New Year, New Goals, New Plans

Welcome to 2018 and welcome to my new website!

Why don’t you  look around? I’ll wait…

2018 has finally arrived and now is the perfect time to reflect back on last year’s achievements before setting goals for this year. You can find my full website post for my 2017 goals here or look at my bullet points below:

Complete and submit my novel Empty Nights.

Tick. I submitted my novel to Mommashark press (an Indi publishing company) in October and they’re excited to publish. I’ll talk more about my novel later. If you’re interested in Mommashark press’s check out their website here.

Travel to France and Spain.

Both holidays were cancelled. It’s a shame but they weren’t essential, I’ve managed to remain a fully functioning human being.

Be published by two online magazines

My short story The Elixir Men was published in November of last year in Metamorphose’s Volume 3. You can buy a copy from their website. Unfortunately my pitch to Cracked.com was unsuccessful but the process of pitching to Cracked is incredibly tough so I’m not too upset.

Complete old goals from 2016. (Cut down on the unnecessary trips to McDonalds and other junk food providers and do more exercise.)

I’ve improved in these areas but not as much as I’d hoped. I’m really focusing on these goals next year.

 

Here are my goals for 2018.

 

Update website

Check. I’ve also got a Author’s Facebook Page (which you can see by clicking here) and at the end of each month I’ll be releasing a monthly newsletter listing any publications I’ve had and updating all subscribers on how my writing is progressing.

Submit a round of Short Stories

Last year I was almost solely focused on my novel and I only entered one short story competition (which I won so it’s a 100% success rate, right?) This year I want to enter several competitions and hopefully have several more stories published.

“A short story is a different thing altogether – a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.”

– Stephen King

Have a writing holiday

This is to make up for my two cancelled holidays last year. I’m going to take a Writer’s retreat to the south coast of England for one week and work on the first draft of my next novel, working title Ghost Train.

Ghost train is about Simon, a primary school teacher who last sees his wife Nicole leave for a job interview in London. When she disappears, Simon tries to discover what has happened to her. As Simon’s investigation progresses he finds himself framed for her murder and battles to undercover the truth.

Publish Empty Nights

The manuscript for Empty Nights is finished and has been sent out to my beta readers. When it is returned to me I’ll review the suggestions and then send it to the editors at Mommashark Press. I’m tentatively going to say that the publication date of Empty Nights will be mid 2018.

Continue Write Up Our Alley video series

If you’ve been following me on social media you’ll have noticed that I’ve been vlogging about writing. I’ve joined the Write Up Our Alley project, the concept is that for everyday of 2018 a video will be uploaded from one member of the group, in which we’ll talk about writing. The purpose of these videos is two-fold, we want to dispel the myth of what being a writer is like in the modern world and we want to promote our own work. My current videos are listed in the Write Up Our Alley tab at the top of the page.

 

 

Those are my writing related goals of 2018, what are your goals? Let me know on social media, in the comments down below and I’ll see you next time. Take care.