Category: The Blog

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Thirteen Goals for 2008Since I blogged about 2007 for TT#50, I thought I’d make a list of some of my goals for 2008. What do you hope to accomplish in 2008? 1. Write every day. This is tricky, because not every day is going to yield new words, even if I’m working really hard on a story. That’s okay. When I’m in draft mode, I want 1K a day. Otherwise, I’ll be doing some part of writing every day, whether it’s career related (updating the website, requesting reviews) or revisions. 2. Write 300K. 3. Write another draft of Arcana (formerly RHP), polish in first quarter 2008, and query. 4. Write another draft of Night Sun Rising (the NaNoWriMo novel), polish in second quarter 2008, and query. 5. Editor revisions (completed the third pass 12/31/2007, so this one’s close!) and promotion on The Fire Within. 6. Editor revisions and promotion on The Rose of Shanhasson. 7. Editor revisions and promotion on Beautiful Death. 8. Develop a revision plan to extend Letters to An English Professor from long novella to single title length. 9. Finish a first draft of ANTs (may get bumped to the bottom of the list, but it bugs me because this story is 75% finished). 10. Write The Road to Shanhasson (not sure of timing yet). 11. Write at least one short story to give away as a free read. 12. Revise the website for quicker downloads and easier maintenance (done last night!). 13. Read 52 books.

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Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

New Year, new website design.

I went for the clean, simple, streamlined look. I need to update a few more pages, but the core pages (like Survive My Fire) are finished. What are your thoughts? Does it load faster? Anything broken? Is there anything else you’d like to see?

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

A new year is a new beginning, but often fraught with regrets about the past year. I regret that my diet plan has gone out the window and I pretty much have to start all over again. I regret that I squandered a few months last year and didn’t write a thing. I regret that I never made it to the theatre to see Clive Owen in Shoot ‘Em Up.

But hey, it’s a new year, a new chance, a new beginning. (And Clive is on DVD.) I don’t do “resolutions” really; I set goals every month. But January does give me the opportunity to sit down, think ahead, and try and guess what the year will hold. In the 2007 farewell, I wrote that I wanted to write every day, consistently. That’s the key determining factor for the year’s success.

My goals for 2008 are as follows:

1. Write 300K.
2. Finish the second draft of RHP (now titled Arcana) and submit.
3. Finish the second draft of NSR (the NaNoWriMo novel) and submit.
4. Write the second book in the Shanhasson series. I could call this “second draft” since I do have a first draft of the story; however, I wrote it back in 2003! Needless to say, a few things have changed since then.
5. Decide what to do with Letters, and thus with ANTs. They’re my “Bubble” projects for the year.

Of course, I’ll also have editor revisions and promotional activities for The Fire Within, The Rose of Shanhasson, and Beautiful Death. I need to get excerpts on the website, prepare ARCs, request reviews…

I’m also going to exercise more and work on a more balanced approach to food and health.

Here’s to a crazy, exciting, busy year!