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Resolutions: 2014 review and 2015 goals

Every year I set goals for myself and periodically evaluate them. Here are 2014’s:

1. Finish my third novel, tentatively titled On the Other Side, which will be a steampunk political thriller because, well, why not.

Did not happen because the combination of working full time while attending grad school full time kicked my butt this year.

2. Write and submit at least one new short story every month.

Did not happen because the combination of working full time while attending grad school full time kicked my butt this year. I have several ready to send out, but I haven’t submitted anything since late last winter.

3.Get a short story collection ready for publication (not including The Futility of Loving a Soldier, which was released by Evolved Publishing in December).

Did not happen because the combination of working full time while attending grad school full time kicked my butt this year.

4. Self-publish at least two long short stories through my publisher.

My publisher, Evolved, released “Not My Thing” in April. It’s been free since this summer and did pretty well for downloads.

I haven’t gotten anything else written because the combination – you get the idea.

5. Read 100 books.

I read 56 (post to come soon), which averages to about 1 a week. Not bad, considering this doesn’t include all the reading I did for classes and my thesis proposal.

6. Learn a new language – either Spanish, Tamil, Arabic, or Icelandic – to the point I can carry on a basic conversation in it.

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

shortline

I didn’t do so well last year when it came to writing goals – I started a new job that had about 5-10 hours/week mandatory overtime for several months, I took 4-5 classes each semester, I had a 20 hr/wk summer internship, and I was working on a thesis proposal the whole time. And I bought a 100-year-old house this fall that’s needed a bunch of work – painting everything, refinishing hardwood floors, etc.

2015 should be calmer though (or not – I may be in a PhD program instead of working, so we’ll see how that trade-off goes). However, every time I cross something off my list I seem to add two more things in its place, so with that in mind, here are my goals for 2015:

1. Write and submit at least one new short story every month, with the goal being at least 10 publications this year.

2. Write the rough drafts for a seven-part novella series, and maybe even publish one or two of them.

3. Have at least one novel published, with another one polished enough to publish in 2016.

4. Publish at least two long short stories (10k+) or short story collections.

5. Improve my marketing strategy in order to increase my fanbase (as measured by newsletter subscription, Facebook page likes, and social media interactions like comments, likes, and favorites), sales, and reviews.

6. Read 100 books.

7. Get healthier: cut out my daily breakfast Pepsi (not sure how the lack of caffeine will work when I generally only get 4-5 hours of sleep) and eventually almost all soda; go out to eat once a week or less; eat more fruits and veggies and less processed, sodium-drenched foods; use the gym membership I’m paying for; ride my bike to work when it warms up; etc.

shortline

What are your goals for 2015?

1 Comment

  1. Given your schedule, I can already see next year’s post:

    …Did not happen because the combination of working full time while….

    :) Good luck!

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