Writing while on “vacation.”

This is the first week of my winter break between semesters and I’m determined to make the next four weeks as productive as possible. How? A solid handful of tangible writing goals.

1. I will have my new online hybrid section of Composition 101 completely planned out.

That’s just the way it is. I do not want to be guessing what I’ll be doing week-to-week. I do not want to have the first six weeks planned out, only to have to spend a weekend planning the next six weeks. My process involves plenty of writing, from annotating my texts to creating quizzes to writing lesson plans to finalizing the syllabus and assignment sheets. It’s all going to be ready to go.

2. I will have a polished draft of my screenplay thesis under my belt.

The thesis requires more than the creative element of the story (critical introduction, my visual presentation), but the story will be done and polished. It already has a solid draft but I know it can be tightened and tweaked, corrected and clarified. I spoke to a friend yesterday who asked me what I was working on over break and when I told him my thesis, he proceeded to recite the tagline I’d told him about this script over a year ago. It stuck in his brain that much, and that helps me believe this is a script worth pursuing.

3. I will have two, count ’em, two polished short stories under my belt.

I’m a slow writer, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be writing. I have ideas in the bank, ready to be pulled out and exercised, and now is the time. I may or may not bring them into a workshop setting next semester, but in the meantime I want to work on improving my amount of polished writing output.

I have plenty of other projects to work on, but letting them revolve around these three tangible goals gives my work world gives me focus, allows me room to stretch my creativity in several directions, and keeps the next four weeks goal-oriented rather than haphazard.

-nm

[tags]tangible goals, polished writing, screenplay thesis, online hybrid[/tags]

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