I don’t make New Year’s resolutions.

Not to make any more resolutions was the last resolution I ever made, and it’s the only one that I’ve actually kept for any length of time. It’s not that I’ve given up trying to improve or setting goals for myself, but I’ve found (for myself, at least) that there’s a huge difference in making a wild or life changing “resolution” and setting a goal.

Readers seemed to respond to my last (and ridiculously unrealistic) writing goal post back in September, so I think I’ll make it a monthly feature on the blog. It’ll help give me some structure for my writing month, and hopefully help to keep me honest.

So, first up, January:

• Finish my submission for Sword and Mythos. I helped fund this anthology on IndieGogo, so I damn well better send them something.
• Send at least one short story to On Spec.
• Write a blog post at least once a week.

Writing Goals for the Year:

• Finish Tombstone Blues
• Start writing the as-yet nebulously titled book 3 in the Thunder Road Trilogy (I’m thinking this will be a good year to return to NaNoWriMo).
• Attend at least one SF&F convention in a city that I’ve never been to.
• Revise at least one of the three drafted novel manuscripts I’ve been letting lie fallow until it is in submission shape and then send it out.
• Start a new writing project, just for the fun of it.

How is this different from a New Year’s resolution, you ask?

Well, one of these things need to be done. It’s not a question of maybe, or want. If I don’t do the substantive and copy edits for Tombstone Blues, I don’t have a book coming out in the fall. But they’re also all achievable, and at least some of them, while also being work, are also going to be fun.

Write on.