Saturday, March 1, 2008

Pay it Forward

All right, I won one of Sarai's prizes and now it's my turn to run the contest. :) I'm making mine a bit more involved, just because I'm that sort of person. [duck]

The Rules:

Comment to this post between now and 15 March and list at least three goals you have. If you're a writer then writing goals would be fine, but anything else will work too. The goals need to be specific, achievable, and have some sort of a time deadline.

"Specific" means that something like "Become a better writer" wouldn't work because it's too vague, but "Learn how to use semicolons" would.

"Achievable" means that the goal has to be doable, and be something you control. Becoming an Olympic athlete isn't something most of us will ever be able to do, for example; it's just not realistic. Winning a writing award is posssible but it isn't within your control; entering the competition, however, is. Getting three stories published isn't within your control, but submitting three stories to at least ten different markets each (or until they sell) is.

The time deadline means that there has to be some sort of timeframe in which you'll do whatever it is. It can be by tomorrow, by the end of next week, by this coming New Year's, by 2012 -- whatever. Long term is fine, but there needs to be some sort of timeframe you can plan around.

You don't have to report back; I'm not interested in checking up on anyone. I just thought it'd be fun and maybe even useful to formulate some specific, achievable goals and a timeframe for getting them accomplished. What you do with them after that is completely up to you.

After the fifteenth, I'll write the name of everyone who commented to participate on a slip of paper and draw two of them out of a bowl or something. This isn't exactly a heavy-traffic blog, so the chances of winning should be pretty good. :)

Winners will pay it forward by running this contest on their own blogs. (Note that you don't have to make people do anything in particular if you don't want to -- letting people enter just by commenting is fine.)

The Prizes:

The winners can select one of the following:

1. Support New Writers -- two books by new writers. That is, writers whose first commercially published book came out one year or less ago, as of 15 March 2008. Mass market paperbacks or equivalent only, please.

2. Support Electronic Publishing -- a $15 gift certificate to Fictionwise, one of the major sellers of electronic books.

3. Try Something New -- two books from two writers whose work you've never read before. Try to make at least one of them in a genre you've never read before. You're not paying, so experiment! Mass market paperbacks or equivalent only, please.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with! :D

Angie

9 comments:

Angie said...

I'll go first, just for the heck of it. :)

1. Submit three stories to commercial markets by the end of April.

2. Get one of my novels completed and ready to submit by the first of October. (Yes, I have two partially done. :P )

3. Keep walking and get up to an average of 50,000 steps per week by the new year. (I have a pedometer and it counts steps.)

Angie

writtenwyrdd said...

Hey, my goals are simple: Get into the habit of writing at least 3 days a week. And blogging doesn't count. And I decided I have to learn to write short stories

Charles Gramlich said...

All right, let's see:

1. Finish, "The Vivarium," which is slated for a specific anthology submission. Has to be done by March 15 to meet my goal.

2. Run my own Play it forward contest, which I'm getting ideas for. Need to do this in the next two weeks.

3. Start my next novel, either another Taleran book or a thriller over the course of the summer.

Bernita said...

Let's see:
1. Finish a short story "Corpse Candle" by the end of the month.
2. Finish "Malignity" before summer.
3. Do agent research in depth. make list.

Sarai said...

Okay don't enter me in the contest but I thought I would share my goals.
1. Finish the rough draft of Bounty Hunter by April 1, 2008
2. Finish polish of Cursed and submit queries to agents by April 1, 2008
3. Finish Bounty Hunter to submit by July 31, 2008
There you go all should be easy to do...
Gawd I need to buckle down and put my butt in chair hands on keyboard.

Jenna Jones said...

I love this idea.

1. Finish the rough draft of book 3 by March 31st.

2. Write a script, finishing by June 1st.

3. Stay on top of the health issues.

Amy said...

1. Get my computer desk into functional, usable clear space by March 28.
2. Familiarize myself with editor training modules and the styles of the authors I will be working with (by reading or re-reading published works of theirs) before RT.
3. Ask daughter to design business cards for me, and have them printed prior to RT.

I'm not an author, but a copy editor newly in training to become a content editor!

Ello - Ellen Oh said...

Sheesh, I miss coming by for a week and I almost miss a contest!!! Ok my three goals are:

1. Lose ten pounds. Since I made this goal, I have actually gained 3 pounds, so now I have to say lose 13 pounds.

2. Finish Seven Kingdoms, my YA novel, by the end of April. (Gosh, I really hope that it is doable.)

3. Edit, revise and then query Seven Kingdoms this summer. (Again, I hope this is doable!)

Great idea Angie!

Shauna Roberts said...

My three goals:

1. Polish the first fifty pages of my Ice Magic Fire Magic manuscript to a see-your-face-in-it shine and enter it in the Golden Rose contest in April in hopes that I will final and an editor will see it.

2. Have Ice Magic Fire Magic ready for submission by July.

3. Make a friend. (I just moved to a new town.) I won't set a time limit for this one because finding compatible souls takes as much luck as work.