Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Writing Resolutions

Normally I don't go down the New Year's resolution path. I just don't. Why start something you and almost everyone else has no real drive to stick with beyond the first week? A month, if your exceptional. When I've been confronted by a die-hard resolutionary, I've countered with something like:

I consider my birthday to be my new year. That's when I make my resolutions. 

That's usually enough to fend off their invitations (read taunts) to join them in their resolutions. By the time my birthday rolls around (end of February), they've forgotten and I can move safely forward. Of course, this blog post might be outing me, but hopefully those dread taunters aren't resolving even as I type to read more blogs, including this one.

Despite this position, a couple of days ago I read Rebecca Besser's blog post "Setting Goals - Be Realistic" at blog.rebeccabesser.com. It must have caught me at a moment of weakness--not that Rebecca's writing isn't convincing enough, mind you--we've shared the pages of several anthologies and she darned good. But, suddenly I'm thinking I could make a few writing-related resolutions. You know, small ones. Realistic ones.

So, come what may, after the rather slow writing year of 2012, I'm following Rebecca's lead and plunging forward into the resolutionary world.

Here goes.

1. One story per month. New work. End of month as checkpoint.
2. Edit one story from my stack of To-Edits per month. Same checkpoint.
3. Resume critiquing and posting at OWW - say once a month to start.
4. Shake a freaking novel out of my tomes of notes.

Seems like there should be five, but I'm going to hold with four. Anyone can manage four reasonable writing goals for good ole 2013, right?

I wonder how all the other writing folk out there handle their resolutions? Hi-res or lo-res?

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