It’s time for this month’s Beautiful People! Yay! This is a link-up hosted by Paperfury and Further Up and Further In where you answer questions about your characters. I participated in Beautiful People #1, #2, #3 and the villain special last year. And I’ve done Beautiful People Author Edition, Beautiful People Valentine Edition, Beautiful People #7, Beautiful People Sibling Edition, Beautiful People #9, Beautiful People: Parental Edition, Beautiful People #11, Beautiful People: Friendship Edition, and Beautiful People #13: Caleb. This link-up has been just so helpful with character development.
It’s the first Beautiful People of the Year! Yay! This one is about our writing goals for next year. I brushed up on these in my New Years post (Check out that to enter the giveaway!), but this post will go into more details. If you’d like to participate in this link-up yourself, check out either Paperfury or Further Up and Further In to see how. Here we go!
1.) What were your writing achievements last year?
Last year was probably the most accomplished year of writing in my life. I wrote over a quarter of a million words which gets me to about 750,000 words I’ve written in novels in my lifetime. I won the Beyond the Steeple Award. I worked on three books last year: edited, rewrote and extended Red Hood, rewrote Subsapien: Biomech, and first drafted Subsapien: Hybrid. Plus I won both Camp NaNos and NaNoWriMo.
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| Lots of books! |
2.) Tell us about your top priority writing project for this year?
My top priority project is definitely Red Hood since a publisher wants to see it. It’s my steampunk fantasy novel which is also a Little Red Riding Hood retelling that I did for NaNoWriMo in 2014.
3.) List 5 areas you’d like to work the hardest to improve this year.
1.) I’d really like to grow my platform. I’d love to get 100 followers on either Blog Lovin’ or Google Friend Connect. That’s a bit out of my control, but I’m hoping since I’m working hard to improve my content, I’ll also improve my following.
2.) I want to get better at self-editing. I received a rejection between Christmas and New Years and one of the people in it said I wasn’t a good self-editor (even though I didn’t edit the chapters on my own. I had multiple critiques). Well, time to prove him wrong.
3.) I want to work on honing my author voice. I believe it’s growing, but it’s such an obscure part of writing it’s hard to define.
4.) I want to work on my endings. Sometimes I tend to rush them because I’m ready to be done with the book by then. XD
5.) I want to get better at writing short stories. Those can be gotten into magazine articles and I need any leg up to novel publishing I can get.
4.) Are you participating in any writing challenges?
I plan to participate in April CampNaNo with Silver Hood (Red Hood‘s sequel. Learn more about it in Siocban’s character question call!) and NaNoWriMo again.
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| I shall write as epically as Light Yagami. |
5.) What’s your critique partner/beta reader situation like and do you have plans to expand this year?
I have acquired my friend Cassia as a writer buddy as of last year and she’s fantastic. She’s my reason for survival of NaNo. XD My beta reader situation is really good. I may take two more come summer, but I found an awesome group of them last year.
6.) Do you have plans to read any writer-related books this year? Or are there specific books you want to read for research?
I have a bunch of my shelf I want to delve into especially Story Trumps Structure by Steven James and Plot vs. Character by Jeff Gerke.
7.) Pick one character you want to get to know better, and how are you going to achieve this?
Mor probably. She’s my protagonist of Red Hood, but I still don’t know her as thoroughly as my other protagonists. I’d like to know more about her interests. She’s a stubborn one.
8.) Do you plan to edit or query, and what’s your plan of attack?
I plan to do a lot of editing this year in Red Hood and in Subsapien: Biomech. I’m sending off Red Hood to another publisher who requested it. I reaaaaally want this one to accept it more than any of the other ones I’ve submitted to. I hope to be going to Realm Makers in July, so I want to pitch to more people there. I’d also like to try to get published in some magazines too.
9.) Toni Morrison once said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” What are the books that you want to see more of, and what “holes” do you think need filling in the literary world?
I want to see more books with homeschoolers. They’re few and far between and often misrepresented. I also want to see more steampunk, especially in CBA, hence why I’m writing a steampunk series.
10.) What do you hope to have achieved by the end of 2016?
I hope to get Red Hood ready for submission by March, two more books at least first drafted, edit Subsapien: Biomech and get it pitch ready, and I’d like to acquire an agent and/or publishing contract next year, but that’s something I don’t have control over. XD
And that’s this month’s Beautiful People! I hope you found it a good read!
Did you participate in the Beautiful People? Are you planning to? What are some of your writerly goals for 2016? If so let me see your posts in the comments!
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If you liked this post, come back every Saturday for more writing advice, character interviews, book reviews and more! On Sundays I have Soundtrack Sundays where I post a new score piece, Tuesdays are Tea Tuesdays with tea reviews, Wednesdays I have Wonderful Word Wednesdays where I post a new vocabulary word, and Fridays are Fan Fridays where I post tags and other goodies. To help support my dream to be an author follow this blog, like me on Facebook, watch me on deviantART, and follow me on Pinterest and Twitter. If you want to know more about my books check out them out here. Thank you! 🙂
