In preparation for the new year, I am making several SMART goals professionally as a writer and personally. If you’re unfamiliar with what a SMART goal is, I’ll briefly describe what they are….

As I’ve spent years writing, I've learned the need to remain organized as I do my pre-writing and plotting before I begin writing the body of the novel. This usually involves brainstorming, fleshing out the idea, writing synopses, rewriting synopses, researching subject matter, and plotting outlines and scene lists for the story. Since I’m an ink-and-paper writer, I like brainstorming everything on paper before uploading it to my laptop for storage. In the past, that meant a lot of legal pads and looseleaf everywhere, but modern technology has come up with ways in which an old-fashioned gal like me can write things out by hand and remain organized in the modern world….