Writing Wednesday - This is my year!

 
I have a feeling that 2012 is going to be a good year for my writing. I've gathered up a healthy toolbox of knowledge and I'm ready to get to work. School is behind me, the hubs and I have stable jobs, and I just feel...settled. At ease. Reflective.

Even years seem to be better for me, and odd years not so great. I graduated college, moved to a new city, and got married in even numbered years. I lost my uncle, my grandmother, and my father in odd numbered years. This year I'm taking up the triathlon baton again, and have made a real (this time) commitment to my health and fitness. I'll have a new niece born this year - the first on my side of the family.

As for my writing life, I have four meetings left in my monthly YA Fiction workshop. This Friday I'm meeting with a new weekly YA writers' group that includes at least two published authors. And tonight I start my first work/study shift at my local writing studio. If these tools can't help me get my manuscript into a query-ready place, then I don't know what will.

I've struggled over the last few months with where to take my story. I think I need to give myself the freedom to play a little bit, and trust that with the guidance of this network I'm building I can get there eventually. This year will probably not be the year I get an agent or sell a book, but I think this will definitely be the year that I can get a manuscript finished and ready to start querying.

That's the goal for this year: finish my book and get it ready to sell - or get as close to this goal as possible. I'd like to be able to start querying within the next 12-18 months. I think that's a reasonable goal, and maybe if I keep saying it aloud I can make it happen. I no longer want to think about this as a hobby or a pastime, but as a professional goal that inspires me to take my work and myself seriously. I wouldn't have been asked to join a writers' group unless I had potential and it's time to start realizing it.

So you hear that, 2012? You're mine.