Another year come and (almost) gone, and that means it’s time for my last goals post of 2015!

First off, how’d I do in November?

• Have fun on tour.
• Finish the current draft of my novel work-in-progress (I am close, and this might be unrealistic with two weeks on the road, but I’m gonna try).
• Keep my short fiction out on submission.

The easy one wasn’t as easy as expected, as there are always things that come up when traveling, and this time around starting the tour exhausted after prepping for C4 and then working the con didn’t help. But despite a double dose of con crud from C4 and then World Fantasy Con trying to take me out, I did have a good time on tour.

My novel-in-progress has a newly finished draft! It’s an actual book now, no more chapters that read “Chapter X: Shit Happens.” The book came in a shade over 110,000 words, which was longer than I’d expected when I started working on it, but I figure I can get it under 100K for sure, and maybe even close to the 90K target I had when I started writing it. Might not happen in the next draft, but the one after.

I sent out a couple short stories in November, which filled the technical requirement for this goal, but mostly when rejections came in, I didn’t resubmit the stories. The end of the WiP in sight ate up most of my writing focus and that’s okay.

Here’s what’s on deck for December:

• Finish another draft on my WiP and send it to my first readers.
• Draft a new chapter for my collaboration with Sandra Wickham.
• Revise a short story.
• Get those fallow short stories back out the door.
• Outline the next novel I want to write (that’s right. I’m going to try outlining, folks).
• Organize a bunch of story links I’ve saved in my email on to Pinterest boards.
• Clean/reorganize my office.

It’s a lot, December always disappears faster than I think it will, what with gatherings and such, but I think I can do it. If there’s one thing these goal posts have taught me, it’s that even if I don’t hit every goal I set for myself, it’s that I end up further along than if I just did whatever.

I can’t believe another year is almost over! But hey, that’ll mean another round of big yearly goals to decide on soon.

Write on!