Assessing Your Writing Year

 

The gifts have been opened, a great deal of the feast demolished, a few leftovers in the fridge. It's cold here in Kansas this week, even had a little snow Monday and Tuesday. Outdoor activities don't seem too appealing. 

Happily, writing is usually an indoor activity, so perhaps you have some time to tap away on your keyboard or put pen, or even one of the colored pencils in today's photo, to paper with thoughts of many things. It's often the final week of the year when we look back at what happened in our personal world and the world in general. Most of the latter's news is pretty sad at the moment, but what about your writing life this past year? Five stars or only one? 

Now would be a good time to take an inventory and assess the ups and downs of your writing year. Create a group of lists. It's not complicated, so let's start the ones below. Add any others that come to mind.  

List 1:  How many pieces did you write in 2023? List all of them, whether for your writing life, for an organization like your church, women's club, civic organization and more. 

List 2: In this one, put all the writing that you submitted for publication.

List 3:  Put all that were accepted and where and when they were published. 

List 4:  This one is for the submissions that were rejected. Place a note by each if you have any idea why they didn't make it.

List 5:  Money earned from writing published--the publication and amount paid. Also list those that were a no-pay but were published. 

List 6:  Your 2023 Goals should be listed here. Next to each one, put a comment like 'made it' or 'didn't come close' or 'partially'. 

List 7: What did you do to help yourself become a better writer? Books read, workshops and conferences attended, time with other writers. 

List 8:  This is the place to put your thoughts on what you might have done differently. Figuring this out can be helpful in making your Goals for 2024. 

After you take a good look at your lists group them in a file. At the end of 2024, it might be interesting to review them and see if you progressed or slipped back a little.