The other day, several of us Pennies realized that it is now, in fact, 2018. Where did 2017 go?!?
If you’re also wondering just what happened to 2017, welcome to our club! And to help you reorient yourself, we thought we’d revisit some of the Winged Pen 2017 highlights.
If you missed a post last year, this one’s for you. (And feel free to sign up for our mailing list so that doesn’t happen in 2018!) If you read them all but forgot what they said, revisit ’em here. And if you have it in your mind that we once posted about something, but you can’t be bothered to search through a whole year’s worth of content to find it, well, we’ve got you covered.
Four on 400
We debuted our Four on 400 contest in January of last year, giving MG and YA writers the chance to win feedback from four Pennies on the first 400 words of their WIP. We’ve had a ton of fun reading your entries — so much that we’re keeping Four on 400 going into 2018.
So polish up your stuff and enter on the 4th of each month…with luck, we’ll be reading your first 400 next!
We Set Some Goals
In January, we wrote about the importance of writing down your writing goals — a great way to get motivated and see how much progress you’re making. We also explored what happens when you don’t meet your goals from the previous year and how to recover.
In June, we took a look at how we were doing with our goals, and then we looked back on all of 2017 to see what we’d accomplished.
Goal-setting and review are great ways to honor your commitment to writing and celebrate the progress you’re making on long-term goals. We’re working on our 2018 goals right now!
We Read Some Great Books!
We love to share our favorite reads with you. Click on the Book Review tab for a comprehensive list of all the fantastic books Pennies reviewed this year — from a dark and creepy YA, to fun chapter book, and a series of adventurous MGs, among many others.
We Explored the Business Side of Writing
If you’re ready for some in-depth information about the publishing side of the novel-writing game, click on our Publishing & Promotion category tab for a bevy of informative and inspiring posts about what it’s like to get the call, how to market your writing, creating a social media platform, and more.
We Conducted Some Fascinating Interviews
From talking to Pennies Kristi Wientge and Jennifer Park about their debuts, to discussing writing Native American diversity with Kara Stewart, checking in with Nic Stone, author of the acclaimed DEAR MARTIN, chatting with John Bemis about the second book in his Pinocchio retelling series, and more…we had some incredible talent stopping by the Winged Pen in 2017. Check out all of our interviews using the Interview category tab on the right.
We Launched Master Your Craft
Our months-long series on everything you need to know to write a novel — from pre-writing exercises, drafting woes, and editing tips and techniques — was great fun to work on for all of us. Search the Master Your Craft category tag on the right to see all of these informative posts.
We Wrote Some Love Letters
Penny Kate Hillyer started a new series of Love Letters to the books that made her the writer she is today. Check out this beautiful and ongoing series that started in 2017 with this post about ANNE OF GREEN GABLES.
Of course, there were many, many other great posts about the writing life, including posts about yoga and writing, making a bullet journal and more.
Thanks to all of you for making 2017 so great here at the Winged Pen — and we know that with you by our side, 2018 is going to be even better!