Sunday, January 04, 2009

Happy New Year!

What are your writerly New Year's Resolutions? Write down five realistic goals for 2009. Mine are:
1. submit more work to journals
2. submit more work to competitions
3. organise myself to work some evenings - particularly important this year which has a heavy teaching load.
4. attend more poetry readings
5. do a little work each week on each writing project I'm pursuing.

and another writing exercise - what New Year's rituals did your family follow? My mother always sent her partner out as close after midnight as possible - it was necessary that a dark man come through the front door. I don't remember that but I love the winter solstice ceremony one of my friends organises in which we discard stuff from the old year and welcome new energies into the next year. Give one of your rituals to a character - what happens if they don't do it? What would it take for them to abandon it? Abandoning rituals is big - though it can be accompanied by a certain amount of relief, too. This can be a good story starter.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

My new years resolution is to reaccess and improve my first chapter of my junior novel. I sent it in to CYA later alligator comp and was thrilled to get positve feedback with great ideas. Even though I recieved a middle range result, I was so excited to see that the judges liked my voice. And I'm hoping that would be one of the biggest hurdles to jump.

My other resolution is to attend our local writers club meetings once a month. Something I'm always thinking about but never do.

Are you teaching any on-line subjects this year Catherine?
best regards
Carmel

Anonymous said...

Hi Catherine,
This year I am determined to focus on my writing. After doing the cert IV online course, my job demands increased and the writing took a back seat. I thought about doing the diploma online this year but have decided to finish all work that I started on and to submit other completed works. I am now organised and have my mind set to creating and improving my written work. I look forward to your hints and tasks.
Bye for now
Sharon

Cattyrox said...

Hi Carmel - I am certainly teaching online subjects! Starting at the end of February! Sharon - great goals. Good luck with the year.
Catherine