Today begins a new Round of Words in 80 Days, which means a new set of goals to carry me through to the end of the year. This last round is always a little awkwardly placed for me, because NaNoWriMo tends to fall smack dab in the middle of it. With that taken into consideration, I have two types of goals this round: Monthly (October, November, December, respectively) and then Roundly (other goals that don’t end with the months and stretch the full 80 days). Here’s what I’m hoping to accomplish:
Monthly Goals:
October: Finish Madeline rough draft. Following my usual model of about 200 pages to a book, I should have the draft of Madeline finished if I can do six pages a day. This is actually good prep for November, since six pages a day is what I’ll have to do for my NaNo project. It’s not imperative that I finish it in October, but it would be pretty sweet having another manuscript down. So six pages a day until November.
November: Finish Heartless. November is National Novel Writing Month, and, this year, I’ll be using it to churn out the next book in The Slayer Saga, Heartless. I’m finishing up the outline, and I can’t wait for November to start so I can get it going. It’s going to be a wild ride and I’m sure fans of Soulless (all four of you!) will really love…and be utterly shocked by. Six pages a day should get me to the NaNo goal of 50,000 words.
December: Finish World Unknown Review. By now, I should have had enough time to comb through the submissions for World Unknown Review (have you sent yours yet??) and get them all together and ready for publication on December 31st. Madeline and Heartless will be tucked away until after the new year, unless the formatting doesn’t take me too long. If I can get an earlier deadline (December 15th, perhaps, in time for the holidays!), that would be awesome. And then I’ll use the rest of December to transcribe one of the two novels.
Full-Round Goals:
Short Stories: I want to keep going on the short stories thing, especially since I’ve gotten some really good ones started in the downtime at work. Since I’m doing heavy scribbling on big novel projects, I’m taking this one back to submitting a story per week, though I’d love to be able to do a little more than that.
Reading: My reading has been neglected lately, but now that I’m settled in the new apartment, there’s no excuse. So I’ve resolving to read at least a chapter a day. Pretty do-able. Hopefully, it’ll help me burn through some books by the end of the year.
Have you set your goals for this round yet? What are you most excited to work on?
Happy Round 4, everyone!
L.S. Engler 
great goals!! I’m sure you can do it.
My goals are all set. And oddly, what I’m most excited to work on, I didn’t even set as a goal. I didn’t plan to work on it until sometime next year, but the character won’t leave me alone. So, I think I’ll be slipping him in as my NaNo for this year.
That sounds like a good set of goals! Good luck with them and with NaNo!
Nice goals! They all sound doable, and I know you can accomplish them. I look forward to Heartless to see how that story continues. And good luck with NaNo!