What's on the Plate for February

It's February, which for writers with monthly goals means that you have to cram more words in a short amount of time. After the January I've had, I feel like it's totally doable.

The year 2018 will go down as the year I finally got back on track. I spent January releasing Melody's Valentine, finishing up the first draft of the diamond thief novel (title still TBD), launched Pieces on Wattpad, submitted a wide range of poetry and short stories to lit journals and magazines, and I even managed to finish up the first draft of a television pilot. The script is pretty terrible right now, but I'll fix that. All of this progress puts me halfway to my goal of having four works published in 2018. It's a pretty awesome place to be. 

This month I have planned to work on three separate projects. First, I'm going to finish the first draft of Avery Night, P.I. It's been a really fun story to write so far, and I already have the plot outlines for the next five books with these characters--I'm in a good place with this one.

For my revision project, 277 Miles is getting the full treatment (thanks to everyone who voted in my Patreon poll and chose this as my next revision project). Like almost every other first draft I've finished, it comes up short in the word count to be labeled a novel. The fix for that is to get into more of the character's heads and dig into their backgrounds. It'll still lead to the same conclusion, just with a wider understanding of where all the characters are coming from.

I will also be working on a brand new poetry project that I have a title for, but not much else. That's a strange place for me to be in because I almost never have titles first. I'm taking the plunge into the modern style with this collection--not what poetry professors label as modern, which is something like a century old by now, but what's going on in contemporary poetry right this minute. I know I've scoffed at it a little before, and it is taking a big hit by critics calling it consumer-driven and populist drivel. I clearly don't want to mimic a style, but instead take the same accessibility to readers that these poets have had and put my own twist on it. Simple, but deep. I guess that's what all poetry is supposed to be, but you know how taste can range.

I'm in the middle of reading some new releases of these poets, so I'll have to be careful that I'm not overly influenced by their style or subject matter. I have quite a few ideas. I'll just have to see where the pen and paper takes me.

What are you planning to work on February?