I always seem to have an overly ambitious list of goals but not achieve many of them.

So this year, I decided to make a list that I can conceivably achieve.

• Complete Nine. ETA: end of June. Spend 5 hours a day on it.
• Enter Shomi Contest with Nine. ETA: end of March

• Query agents with Nine. Once the project’s completed, I should send queries out. I already have a list of agents I want to target.
• Complete a historical fantasy (untitled; 100K in length). ETA: Dec 31. It’s always smart to start a new project as soon as I’m done with an old one. Keeps my mind off queries and other matters. Spend four hours a day on the project.
• Read four how-to and/or inspirational books. I have a ton of those. I also want to re-read some I have since I always get something new out of them.
• Read fifty new-to-me books. Must I state why? It’s so important for me to read read read. BTW - does anyone have any recommendations? No guarantee I’ll actually read them, but I would like to get some. For example, May told me to try Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, and it was one of the best books I read in 2007.
• Lose six pounds. Yes. I’m not as young as I used to be, and I need to be more careful about what I eat and so on.
• Get a part-time job. I think it’ll be good to have something that’ll force me to get out of the house and meet people, etc. And money’s always nice!

Do you have any resolutions? How are you going to meet them?

On January 1 2007, I posted the following items as my resolutions. So how did I do?

• Read 50+ books.
• Wrap up The Last Slayer.
• Query agents with The Last Slayer.
• Write Nine.
• Write the sequel to The Last Slayer (title TBD).
• Write a sensual category #1 (title TBD).
• Write a sensual category #2 (title TBD).
• Study The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing: Everything You Need to Know About Creating and Selling Your Work edited by Meg Leder and Jack Heffron during Q1.
• Study Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain during Q2.
• Study Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively by Rebecca McClanahan during Q3.
• Study Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee during Q4.
• Study Illustrator CS: Hands-on Training by Jeff Van West during the first half of the year.
• Study Adobe Photoshop CS: One-on-One by Deke McClelland during the second half of the year.

So I’ve accomplished five out of thirteen. Not horrible, but could do better. Basically everything that I thought would take very little time took longer. I wonder maybe I need more than four drafts. The first draft always ends up being nothing more than a long pre-writing. It’s not until I’m doing my third draft that everything comes together for me. It’s true, especially for single titles. (Category obviously takes less time)

One thing I’m going to focus on next year is time management. I’m terrible at that. And exercising more. There’s nothing like an hour of workout to get my brain going again.