So summer writing season is finally here.

Okay, okay. In practice, summer began a couple of weeks ago for most people. (Though according to the calendar, summer doesn’t officially begin until June 21.) But I’ve been in a production of The Music Man and had to wait until that was done before I could really commit to my summer writing goals.

We closed Saturday. So … now my summer writing can begin.

Project: Getting Justice

Getting Justice was my 2016 NaNoWriMo project, a contemporary multi-point-of-view YA novel that began with the question, “What’s the very worst thing a teenager could do to another teenager?” and then asked, “When is revenge justified?”

First a spoiler: the “Justice” in the title is a person. I started writing Getting Justice two Novembers ago, and completed the first draft in January 2017. The story turned out much different from how I first envisioned it, but I was overall happy with the (somewhat unconventional) narrative that emerged.

I did a quick revision and then released it to a group of alpha readers. After another rewrite, I began running the novel through my writing group. I got the final feedback from them about a month ago.

As we’ve worked our way through the book, I’ve been revising ahead and behind. Because of this, I’m probably about 70 percent done with my next revision of the book.

GOAL: My summer writing goal is to finish the current draft, then go back through and work on some of the bigger concerns pointed out by my writing group. My plan is to have a new revision ready for some beta readers by mid-July. I want to begin querying in September.

Project: Yellow Jacket

Yellow Jacket is just a working title. I’m not even sure how the story ends, so who the heck knows what’s going to be called?

This one has an interesting (and frustrating) history. The basic idea has been floating around in my head for a while, but I really didn’t consider writing it until about a month before last year’s NaNoWriMo. Once I began nailing down characters and story specifics, I realized I only had half of a story.

So I took my friend Mike to lunch and we had a brainstorming session. As I wrote in a previous post, Mike and I spent over an hour trying to figure out how the pieces should fit together. They didn’t fall into place immediately, but they eventually did. But of course the book you start isn’t always the book you write. Though I wrote the first two acts during November, I ended the month by hitting a brick wall right at the transition from Act 2 to Act 3.

GOAL: My summer writing goal for this project will be to workshop the book with my writing group while at the same time revising ahead and trying to figure out where the story is taking me. I’ve come up with several new elements that need to be blended in, and I’m sure I’ll find scenes and probably whole chapters that need to be either deleted or completely reimagined. I’m hoping to have a finished draft by mid-August.

Reading Goals

Summer isn’t just for writing; it’s also a great time to catch up on other people’s books. I’m hoping to do some extensive reading this summer, both in and out of my genre. I’m also planning to get caught up on Writing Excuses. I haven’t listened to the past two seasons, and I’ve missed the inspiration that comes from listening to this and other podcasts.

Running Goals

It would be summer without getting some good road/trail training. I have just two races lined up for this summer, the Hobbler Half Marathon in July and the Parowan Half in August. I’m also doing the 5K and 10K races in the Utah Summer Games later this week. Thinking about adding another half or maybe even a trail race in there somehow. We’ll see … my goal is to get in some good speedwork so I can hit September ready to PR at the Cedar City Half and then boomerang into final training for October’s St. George Marathon. (Hoping for another BQ finish!)

So … what are your goals for the summer?