KaNoWriYear or Picking Up the "Pace"

As 2009 draws to a close, I am beginning to dwell on my writing future. In the past twelve months, I have gone from hobby writer to student writer to published writer and have even placed in a couple of writing contests along the way. I do not mean to imply any grand success --in the beginner's writing world, "published" and "contest winner" does not necessarily mean there's cash rolling in. But what it has meant for me is a start, and for someone who has never had a high degree of confidence, "a start" is a huge step.

Lingering right here at "a start" would be so easy to do. I'm writing, afterall, and I love to write. I'm comfortable here -- I turn in my Christian Writers Guild lessons every two weeks, write an occassional short story, study writing, dabble with my couple of half-written novels, blog, submit an article or a short story once in a while. Yeah, writing life is good right now.

But God doesn't like for me to get too comfortable. Through the guilt I experience over not writing harder for Him, His message is bold and burns in my gut: I've given you "a start." Now show me what you can do with it. Let's pick up the pace. And I realize that's exactly what I need. A pace.

So I am declaring 2010 my "pace" year. My foot is in the door, and now I need to get the rest of my body in there. How do I go about doing that, you ask?

My (gasp, choke, hack)... left brain. I know that's a dirty phrase to many fiction writers. Most fiction writers aren't wired to be (gasp)... left-brain... people. We're right-brain people by nature, artistic and creative -- at least with words (please don't ever ask me to draw a picture). Writing, yes even fiction writing, requires both sides of the brain to be successful. Read here to find why writers have to have both right- and left-brain strength to be good writers.

As I prepare for 2010, my "pace" year, I will be setting writing goals, creating action plans, and developing a schedule. You know, all that left brain stuff. So you can all hold me accountable, here is a sneak peek at a couple of my goals:

KaNoWriYear - Those of you who are familiar with NaNoWriMo will understand this play on the acronym. 2010 is Karen's Novel Writing Year. I will write a novel this year and have the final draft ready for CWG/Tyndale Publishers Operation First Novel on Oct. 1. I probably won't win, so I'll also take it to the CWG Writing for the Soul Conference in 2011.

Freelance - It's time to make a few bucks, and I will be actively seeking freelance writing opportunities. I'd love to find a newspaper or magazine looking for a parenting humor columnist. I have a binder filled with writing that would really embarass my kids and family, but if I got some cash for it, I think they'd forgive me. I would also enjoy doing devotionals, greeting cards, newsletters - anything really.

I won't tell you the rest of my writing goals because I'm not sure I want to be that accountable.

Dig into your left brains, Writers, and tell me what your 2010 writing goals are.