My Goals for 2012

Last week I went over what I did last year. Now it is time to look at what I’ll try to do in 2012.

Make Better Use of My Time

Time and again I find myself with too many projects on the go, and I can’t make headway on any of them. This year I will try to keep my focus on one major project at a time.

Last year I had a bunch of goals for the year, but that leads me to try to do them all at the same time. This year I will try to set deadlines for each of the major projects I want to do. That way, I can space them out over the year.

Another way to focus is to stick to longer projects. When I do short small projects, I tend to want to just get them done and work on the next one. With a longer project I don’t think there would be the same pressure and I will create something that will catch people’s fancy.

Somedays . . . and Contingency

I need to have final versions of these films ready in time for the $100 Film Festival. The festival starts the first week of March. That pretty much sets the deadline for me.

My Most Difficult Case

This film has been on my back for far too long. I don’t think I really have all that much more I need to do before I have it done. I want to leave it until after I’m done with Somedays … and Contingency. I think I can safely set a deadline of April 1 for this project.

The Crying Lady

I did three feature scripts in 2010, but right now, none of them really seems to get people excited. The idea I feel best about now is The Crying Lady. I did it as a short story in 2011, but didn’t get much feedback on it. I think that the idea has potential and I want to do more work on it.

One way to get more feedback is to do a video based on the story. The website Xtranormal allows you to easily create animated videos. I believe I can use it to make an animated storyboard from my story. That will give me, and others, a better idea how the story would translate into a film. I will shoot for completion my mid May.

The story is still too short for a feature film, so I want to expand it somewhat. To do that I plan to do some blog posts and maybe short articles about the themes and details of the story. I did something like that for my transportation planning stories. This would help build and audience in addition to help build up the story. I won’t set any specific deadline for these, just let them happen as I develop the ideas.

Transportation Planning Story

I would like to develop one of my transportation planning stories into a longer form. The two stories I did last year run about 6,000 words. I’d like to build that up to at least 20,000 words. I have some ideas about how to do that and have several pages of notes.

Given my other priorities, I don’t think I can get to it until May. I’d like to set a deadline of July 1, although, that leaves me about six weeks and it took me that long to write the 6,000-word version. I’ll revisit this goal in April.

Small Projects

I have a bunch of ideas for small projects, but as I noted before I don’t want them to be a big part of my goals this year.

I have several ideas for short stories and articles lying about. I would like to get some of the short stories done. Articles, except those related to my major projects, are not a priority for me. I do make some money from them on Triond, but it isn’t so much money that I would lose out if I didn’t do any. Half the money I get comes from one article I wrote three years ago.

I enjoyed making the two shorts for the $100 Film Festival, so I’d like to do some more along those lines.

I won’t set any deadlines for this kind of project.

The Unexpected

My experience has convinced me that ideas can just pop up at any time. I’ll keep that in mind and try to stay flexible in my plans. If something catches on fire, I will want to run with it

I plan to do a review of my progress several times throughout the year: April 1, July 1 and October 1. That will help keep me on track.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog