Each year I like to set myself some concrete goals and share them publicly on my blog. Not only does this give me some sort of vision of what I want to accomplish over the year, it adds a feeling of accountability to help keep me motivated and on track. My goals for 2013 are:
Health
- Lose 25lbs
- Successfully complete the P90x program (I’m giving myself permission to swap Cardio X workouts in for Plyometric ones because I worry about my ankle and also, I’m a bit of a wussy)
- No energy drinks
- Significantly cut the amount of sugar in my diet. I have a complicated set of rules for this for myself, but I don’t want to bore everyone with sharing them.
School
- Begin another course (or two) toward my degree no later than April 1st and complete it/them successfully.
Editing/Publishing
- Sell my cancer anthology idea to a publisher.*
- Edit the cancer anthology, making sure the end result is something I am proud of.
- Promote the hell out of the anthology, ensuring that there actually are royalties to donate to charity.
- Continue to pursue my sekkrit projeckt with CJD
- Increase Niteblade’s readership and distribution
- Begin offering Niteblade in more file formats
- Hold a successful fundraiser for Niteblade
- Produce a NaNoLJers anthology if sufficient interest exists
Writing
- Participate in The Whittaker Prize
- Successfully complete the weekly version of Write 1 Sub 1. For the ‘Write’ portion of this challenge I will count completed short stories or poems as well as individual scenes from longer works. By allowing myself to count individual scenes I will be able to work on longer works and still participate in W1S1
- Participate in Writo De Mayo
- NaNoWriMo and both camp NaNoWriMos are all optional
- Finish writing poems for all the 2012 NovPad prompts
- Actually successfully complete the AprilPad or NovPad properly, without having to make up prompts after the month has passed
- Self-publish “Aphanasian Stories”
- Look into the practicality of bundling and re-releasing some of my previously published short stories as ebooks
- Follow through on my 2012 plans for my zombie poetry
Reading
- Read at least 30 books
Misc
- Participate in A Month of Letters
- Do the Blogging from A to Z Challenge (bonus points if I come up with a theme this year)
- Blog at least once a week
- Take a social media retreat for one week a month all year
- Attend WorldCon 2012 in Texas
- Post writing prompts/exercises in NaNoLJers on odd numbered Mondays
- Run and participate in the writing bingo in NaNoLJers
- Don’t forget that life is for living, not leveling
Phew! I’m kinda exhausted even just looking at that list, exhausted and excited. I’ve set up some real challenges for myself, but if I manage to pull them off imagine how fantastic a year that will be!
*I know I’ve already accomplished this goal, but I hadn’t when I started mentally composing this list and since I achieved this goal in 2013 I’m still putting it on the list. This is not me putting things on here just so I can cross them off.
