Last Year’s Resolution

            One last post squeezed in before I head out to play games and drink with friends.  Hopefully you’ve got some wonderful plans for closing out the year as well.  But first...

            Let’s talk about what we got done this year.

            My big goal for this year, like it has been for two or three years now, was to get two novels done.  It’s a goal I keep stretching for and always fall short.  I’m not sure if I can reach it or not, but I keep trying.

            How’d I do?

            Well, a good chunk of this year was taken up by Ex-Isle.  I struggled with this one a lot, for a few reasons, and a good chunk of that was my own fault.  I’d done a fair amount of work on it last year and then even more this year.  My editor looked at what I handed in and... well, he knew I could do better.  So I went back, hacked, slashed, and came up with a much nicer, cleaner book.  It’s the longest Ex book to date, word-count wise.  Tweaks and layouts on this carried us right into October, and I ended up adding a new chapter at... well, not the eleventh hour, but pretty close to 10:30.

            You’ll get to see if that was all worth it in just five weeks...

            When The Fold came out in June I did a bunch of promo stuff for it, including interviews and a half dozen or so original articles for a few different sites.

            For the past few months I’ve been working on my new project which is, as yet, untitled.  I’ve mentioned it here a few times, and I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about it next year.  I’m about 2/3 in at this point, and if all goes well I’m hoping my beta readers will be seeing it in late February or so.

            I also polished up a short-short story for the Naughty or Nice holiday anthology.  It was an idea I’d had a while back and getting invited to the anthology was just the kick in the pants I needed to make it worthwhile.  Plus, it's for charity, so you score actual karma points when you buy a copy.

            Counting this one, I’ve done 42 posts for the ranty blog here, plus another 34 for the geeky hobby-based blog I keep up elsewhere.

            That’s what I wrote this year.

            What did you get done?

            To be honest... I’m a little upset with myself.  I was really ashamed of that first Ex-Isle draft my editor saw.  I’d also really hoped to have the new project out to beta readers by now, so I’m a solid two months behind where I’d planned to be.  I would’ve felt justified, at that point, in saying I had two novels finished.

            Yeah, maybe this sounds a little shallow to some of you.  I mean, I get to make my own schedule, write for a living, and here I am complaining about how much more I wanted to do.  Sounds pretty damned good as is, doesn’t it?

            Thing is, as we’ve discussed here many times before, good enough is never enough.  Good enough will never get a career going, and it won’t keep one going.  We have to be willing to push ourselves to be better, and to keep pushing ourselves.  We all need to set new, higher goals.

            One could even call them resolutions, if they were so inclined.

            With that in mind... what do you want to do next year?

            I hope you all have a peaceful and safe New Year.  Don’t drink and drive, be good to people, and kiss someone you love at midnight.

            We’ll talk again in 2016.

            Until then... go party responsibly.

            And then come home and write.