Writing goals check-in

Numerous notebook pages were filled with my handwriting as I tried to process my thoughts this month and craft a blog post.

April has been a hard month, and my words are sad and heavy.

They are not for now.

Instead, I am revisiting my 2025 writing goals (published in February's post: Goals… and exciting news!) to see how I'm tracking.

Goal 1. Rewrite MS1 by June 30

… I went great guns in February ripping through, ripping out and reorganising scenes. I’ve finally put the meet-cute within the first three chapters and felt the momentum and excitement building again. That skidded to a halt when I decided at the 11th hour to tackle Goal 4 and work on scenes from my current manuscript (MS2).

… At the start of April, I printed and prepped my MS1 for The Next Chapter Writers Retreat. I was excited and 100% certain momentum on MS1 rewrites would pick up again.

… Sadly, only a few days before the retreat my incredible (nearly 98-year-old) dad passed away and the printouts of MS1 were tucked into a drawer.

Goal 2. Complete a first draft of MS2 by June 30

… This is where most of my writing efforts have been directed, and since January I’ve added over 20,000 new words. The draft is sitting at 46,000 and I’m feeling like it’s on track to achieve 60,000 words by June 30.

Goal 3. Continue posting my monthly blog here

… This has by far, been the most challenging month and a few times I’ve felt justified in abandoning April's blog. However, if you read my January blog post Slow you would know that my deadline driven nature needs serious work. Plus, writing makes me happy, so it was just a matter of finding the right topic, and I got there.

Goal 4. Enter at least three writing competitions

… As a commitment to my 2025 word Slow, I was not going to put myself under pressure to enter competitions so early in the year.

… That was a short-lived declaration. As some competition deadlines approached in February and March, my resolve broke and I reasoned (to myself) that I already had suitable messy first draft scenes. Wouldn’t it be great to get some constructive feedback on them sooner rather than when the competitions rolled around again next year? How hard would it be to polish these bits up?

(Hmmm - totally stalled Goal 1!)