2017 Year in Review

As an avid maker of lists, this is one of my favorite times of the year. After all, what are New Year’s resolutions but the mother of all to-do lists? I love the quiet space between Christmas and New Year’s because it allows for bundled-up reflections of the past year and frost-covered dreams of the next one. In that spirit, here are two lists, written in the soft glow of the Christmas tree lights as steam curled up from a mug of tea (or at least they should’ve been), two bullet-point beauties setting out my writing-related achievements of 2017 and goals for 2018.

2017 Writing Achievements:

  • Signed a contract with Clear Fork Publishing for publication of my first picture book
  • Sold a poem to Highlights
  • Sold two short stories to Spider
  • Launched my author website and joined Twitter
  • Attended my first SCBWI writing conference
  • Completed and queried a middle grade novel and received some positive agent feedback, including several requests for more material
  • Finished the second draft of a promising middle grade novel
  • Ended the year with an idea for a shiny new story just waiting to be fleshed out

2018 Writing Resolutions:

  • Prepare for and execute the launch of Bob (gulp!)
  • Attend at least one writing class, workshop, or conference
  • Read at least 15 new middle grade novels
  • Complete my middle grade WIP
  • Obtain a professional critique of my middle grade WIP (ok, this is cheating because I already paid for this, but still…)
  • Query my middle grade WIP once it’s ready (gulp again!)
  • Keep up with regular monthly blog posts (one down!)

This past year saw several significant milestones in my writing career – namely the promise of future publication. Next year, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be a published author! But perhaps more importantly, 2017 is the year that I wholeheartedly committed to this writing adventure and joined the writing community. I can’t wait to see what 2018 has in store!

3 thoughts on “2017 Year in Review

  1. Those are some amazing accomplishments last year! And some great goals for this year!

    I discovered you from the Verla Kay Blueboards and someone else had mentioned how they loved that you wrote how you like to run.

    You must have edited your about page since then, because I don’t see that on there anymore. If you DO like to run, even just a little, there’s a great Facebook group called Writers Who Run. http://www.bit.ly/writerswhorun

    Hope to see you there!

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