Happy New Year!

As you may or may not know, I don’t do New Year Resolutions. I don’t like the binary, succeed / fail result that they cause. Most of life isn’t digital – it’s analog, so in that way, my 2017 targets will be just that – targets. Things to aim for, ideals.

First of all, let’s look back at last years’s targets, and see which have been smart targets and have been achieved, and which were ludicrous (in hindsight).

2016 TARGETS

1) Write one short story a week for the Bradbury Challenge – SUCCESS!

2) Complete the 100kwords100days challenge – FAIL! Err … not quite a success. 64,000 words is pretty good, though. I failed the second one, too – massively.

3) Complete edits on previously-written novels – FAIL! Hahaha – obviously a stupid thing to attempt. Who would edit some old stuff when you can write a whole load of new rubbish? My pile of pre-written ‘stuff’ approaches a million and a half words.

4) Self-publish two collections of shorts – for halloween and Christmas – FAIL! I didn’t get enough content written for that.

5) Write one blog post a week – FAIL! I’m just useless, aren’t I?

6) Write book and story reviews on the blog – FAIL! I wrote some reviews, but didn’t bother to post them. Even more useless.

7) Be more active on Goodreads – FAIL! I didn’t quite get into the habit of checking in there.

So, one success and 6 failures. Not bad, for me. But in the summary of last year’s targets, I said I wanted it to be the most productive year yet, and I think I achieved that.

2017 TARGETS

1) Write one short story a week for the Bradbury Challenge 2017. I can definitely do this. I have far too many ideas for me to stop writing them now.

2) Complete the 100kwords100days challenge. I can do this, too. I’ve already started in practice mode, and I’m currently at 1,044 words a day for the past 12 days. I want to use the challenge to finish off book one of the cozy series, complete book 2, and write book 3. And then to move onto the bigger novel ideas I have.

3) Novels. Yes, well, I don’t have a good record of success completing and editing novels. I’ve written about five or six, but not been satisfied by them, and have moved onto other stories I want to tell. I need to look at this habit, and decide if it’s something I want to continue, or do something about. I have a high-concept political conspiracy idea. I’m at the early stages of planning, but it’s something I really want to do – using fiction to help encourage social change. High-minded? Maybe.

Apart from that, and keeping up to date with the podcasts, the writing groups and the book clubs, I want 2017 to be a year of PUBLISHING! Yes, I’m driven to actually get stuff out there this year. I know I’ve said this before, but this time, I mean it. Probably. And Maya Goode (from the podcasts) is determined to get me to submit a short story to a literary publication. I’m fighting shy, because that would mean someone judging my work, which as we all know, is not a good thing. But I don’t think I’m going to get away without doing this. Maya can be very persuasive.

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