I thought I got away with putting off writing this post for an extra week since the last day of August fell on a Monday, my usual post day. But then my procrastination bit me in the butt as work and childcare duties suddenly intensified this last week and I watched this first Monday of September fly by. But here I am – better late with my goals post than never!

Recapping August Goals (original post linked HERE):

1. Keep posting here on Mondays and on my other blog, Illustrated Poetry, on Tuesdays. I did do this! Woo!

2. Write 2 short stories for submission to online journals. Ah. Well, I fell short on this one. I wrote one very short story during the last week of August. Earlier in the month, I dug out a couple of old half-finished ones that I thought I would finish. But that didn’t happen in August.

3. Finish an edit of Enjoinjure. I did this – and I sent it to several beta readers. Go me! I’m starting to get comments and feedback now and I can see the revisions and the process of incorporating their suggestions consuming most of September…

4. Continue working on untitled story – needs a title too. Lucy MacGregor’s Children is still the working title – I did work on this on and off – so I count it as accomplished. Because it’s my new and shiny baby, it’s easy to use this story as an escape from working on other projects that have bogged down or for which I’ve lost inspiration. For instance, every time I went to work on a short story, somehow this word document got opened instead…so mysterious…

September Writing Goals:

1. Continuing to post weekly on both blogs: If this seems like a softball goal, it is not – at least not for much longer. In 2-3 weeks, I’m going to complete all of the writing exercises in Ursula Le Guin’s Steering the Craft book that I’ve been posting here on Mondays and when that happens I’m going to have to decide where to go next with my writing posts. I feel like the least qualified person on Earth to give out writing or publishing advice (although I enjoy reading other people’s posts about such things). It would be fun to participate in some of the writing challenges hosted by other WP blogs, as I like having a bit of structure to work in.
   
   
2. Finish up the two partially completed short stories that I unearthed in August: As I mentioned above, I can see the revisions/edits for Enjoinjure consuming every second of my super limited free time. I love that story and I want to work on it and see it through, but I have so many other goals I want to work towards. I’m thinking about how I can be more balanced and intentional about this process. Finishing some short stories would get me closer to the goal of submitting work to online journals.
   
   
3. Put together an editing schedule for Enjoinjure and a writing schedule for Lucy MacGregor’s Children: If I’m to balance everything and be more intentional, I think I’m going to have to *sigh* come up with some sort of schedule. My tendency otherwise is to let one project dominate and let the others fester: and maybe this is how I work best, but I’ll never know unless I try other ways of working/creating . So far I’ve resisted word count goals, but I’m going to give into a writing schedule and see what happens.