Oops. I just looked back at the writing resolutions I made for 2009. There were just four of them, and in any average year I think they would’ve been pretty achievable. But this wasn’t such an average year, as you’ll guess by my dropping out of the blogosphere for half of it.
Just the same, I did manage to partially achieve some of my 2009 resolutions. The second goal was to finish revising Kanako’s Foreigner and submit it to agents; well, I finished revising it, submitted it to the ABNA contest and got into the top 100 – which attracted the attention of one agent, who emailed me to ask to see the full manuscript. She passed on it, but certainly didn’t criticise it heavily, giving me the confidence that it’s worth submitting some more (after I revise it, again!). So, that’s about all I achieved out of 2009′s goals: what should I do for 2010?
First up, I have to be clear that 2010 will be a year of surprises. For those of you who haven’t heard, we’re expecting our first child in April, and while I know plenty of writers who actually manage to pump out a tonne of writing while looking after a child – more sometimes, because they keep strange hours which can be good for writing – I’m not going to assume that this will be the case for me. Of course, I hope it will be! So, here are my writing resolutions for 2010, certainly more than loosely based on last year’s, and given with the proviso that I just can’t quite crystal ball gaze the year ahead that accurately:
- Complete my Bratislava novel to submit to a contest – ABNA or Vogel, depending on when I finish.
- Finish revising Kanako’s Foreigner and submit to agents.
- Increase readership of this blog, Becoming A Fiction Writer.
- Plot and complete my third novel – which involves choosing from a multitude of ideas first.
Now, I see that last year I promised to give a monthly update on how my goals were progressing, which of course is a great idea to make me have some accountability. I failed to do that, but this time I have already programmed it into my To-Do list (I use Remember the Milk – ever tried it? I love it) so the chances are a lot better that I’ll really do this. If not, give me a nudge.
On that note, Happy New Year and I hope all your writing dreams come true in 2010.
was announced to be the winner of the 2009 Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Then I figured I had to read it.
, was published, but I picked it up a couple of years later at a second-hand sale and recently devoured it. Set in Fremantle, my hometown’s port, and full of interesting characters, it’s a great read – but the next one’s better.
, and I’d have to agree; it’s delightful and devourable, with a great narrator and characters which really inspire me to improve the characters in my own fiction. A coming-of-age story set in a small Australian country town during the time of the Vietnam war, Jasper Jones covers the events of one (pretty eventful) summer in a teenager’s life. It’s so good that I’m not going to say much more about it, because you should read it first; after you have, go and read what 
. Rimington was the first female head of MI5 (the British Secret Service, basically) and after she retired she turned to writing spy novels – which are especially interesting because you know she writes from the voice of experience. It’s a real page-turner, yet it doesn’t feel scrappily-written or trashy, as those typical buy-at-the-airport spy stories have always seemed to me.