Writing resolutions are eh.

Hello everyone!

It’s great to be back! I took an amazing month and a half break from writing and except for the story I wrote for the Holiday Blog Tour, I stuck to it.

I’m so glad to have taken the break but even happier to be back.

Since this is the first post of the year, this is usually when I write about resolutions. Though I’ve written about resolutions in the past, I’m not sure that writing and resolutions are the way to go.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that there should be some goals in writing but they should be goals, not resolutions. That means that there has to be a plan attached to achieving those goals and those goals should be as specific as possible.

Yes, I said specific.

If your goal is to publish something this year, that’s not specific enough. What do you want to publish? A story, a poem, a book? Where do you want to publish? In a journal, self-publish, small press, traditional?

Next ask yourself, what are the steps you need to take to get there? Need more time? Then think about getting up earlier or sleeping later. Think about writing during your lunch hour. Look for pockets of time 10, 15, 20 minutes and brainstorm how to use them. Could you outline something, brainstorm on an idea, sketch out a scene, revise a paragraph or a chapter during those brief amounts of time?

If your goal is to publish a book, what do you need to do to get there? Do you need to consider publishers, agents? Get a query letter or cover letter ready. Self-publishing? Research options. Find an editor or two or three.

I’ve always been a fan of the smaller goals leading into the bigger goal. I like to take it quarter by quarter. So where do you want to be by the end of March in your 2013 goals? It’d be feasible, depending on you time, to have a couple of chapters to half the book revised. Or it would also be feasible to have a couple of short stories out for publication while polishing the next batch of stories.

So, what are your goals for 2013?