– with not so much actual writing getting done  .  But I wouldn’t call that a waste of time.  On the contrary, I now have a pretty solid base of knowledge and a good feel for both what I want to do, and what I need to do. 

Now, on to my goals.  My primary focus for 2009 will be on actual production.  Getting published is still my dream, but it is more of a long term goal at this point.  My immediate goal is to finish a completed manuscript or two.  So with all this in mind, I set my 2009 writing goals with actual production in mind. 

1. Write for a hour a day, minimum
2. Have at least 2 completed manuscripts by Dec 31, 2009
3. Query/submit at least one manuscript this year
4. Enter at least one contest this year
5. Cycle through my craft books

By working towards 100% acheivement of these goals, I hope to learn more about myself as a writer, and as a person.   I will tag all future entries concerning my writing goals [the achievements and lack there ofs ] with the Goal tag so you can easily get pull them up from the tag cloud.

~La-Tessa
“Someday I’ll fly, someday I’ll soar”