Well, I did not end up submitting anything to the “Imagine 2200” contest from Grist magazine. The main reason for that is simply that I didn’t have a story ready in time. Solarpunk is a genre that I’m interested in, but I know very little about, and I certainly don’t know enough about it to write in that genre. The same goes for hopepunk. Both of these, I think, are genres that we need right now, and they’re better, in my mind, than the grimdark despairpunk that dominate science fiction and fantasy right now. I’m going to think more about this and see what I come up with. I’ll let you know.

I met my other goals, though. I got about halfway through the outline revision of And the Devil Will Drag You Under before deciding to just write it. I’m going to continue outlining as I go, which is what I normally do, but I’ll be using Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat! Writes a Novel method, which I’ve found really useful and inspiring so far.

I also continued my submission process, two per week, every Monday and Thursday. I think I may have missed a Thursday when my depression hit hard, but I made up for it the next day. Go me. This is an ongoing goal. Every Monday and Thursday, the submission of a story to a market.

I started writing a new short story, specifically for the Cascade Writers’ Conference in July that I’m participating in, thanks to a friend of mine who donated her spot to me. The story is woefully incomplete at this time but is due June 4. Either I finish the story or I don’t. I just want to have a sample of my current writing ability to submit, not a story that I wrote five or ten years ago. This story is science fiction, takes place in the far future, and so on. That’s all I will say about it. So that’s one goal: finish this short story.

I was going to revise my short story “Sauromancy” but did not get around to that. So boo on that. Upcoming, though, for May, I plan on revising both “Sauromancy” and “The B.I.M.” I didn’t get to them in April primarily most of my free time was taken up with school, but school will be over on May 9, so I’ll have more free time. Yay!

So that’s it for writing goals.

How are you?