June in Review

So, happy July everyone! Already - can you believe it? I'm not sure I can. The year is half over, and it feels like it's only just begun.

Anyway. What did I accomplish in this last month of the first half of the year? Let's have a look:

* Finished 1 short story, Not Fantasy. Would like to have done more, but that's okay. It's been a busy month.
* Made two submissions, SFB and Shoe. SFB required MASSIVE rewrites to get it to a sub-able stage, and I'm awfully proud of how it's turned out :)
* Very, very nearly made my goal of 15k of writing, almost all of which was done on The Project.
* Outlined a story that's been bouncing around for a while, temporarily titled Fairy Tale Ending.
* Finally, after much struggle and heartache, pegged down an outline for The Project. Am immensely happy about this.
* Began a new play, Where Your Treasure Is.

As for the year as a whole, I'm rather proud of the work that I've done so far. I think I've come quite a long way from the writer I was at the end of December - some of the highlights being the completed first draft of my first ever novel, To Be An Evil Overlord... and my entry into the world of submissions - thus far I've made 5 submissions of plays and short stories :)

I've learnt important things about structure, I'm slowly learning to pare back my overwriting, and I've managed to write more than one short story that has not only stayed short, but that I'm actually quite proud of. My total word count for the year so far is nearly 74,000 words, which is fast approaching last year's total of 102,000, which included 50,000 for nano in November. I've got plans for Nano, outlines for novels, I'm learning to recognise which stories will work and which won't, and I've discovered that I really do have something to say after all - to which end I've started and been running with reasonable success (I think ;)) this lovely blog (yes, despite the archive record, this blog was only started at the very beginning of the year).

So, what would I like to achieve in the second half of the year?

* 2 submissions per month, which is what I've so far been achieving since I began submitting in late April.
* Finish and complete at least one revision of The Project. I'm working on a TP blitz at the moment and hope to have a draft done in mid-August.
* Pare back my writing even more - stop over-writing - learn to recognise what is significant to the story, and what is not.
* Win Nano again. I'm fairly sure I'll be starting my mid-grade fantasy series for this, as it will be a big incentive to actually be able to complete a novel in under 50k.

I'm sure I'll think of more goals month-by-month, but for now, those are the big things.

And more than anything, I hope I'll continue to grow both as a writer and as a person, and that I will never lose sight of the bigger picture and what I have to say.

Thanks to all of you who read my often-rambly comments here. Your support and comments make this endeavour worthwhile :)