A New Game Plan to Avoid Moral Victories

Now some of you may know that I'm a football fan. A huge watch-whatever-game-is-on football fan. I've watched a lot of not-so-good football teams play tough against really good teams. The fans and the commentators always say "Well, they played tough. The [INSERT LOSING TEAM HERE] can grow and learn from this. That was a real moral victory."

Bah, I say. A loss is a loss is a loss is a loss. And losing is no fun. It is hateful. It makes you want to cry and pout. Although I do not recommend doing it on national TV. The commentators will make fun of you. See this poor guy as an example.

How does this relate to writing? Funny you should ask. I've had too many moral victories as a writer. I've got to stop saying "At least, I wrote today. That's something." Or "I've got two first drafts. That is more than I had before." This is not the kind of thinking that a successful writer has. I've been writing "seriously" for three years, but I've not sent out a single query letter. I have had the "Wait until next year mentality" for far too long.

No longer will this be the case. I'm changing my game plan.

I'm giving myself deadlines and am making myself publicly accountable for those deadlines.. I'm stating here that this is what I have to do this year. Look for regular scoring updates throughout the coming year.

Game Plan for This week: Write 6,000 new words.

Game Plan for the Rest of the Season:

1. Finish a 90,000 word first draft of TDC by the end of January
   
2. Plot MLTM – World War II short during the first week in February
   
3. Write a 10,000 -15,000 word first draft of MLTM by the end of February
   
4. Read and EDITS the first draft of TDC by the end of February. Make Notes
   
5. Plot GL in April..
   
6. Complete the first pass of Revisions on TDC by the end of May
   
7. Submit TDC into the Maggies and other contests as time permits.
   
8. Read and EDITS the first draft of MLTM during the first week of June. Make notes.
   
9. Complete first pass of revisions on MLTM by end of June
   
10. Complete second pass of revisions on MLTM by the middle of July
    
11. Query MLTM by the beginning of August.
    
12. Complete a first draft of GL by mid October.
    
13. Complete second pass of revision for TDC by the end of September.
    
14. Cry and send my second born novel into the big bad world. Query TDC during the month of October.
    
15. Plot as yet unidentified novel during October.
    
16. November 1^st – NANO BEGINS!!!!!
    

Coffeehouse Ramblings

*crossposted to Modern Mythmakers*

Ok, I should have probably entitled this post "observations of a 31 year old in a college coffeehouse while feeling old", but that seemed like a really long title so I backed off of it. Tonight was the last night of the National Novel Writing Month and I hosted a Write to the Finish Line Write-in. I finished my 50K at around 9ish and didn't leave the coffeehouse until 11ish. That left me nearly two hours to people watch. Now as you know, I'm a writer. Some of you may not know that the word writer is a synonym for an "observer of life." It is also a synonym for nosy, but I like "observer of life" better.

Below are the things that I learned.

• According to the two twenty year-olds sitting next to me, Isn't it Ironic by Alanis Morisette is now an oldie. This made me sad…mostly because they're right. Jagged Little Pill is still one of my favorite albums and it is one of the first CDs that I purchased for myself. I remember buying it with my hard-earned baby-sitting money and driving to myself and my brother to tennis lessons while the songs from that album climbed the chart. Those kids in the coffee shop were probably 5 years old while I was listening to that album. SAD!!!!
  
• Some people think they can plan out their lives. Sitting directly across from me (conveniently enough for observation purposes) were two boy wonder medical students or would be medical students. I'm not sure which. One of them proceeded to describe to the other in detail the life that he wanted to have. My favorite quote. "I told my girlfriend that if we were still together in my second year. We should just go ahead and get married and then we'll have a few years together before we have a kid if she wants to." He wins for least romantic proposal ever.
  
• Same medical students. Another great quote. "One of my classmates is 39 years old. I don't want to be old like that before I find my passion." Deluded, deluded boys. I say better late than never.
  

That concludes my coffee shop observations for this evening. I think I will go grab my cane, my Ensure, and my arthritis medicine, and go to bed now. Good night!