Vocal Aspirations

I started on this app a good while ago but never actually submitted any stories. I saw this one challenge and followed the directions, but I missed the deadline. That was kind of annoying but the thing was, I got a sense of accomplishment in actually making it. I keep noticing that I say I'm going to finish things before the deadlines, but I almost never do.

That points to one of the bigger goals I have in mind, which is to stick to a schedule and commit to writing a certain amount of words at a set time. I find that in order to discipline myself, I need to start new habits to get rid of old ones.

I also want to explore newer genres. I find myself going towards YA and romance novels more because I think they are the most entertaining, but I also want to try a horror or mystery aspect just for the heck of it. I want to see how far I can push myself as a writer, and I also want to know if I actually have the dedication to this goal, because for the past few years, I've been stagnant.

As for the quality of my works, I do not want to rush myself into completing each challenge. Rushing makes me go into panic mode and as a result, I have trouble thinking about what I want when I want because I only have the minutes ticking away in mind. This usually leads to subpar work and I end up wanting to rewrite the said stories even after I've submitted them.

To hopefully solve this issue, I'm just going to try to take the necessary breaks in between stories so that I can process what I just wrote and make sure most of it makes sense. Burnout is not fun and I have hit my limit for writing numerous times.

Through these challenges, I hope that I can create more ideas for my other works in progress. I have been writing them for an unnecessarily long time because I have gotten stuck on the plots. They either don't make sense or they don't seem to fit into the story at all.

I have been trying in vain to build off of ideas that were created in late elementary and middle school, so I'm going to run into many problems. Instead of just rushing to change everything all at once, I'm going to take each story one issue at a time and stop when I get sick of trying to edit if I know it's not going to do anything useful.

I also know that focusing on other things can sometimes spark inspiration for other stories even when they don't mean to. Maybe some of them can add to my other works.

Diction is also important to me. I've downloaded this one facts app on my phone and I want to incorporate some of the words that I learned into some of my stories. I'm hoping that this new goal will not only make me sound more sophisticated, but also improve my vocabulary at the same time. I just feel like words are an art form and they need to be appreciated a little more.

To make this goal more specific, I would like to use at least four or five new words in each vocal challenge. I'm also going to have someone proofread the draft occasionally to see if everything makes sense.

I have now learned that it is apparently better to write stories with multiple drafts instead of just one. I have been writing with only one draft for many of my ideas for a long time, so I feel like they are harder to edit since I wrote them a long time ago. My friend said that that was one of Stephen King's methods to writing his books, which was interesting to me.