I don’t really make New Year’s Resolutions, because I’m crap at keeping them, but I do enjoy setting goals for the coming year each January. I find them super helpful staying focused and find the accountability which comes from sharing them publicly really helps as well. This year I’m a wee bit late on getting this blog post done, so it may be slightly less chatty than in years past, but without further ado, here are some of my work-related goals for the coming year (and health counts because you can’t work if you’re not at least a certain degree of healthy).

Health

• Weigh less at the end of the year than I do at the start
• Run 5k
• No working on weekends and minimal working on evenings.

Editing / Publishing

• Publish the final three issues of Niteblade and then close down that aspect of the magazine
• Complete Corvidae and market it to the best of my ability
• Complete Scarecrow and market it to the best of my ability
• Publish B is for Broken and market it to the best of my ability
  • Beat the sales numbers for A is for Apocalypse (first three months)
• When Shadows is published market it to the best of my ability
• Have the manuscript for C is for… polished and ready for publication
• Have the manuscript for D is for… polished and ready for publication
• Come up with a way to set actual concrete goals for promotion.
• Make progress on sekkrit collab with CJD
• Open to submissions for Sirens

Writing

• Write and submit at least one new short story a month*
  • The ‘submit’ part of this is important. I can’t just write a first draft and leave it to moulder indefinitely. The story needs to be ready for submission and, in fact, submitted, within the month to count.
• Begin querying agents about Hollow
• Self-publish at least one collection of reprints
• Complete work on collaborative project with Marge
• Successfully participate in April Poem-A-Day
  • This means actually writing a poem a day or at least having thirty poems written by the end of the month
• Participate in NaNoWriMo*
• Either complete the first draft of a new novel, or revise one of the novel first drafts I’ve already written (this can be completed in conjunction with NaNoWriMo or separate from it)

Reading

• Read at least 50 books
  • Slush doesn’t count, nor do books by friends I read to critique.
  • Have at least 20% be non-fiction

Misc

• Create a website at poiseandpen.com
• Attend When Words Collide and Pure Spec
• Blog at least once a week
• When someone visits this blog and leaves a comment — reciprocate.

Kobo

As of New Year’s Eve of 2014 I’d sold a total of one book via Kobo**. One. For a whopping $0.45 in royalties. One of my goals in 2015 is to improve that. I don’t have a super firm goal in mind but it shouldn’t be too difficult to top one sale and less than fifty cents in royalties, right?

I’ll probably tweak this list as the year goes on, but for now I think it’s a very good jumping-off point 🙂

*under this name or as a pen name project. Either counts.
**this doesn’t count books I didn’t self-publish like Fae, Metastasis etc.