Beautiful People 2016 Writerly Goals

 Beautiful People is a link-up hosted by Sky and Cait. Each month they post a list of ten questions to help writers get to know their characters better. I've seen their posts around the interwebs a lot, and always want to participate, but haven't gotten around to it. But that all changes.... today! (Which is good, because this particular month's link-up closes after tomorrow... as January is practically over).So, without further ado, the first list of questions for 2016:  1. What were your writing achievements last year?I wanted to publish Yorien's Hand. Edit Minstrel's Call, publish Minstrel's Call, edit my Cinderella story, and edit Orb and the Airship. I also wanted to participate in the April A-Z blogging challenge and blog 2-3 times a week and have more fun writing than I've ever had before!I know the question doesn't ask this... but I only actually accomplished two of those goals. I published Yorien's Hand (though technically in 2016, all the work was done by the end of 2015), and I had an absolute blast writing. What I did not foresee was winning the Five Enchanted Roses contest, which ate up pretty much the first half of my year! But I learned so much from that contest and had so much fun with it and met some new writing friends through it, that I can only be thankful that it interrupted my other writing plans!2. Tell us about your top priority writing project for this year?My top priority writing project for this year is Minstrel's Call! I have a tentative release time-frame in my head for that one, but it's so ambitious and life tends to get in the way, that I don't want to say anything yet... but I'm hoping we can cut the "two years between books" time frame down a bit!3. List 5 areas you’d like to work the hardest to improve this year.1 - I'd definitely like to work on my diligence and dedication to my writing. I had a couple of month-long hiatuses from any writing or editing at all last year, and mostly it was just a lack of motivation and me being lazy that caused them.2 - I want to work on outlining and plotting more before I dive into the drafting stage of any given story I might be working on this year.3 - I want to work on honing my writing of characters, paying special attention to how I write what is going on inside each character's head and how I communicate with the reader what a character is thinking and feeling as they are doing whatever it is they are doing in each story.4 - I want to work on my narrative. I tend to shy away from narrative because any time I begin writing it a little high-pitched alarm-sounding voice starts screeching inside my head, "SHOW! Don't TELL! SHOW! Don't TELL!" but that doesn't mean all narrative is bad or that you should never write it.5 - And finally, I want to spend less time on facebook, and more time working on my stories.4. Are you participating in any writing challenges?Not this year. I am focusing on my own stories and building my portfolio.5. What's your critique partner/beta reader situation like and do you have plans to expand this year?I have been invited to come to a critique group near where I live, and I am excited about that prospect. As far as beta readers go, I am always interested in expanding and growing that number, but I currently have the absolute best beta readers in the whole wide world (seriously, they're awesome, and I'm not naming them here because I don't want to share them). More nit-picky people to help with proof-reading in the final stages of publishing would be awesome, though.6. Do you have plans to read any writer-related books this year? Or are there specific books you want to read for research?Um. Not really.7. Pick one character you want to get to know better, and how are you going to achieve this?I definitely need to get to know a lot of characters in the Orb and the Airship story better. Specifically the secondary characters... but the main characters, as well. I'm sorry, I work with large casts and I absolutely cannot pick just one to focus on, even for this blog post! I plan to do this by continuing to work on the outline for the entire series (as of right now, I have 5 books in that series planned out... as my husband and I have spent the better part of the last two weeks working very hard on the outline for this series. I don't want to take it book-by-book. I want to know the main points (if not the entire outline) for each book before I begin drafting book 2, so that I can just write this series out as quickly and cleanly as possible.8. Do you plan to edit or query, and what’s your plan of attack?I plan to edit a lot! My plan of attack is pretty much to do what I did last year (sans the Five Enchanted Roses contest) and work as hard as I can on Minstrel's Call in the content-edit stages so that I can get that story polished and published and in the hands of my readers.9. Toni Morrison once said, “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” What are the books that you want to see more of, and what “holes” do you think need filling in the literary world?I would love to see more fantasy and sci-fi books aimed at families who love to read out loud together. I have a great love for adventure tales that can be shared with the whole family and enjoyed by an extremely wide age-range. I think there are a lot of other authors noticing this "gap" in the literary world and working to fill it, but I also believe that there is a huge audience hungry for more of this type of story.10. What do you hope to have achieved by the end of 2016?Last year's list of goals was ridiculously over-ambitious... so this year, I'm going to keep it simple. I hope to have Minstrel's Call through the beta-reading stage by the end of 2016. I also know that when Minstrel's Call is out to the line editor and beta readers, that I will have a few months of "down time" from that story, so I would also like to have all of the sequel to Orb and the Airship drafted by the end of 2016. Anything else I accomplish will just be icing. That was fun! Do you have any writing or editing goals this year? Does anything on my list sound especially intriguing? I'd love to hear from you, dear Reader!