Work In Progress

Like many, I see January 1st as a day to look back at what I’ve accomplished and look forward at commitments for the new year.  January 4th, however, is my birthday, so I have always treated the time between the 1st and the 4th as a special time–as if the new year hasn’t really started yet.

In that spirit, I’d like to take this moment to reflect on my accomplishments as a writer for 2009:

• Revised about 90% of The Pretenders of Kronau (about 80,000 words)
• Wrote “Monster in the Mountains” (about 5,000 words)
• Wrote first drafts of 2 other short stories  (about 12,000 words)
• Started my next novel with the working title of Defenders of Tara (about 38,000 words)
• Attended the Ultimate SF Workshop as a way to learn, get feedback, and make writing contacts
• Sold “Monster in the Mountains” to Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, which is my second acceptance, first piece to see print, and the first real sale, where I …
• Got my first payment for a story.

So the short version is that I wrote about 55,000 words, nearly finished revising a novel, sold a short story, and attended a writing workshop.  Not a bad list for someone who is holding down a more-than-full-time regular job.

But not good enough.  In 2010, I need to take my game to the next level (as cliched as that is).  I’ve spent much of the last few days thinking about what that means, and here are my goals for 2010:

• Finish Pretenders of Kronau and get it out to agents / publishers
• Finish current novel (working title, Defenders of Tara)
• Write and/or revise six short stories and get them into circulation
• Actively maintain blog presence (2 posts per week)
• Attending 3 writers conferences
• Continue workshop participation

There’s lots of little sub-goals mixed in here, and I’ve started a simple project plan to make sure I know what those are and–when I have time–work to advance them.

There’s an old saying in productivity circles, “You get less done in a day than you think you should, but more done in a year.”  Here’s hoping that’s true for 2010.

If you have a chance, leave me a comment telling me what you accomplished in 2009 and what you plan to accomplish in 2010.