Well, after two unplanned weeks off, it’s time, at last, to take a look at what I accomplished last year and set some goals for 2013. I only set one, extremely manageable goal for 2012: to complete and begin submitting at least five stories. Unfortunately, I did not even accomplish that much. I gave up one story, finished, began sending out, and then brought back to the drawing board another. One story that I was especially excited about at the beginning of the year last year has sat on my computer, untouched, for months. During 2012, then, I completed, revised, and began submitting only two stories. Not a great showing.

What else did I do last year as a writer? Well, I wrote almost every day in the month of June, working on a children’s book. I got 30,000 words in (107 pages) and then lost steam. I still feel really good about that particular book and plan to return to it, but for some reason, I just haven’t been in the mood to work on it since this summer. I also started a new novel, got 10,000 words in (36 pages), then became more interested in a different novel. So I set the first one aside and started the second one, and have been struggling to find the drive to work on that one for the past month and a half.

So. Not a very impressive year, overall.

But I’m going to try to turn things around in the coming year. For one thing, I’d like to get some new stories ready to submit and start submitting again in earnest. I haven’t submitted at all in months, and 2012 was the first year since I started getting published that I didn’t have at least two publications come out. This makes me sad. This makes me very sad.

I’d also like to finish a first draft of this new novel, for cripes sake. And I really think I need to finish that children’s book I was working on last year, while we’re on the topic. My friend, Jenni Moody, in her blog called this year, “TheYear of the Novel.” I’d like to make this year my Year of the Novel, too. I haven’t finished a complete draft of a novel since grad school, and I’m just not ready to accept the possibility that maybe I’m just not a novelist. It took me years of writing crappy stories before I got the hang of story writing. If I want to write novels (and I do!), I have to be willing to live through the same kind of failure.

So, my goals for 2013 (drum roll, please):

1.      Write, revise to completion, and submit at least five new stories.

2.      Finish a first draft of my current novel project.

3.      Finish a first draft of last year’s children’s book project.

4.      Eat less. Exercise more. Read more. Be happy.