The next five years

[Ed]

Seems like a long time, and it is in some ways, but it'll be here and gone in no time at all. As I've said elsewhere, recently, I think it's important to plan for the future - set your sights on something and work towards achieving it. The alternative is to merely exist and hope the future will be kind to you. I prefer to be proactive instead of reactive, although you need to be at least a bit of both.

With that in mind and the New Year fast approaching, I thought it would be good to get everybody thinking about the future, both in terms of personal development and the aims of this site. So, what do you think our stated aims should be?

[SharonBell]

Oh, dear! Are you looking for Mission, Vision & Values??  That's what I do in my day job!

Goal--To increase the quality and quantity of publications from our members.

Objectives--To increase our members pubs (overall) by 15% in the next 5 years.

Okay. That pre-supposes a database with baseline numbers.  I keep an Excel file. Do other members do that? I know that in the past 3 years my pubs have increased dramatically and I can pull up the numbers.

Do you fancy that??

[Sallyq]

Yes, I keep an excel file too, Sharon. It's the only way I can keep track on what I'm sending out, where it's been etc.

You're right, Ed, five years is a long way ahead. But my aims are:

Carry on doing what I'm doing as it seems to be working (well this year it has)

Start doing the rounds of agents with a novel (which is something I haven't even tried yet)

By the end of five years I'd like to be earning a decent living wage from my writing, whether it's from short stories or novels.

[Ed]

Sounds good, Sharon - I would be interested to see the stats of your progress, if it's not too much hassle to pull up.  If anybody has any specific wants and suggestions relating to the site here, I would be interested to hear them, too.

Sally - sounds like a good plan

[delph_ambi]

I've just started a new novel, so I reckon a year to write it, a year to take it round publishers, another year to grumble about ungrateful publishers and start a new novel... but in the meantime, I reckon I should be building on my art successes. Done a number of book covers now and some other illustrating, and I tell you what, it's a lot easier (and in many ways more satisfying) than writing  However, I'm mildly addicted to the writing, so will continue with that. Over the last five years I've gone from 'never having written anything since schooldays' to poet/novelist with my own poetry collection due out in a couple of months and one novel in print, plus a load of short stories etc dotted about all over the place. I intend to build on that success over the next five. I'm only submitting to paying markets now, which means having to raise my standards all the time, but that's got to be a good thing. 'Hit' rate is good enough at the moment to keep me optimistic.

Using Excel to keep track of stuff sounds like a good idea. I just use a word doc. at the moment, with everything colour coded (ie green for accepted, red for rejected, blue for awaiting a reply). Works well enough, but is getting very long and it takes a while to skim through to check things. Excel would be more efficient, I've no doubt. Trouble is, last time I used a spreadsheet it was in Smart II... they've probably moved on a bit since then.

[delboy]

Five year plan...hmmm. About twenty-five years ago I was working to a two year plan and I've still not completed that yet. 

What generally happens with me is that (about every five years) I realise I'm not focussed enough and that I have to do more - more writing, more revising, more submitting (most of all more submitting), more reading... And, generally, such increases in application make a difference. I'm at that point again now, I realise I need to do more of all of the above if I'm ever going to achieve my twenty-five year old two year plan.

So that's my plan. Do more of the above with a view to more publications. I need to start on another novel, too. I enjoy life more when I'm writing a novel but the last few months (moving house - twice, essentially - and very busy periods at work) have made things difficult. But now I'm just making excuses.

I also need to become a finisher. I have so many unfinished stories it's just silly.

Derek

[Geoff_N]

When I was interviewed for the job of Computer Systems Manager and Information Technology Co-ordinator at a large high school in 1991 the first question was where do I see educational computing in 5 years time. I laughed at them saying every classroom will have interactive whiteboards and besides computer labs there would be individual laptop type computers for every child. The panel then laughed at me. Fair enough it took longer than 5 years. I got the job. The school network server had a harddisk with 20 megabytes and a massive 128k RAM memory! Hah!

By the end of 2012 I plan to be producing at least two novels a year.
I want to be living in coastal Mediterranean for the winter months and UK for the summer cos my wife can't stand heat.
I want to re-start real art painting with watercolour and acrylics as I did decades ago. Also to have learnt either Corel Painter or Photoshop if I can afford the software. (If anyone has either of them cheap, I'm interested).
I want to get my piano playing back up to grade 6 from the grade 2 it's slipped to.

Of course it would be cool to have achieved 3/5 or more by 2009   

Geoff

[JonP]

Good question. For me, 2007 was the year in which I actually started to believe in myself as a writer. I've written more stories this year than in the rest of my life combined, and I've had a few low-level successes. So the challenge now is to do something to build on this. So ... short term targets are (1) finish those two works-in-progress that have been sitting on the back-burner during various crises of confidence, (2) finally get started on that proper novel that's been kicking around in my head for the last few months and (3) submit submit submit. Long term goals are (1) write absurdly popular trashy books under an assumed name, (2) write loads of highly acclaimed and respected literary works under my own name, and (3) be paid loads to write about travel and music, thus funding my appetite for both of these. Oh, and (4) world peace and an end to poverty.

[SharonBell]

I'll piddle with that later today. I'm grading finals now, dealing with plagiarists and their parents. GRRRR. 

I've noted a lot of closures lately--one magazine I had a sub with closed down for good; a website that I had contracts with to publish four (4) of my flash fiction pieces in an anthology closed down for good. It's a tough business to be in, and tougher to stay alive, which of course impacts my stats.  Oh, well.

[Walker]

Five years sounds like plenty of time to accomplish almost anything, but in reality (well, my reality, anyway) it's a pretty short period of time. Having said that I do have goals in mind, I just hadn't tried to put a time limit on them. I guess my first thing is to finally finish this infernal novel, or at least the first draft. After that I'll start on the second book, maybe finish, then the final one in the trilogy. That should take me at least five years, but likely much more than that. I also want to see my son graduate university and get a great career. I hope to see my daughter start college in three years and my youngest son finish highschool in four years and start university in five. It's an expensive time in my life, but really worth it to see the kids get off to a good start. Aside from those goals, my only other goal is to buy some land in Central America for our retirement years. It's a long ways off yet but it's never too early to plan ahead.

[Ed]

Wow - good to see so many plans. 

Re keeping track of submissions - although I very rarely send anything out, I keep track of my subs with a little prog called Sonar. It's available as a free download, here: http://members.iinet.net.au/~simonh/spacejock/Sonar.html