This blog quietly passed its one year anniversary. If you go back through the archive, you’ll see that I fulfilled a New Year’s resolution early due to the Christmas Blizzard of 2010 in the Northeast United States. We had over three feet of snow as evidenced by pictures posted with that first blog and the follow-up post. So, being stuck in the house, I jumpstarted StoryTeller’s Grove.
The reason the blog anniversary was not acknowledged until today was the lack of snow. A good thing! This meant that the Christmas festivities at my house were not postponed and over 30 adults and children filled the house Christmas Day. It was fun to see everyone, but exhausting as well.
December 26, I was at work, not stuck indoors, and recuperating from the crowd the day before.
Today, I paused and looked back on 2011 and all the changes that I have seen. This has been a year where I changed day jobs, focused on publishing Dark Dealings through traditional methods and learned tons about the exploding Indie e-book market. For writers with the time, expertise and support network of editors, cover designers, and others, it is an increasingly viable alternative. I will agree with Bob Mayer in his recent post on his predictions for 2012, we are indies not self-published. Those of us who recognize our own strengths and, more importantly, our weaknesses, delegate to other talented people and recognize that this delegation is an investment in our business. We can not do it by ourselves.
So I find myself in the same place as many others: Goals for 2012. A blog is a wonderful and scary place because it gives you an opportunity to share thoughts and ideas with others and in the process paint a big red target on yourself.
But I’m a glutton for punishment, as most writers are. So here goes:
Writing and Publishing
1) Form LLC to be focus of all “writerly” activities this year and in the future.
2) Publish Dark Dealings and at least two other novels by year end.
3) Attend a minimum of three writing conferences.
4) Read 20 books, of which 8 will be purely for fun or enrichment and not review. Guess that means 1 book review on average per month, Hope to exceed this goal, but it also does not included books I help edit and the time spent there.
5) Finish three new works and partial on fourth by year-end. This goes to goal #2 and pipeline for 2013.
6) Get better at outlining in a manner that works for me. This impacts goals #2 and #5
Personal
7) Lose the last 15 pounds of stress weight from old job
8) Find a new job that better accommodates the writer’s life
9) In connection with #7, gym or outside exercise (run, walk, bike) three times a week
10) Healthier eating, which of course does not mean totally doing away with caffeine, chocolate and adult beverages---maybe moderation---maybe.
How about you? I’ve listed 10 things. What 2 things will you commit to in the comments below?
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