{"id":645,"date":"2017-01-01T13:43:54","date_gmt":"2017-01-01T13:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/?p=645"},"modified":"2017-01-01T13:43:54","modified_gmt":"2017-01-01T13:43:54","slug":"happy-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/01\/happy-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy New Year!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

As you may or may not know, I don\u2019t do New Year Resolutions. I don\u2019t like the binary, succeed \/ fail result that they cause. Most of life isn\u2019t digital – it\u2019s analog, so in that way, my 2017 targets will be just that – targets. Things to aim for, ideals.<\/p>\n

First of all, let\u2019s look back at last years\u2019s targets, and see which have been smart targets and have been achieved, and which were ludicrous (in hindsight).<\/p>\n

2016 TARGETS<\/b><\/p>\n

1) Write one short story a week for the Bradbury Challenge – SUCCESS<\/strong><\/span>!<\/p>\n

2) Complete the 100kwords100days challenge – FAIL<\/strong><\/span>! Err \u2026 not quite a success. 64,000 words is pretty good, though. I failed the second one, too – massively.<\/p>\n

3) Complete edits on previously-written novels – FAIL<\/span><\/strong>! 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 \u2018stuff\u2019 approaches a million and a half words.<\/p>\n

4) Self-publish two collections of shorts – for halloween and Christmas – FAIL<\/span><\/strong>! I didn\u2019t get enough content written for that.<\/p>\n

5) Write one blog post a week – FAIL<\/span><\/strong>! I\u2019m just useless, aren\u2019t I?<\/p>\n

6) Write book and story reviews on the blog – FAIL<\/span><\/strong>! I wrote some reviews, but didn\u2019t bother to post them. Even more useless.<\/p>\n

7) Be more active on Goodreads – FAIL<\/span><\/strong>! I didn\u2019t quite get into the habit of checking in there.<\/p>\n

So, one success and 6 failures. Not bad, for me. But in the summary of last year\u2019s targets, I said I wanted it to be the most productive year yet, and I think I achieved that.<\/p>\n

2017 TARGETS<\/b><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

2) Complete the 100kwords100days challenge. I can do this, too. I\u2019ve already started in practice mode, and I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

3) Novels. Yes, well, I don\u2019t have a good record of success completing and editing novels. I\u2019ve 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\u2019s something I want to continue, or do something about. I have a high-concept political conspiracy idea. I\u2019m at the early stages of planning, but it\u2019s something I really want to do – using fiction to help encourage social change. High-minded? Maybe.<\/p>\n

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\u2019m driven to actually get stuff out there this year. I know I\u2019ve 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\u2019m fighting shy, because that would mean someone judging my work, which as we all know, is not a good thing. But I don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to get away without doing this. Maya can be very persuasive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you may or may not know, I don\u2019t do New Year Resolutions. I don\u2019t like the binary, succeed \/ fail result that they cause. Most of life isn\u2019t digital – it\u2019s analog, so in that way, my 2017 targets will be just that – targets. Things to aim for, ideals. First of all, let\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5y3CH-ap","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":649,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}