My last blog reflected on my writing activities during 2019 and how well they met my stated goals for the year. In the final analysis, I largely achieved what I had hoped and will pursue any loose ends as my writing commitments for 2020 begin.
With January lost to the void of bushfire overload, I am pressing on without further delay. First steps will be as follows:
- Submit my memoir manuscript submission package to my chosen publisher by the end of this week
- Submit my poetry chapbook manuscript to the online competition I have in mind
What else will I do in 2020?
- Follow through with the publishing process of my memoir manuscript – whether with my hoped-for publisher or by taking other steps
- Work towards publication of two poetry manuscripts
- Dedicate some time each day to move my mixed-genre manuscript forward
- Summarise notes and plans for possible novellas and write at least one
- Continue to enter writing competitions, especially those that most relate to my major writing projects
- Post on my website at least six time each month – writing blog, writing exercises and tips, musings blog, poetry, and so on…
- Expand social media presence
- Embrace book promotion
Having identified my overall goals, it is time to draw up monthly and weekly work schedules to keep me focussed and on track. These will be reassessed and adjusted wherever necessary periodically throughout the year.
I am calling this a transition year. My sense is that I’m in the right place on my Writer’s Journey to take a leap of faith (or is that a giant step?) to bridge the gap between my passion for writing and small achievements, and my dream of bigger works coming to fruition.
2019 finished on a high for me with the delivery of The Ancestral Searcher Vol. 42 No. 4 –the journal of The Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra Inc. (HAGSOC), the founders of the E M Fletcher Writing Award.
Cover photograph features the cottage referred to in my story
View of Cattle Bay, Eden. (https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-148637935)
At HAGSOC’s 55th Anniversary Celebrations in October, I was announced the overall winner of this competition for my story All At Sea. The competition brought together two of my great loves – genealogy and writing. It called for a short story with a genealogy theme and I was inspired to dramatise a small piece of my ancestral history, thus giving voice to these special people (my great-grandmother and my great-great-grandmother) a hundred and fifty years on.
My success with this story and seeing it in print has increased my confidence in my mixed-genre exploration of the lives of the ‘great’ women of my heritage and of their generations per se, and the impact these women had on the survival and development of society as we know it. All At Sea forms part of this manuscript.
I am excited about the direction my writing is headed in 2020 and beyond!
My winning story, All At Sea, can be found here
HAGSOC website: https://familyhistoryact.org.au/
This post also relates to my Blog ~ Reflection On My Writing Year, Writing Exercise #26 ~ Take Stock Of Your Writing Goals and Short Story ~ All At Sea.
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