How about January for starting the week off on a Saturday! I like starting the writing week on Saturday because I have a fresh start instead of putting off the work till then (yesterday I had to write 1100 words to hit my goal of 75k on TGS). It may also help us from going out and playing video games Friday until we've hit our goal

In an effort to make us more productive for His glory, I'm starting threads in the Fantasy and SF forums for weekly and monthly goals. Put yours here and any self-inflicted punishments if you want for not reaching your goals. For example, I'm not going to read fiction, play games or watch tv/movies one day for every week that I miss my goal. That means that if by Feb 1, if I've already missed two goals and I miss my goal that week I won't be able to do any of the above for three days. If I'm going snowboarding that week (Sat) I won't go unless I meet my goal for that week. The point of these punishments is to take away that which will tempt us away from writing if we haven't displayed self control enough to complete our goals.

As I mentioned in our monthly goals for Jan, Luke's consistent word count is an example of self control and a testimony to other writers. We should be seeking ways to make salvation beneficial to those we meet, and for writers the gift of self control should be one we can have as a testimony.

My goals for this week:
1) Hit 81,000 (6k) on The General's Shadow
2) Work on Editing Lesson 6 for How To Revise Your Novel class. (I'd say finish, but I don't know how much work is involved as each lesson is different.)

My goal for the first week in January (Monday through Friday) is to do a complete light polish of a finished and edited novel before seeking reader feedback. However, this is a flexible goal, since if I decide any further major edits are required, it will probably take more than one week to complete them.

Thanks for starting & maintaining these weekly threads, Tim!

My goal for this week is to study my copy of the Writer's Market and look up a couple of potential publishers online. It's hard to put a numerical goal on that, but I am hoping to find at least 3 potential publishers to get started on.

I will also be finishing the rough draft of the Debugger script and wrapping up CaTR, but those are not so much goals as they are commitments.

My goals for this week are:

- To read "How to Read like a Writer" by Katherine Prose (looks like a VERY good book, by the way)
- Write 5 thousand words in The Two Fathers (or the equivalent of two chapters--usually 5-7000 words)

I'll punish myself by revoking Holy Worlds for one day if I don't make my goals for the week.

eruheran

*gasp*

My goals are:
~Fill in all the gaps in We Will Survive. Yes, all of them.
~Write the first draft to Shadowed Region

Are we making punishments now?

I started off the week sending about six query letters out for my novel Snapshots. By the end of the week I plan to be recovered from the holidays and writing around 3,000 words a day again.

Ooo, this sounds good

Monthly Goals (for the year):
Write at least one blog post related to writing (every month, even if it's just explaining something)
Write at least 3,000 words (not including world development) for one of the stories related to the Land of Ashta (or one chapter)

Monthly Punishments:
No internet (except for online classes)


This week?
Write one (or more) folk tales for Ashta (any race or region)
Find a topic worth writing about for my blog...

Punishment:
No graphics until I'm done

Very worthy goals everyone.
Vilisse: you could write a blog post about what you learned as a writer this year and what you intend to do this year to improve.

Hmm...my goals for this week...

• Write my final Fantasian Elemental posts and post them in the Bestiary.
• Brainstorm my "Tolkien Revisited" blog submission and start writing it.
• Finish the Essence Map I started Sunday.

Since I have no school this week, shouldn't be as big a challenge as normal.

I achieved my goal of editing my novel this week, though I uncovered a few big problems, which I made a note of to fix later.

Congratulations, Jonathan! We are thrilled for you. Do you plan to work on the fixes for next week's challenge?

I don't know yet. It will be a daunting task. But maybe the sooner I get to work on it, the better.

Congrats Jon! Way to go! I can relate to big "problems" when looking back at a first draft. Holly Lisle says noticing that they are problems is much better than not noticing, so at least you have that. If there is some way we can help with those problems (a thread on it in story development, pm, or discussion on skype) let us/me know. Try and see if you need a beta reader yet, or if you need advice first on these problems so you can finish it before giving it out.

Would people prefer I entitle these posts 1st week of Jan, 2nd week, etc instead of the date? I don't like having the week end on Sunday because I am very busy with church and prepping for ministry, so it works well for me to have Friday be the last day. Also we get a fresh start on Saturday. If you want to just make the week M-F then get whatever headstart over the weekend then at least it ends on Friday.

That being said, I'll give some leeway to when people post their results from this week. If you haven't reached your goal, still post and let us know if you're having trouble.

On my goals:
1) Write 6k - I wrote 10468 words
2) Start lesson 6 in HTRYN editing course - check (my focus right now is finishing The General's Shadow (up to 85,384), then I'll hit editing hard)

I'm pretty flexible on how the weeks are formatted, though sticking to the work week (M-F) while leaving the weekend open for catch-up/head-start makes sense.

I found a few potential publishers in my copy of Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market and looked 4 of them up online. 3 of them are no longer accepting submissions. The 4th is, but I'm not sure the publisher is a good fit for the style of my book.

My goal for next week will be to continue studying my Writer's Market and looking publishers up online. When next I can get to the library, I'm also going to research that way, but I'm not sure if that'll be next week.

I just posted today one of the posts I wanted to finish this week, and the other post and the blog submission brainstorming I hope to tackle today. So other then finishing the essence map, I didn't really do so well on goal accomplishment. I hope to catch up today so I can move on with new goals before next Saturday.