Resolutions: 2013 review and 2014 goals

2013

Last year, I set some goals for myself.

1. Publish my novel, The Lone Wolf.
   Yes! It was just released by Evolved Publishing in December. As of right now, it has a 4.6 star rating on Amazon, from 5 reviews. And a reader told me it made her cry. So, score.
2. Average a short story acceptance each month, with the majority of them in paying markets.
   No. I had one acceptance this year, probably because I crapped out on submissions after about March.
3. Put out a short story collection.
   Yes! I released Us, Together: A Short Story Collection in June. It’s 6 stories about the problems teenagers face, from relationships and unplanned pregnancy, to absent parents and poverty, loosely based on stories and students I encountered while teaching at-risk kids.
4. Get another novel ready to query.
   Kind of. Evolved is scheduled to publish A Handful of Wishes in December 2014, which means I should probably get it all shined up soon.
5. Read 100 books this year.
   No. I read 72, which isn’t bad considering I was also working and going to grad school and writing and wasting a ton of time on the internet.
6. Kayak the entire length of the Hennepin Canal.
   No. The closest I came was looking at kayaks at Scheels.

2014

1. Finish my third novel, tentatively titled On the Other Side, which will be a steampunk political thriller because, well, why not.
2. Write and submit at least one new short story every month.
3. Get a short story collection ready for publication (not including The Futility of Loving a Soldier, which will be out this summer from Evolved). Maybe the stories about India I wrote on my trip?
4. Self-publish at least two long short stories. I have half a dozen in the works; it’s just a matter of finishing them.
5. Read 100 books.
6. Learn a new language – either Spanish, Tamil, Arabic, or Icelandic – to the point I can carry on a basic conversation in it.

Ideally, I’ll have something new coming out every 3-4 months, in addition to more published short stories which will later be compiled into a collection. I think this is doable, but it’ll require massively-focused time management skills that I seem to be lacking.

What are your goals for 2013?