By J.A. (Julie) Kazimer
If you’re anything like me, and I know you are, your New Year’s resolution lasted until January 3rd. The 2nd if it involved not eating cake. Thankfully, for the sake of humanity, most of our writerly resolutions do not involve the consumption of baked goods.
However, they do include the dreaded word resolution, thereby dooming us yet again this year to failure. Therefore, I prefer to look at the start of each New Year as an opportunity to, a) eat lots of cake and b) set writerly goals rather than making resolutions I will never stick to, merely for the fact, it contains that vile word.
Goals are much less concrete to me, a place I’d like to be rather than meeting some expectation or commitment (and now you see why I’ve never been or will ever be married). Expectations equate to failure. Goals equate to trying your very best. Yes, it’s merely my own warped version of the same song, but it does help me accept and make new goals.
So my goals for this year are:
1) Write every day.
Yep. I blew that one by day 5. Now if I felt like this was a resolution, I’d simply give up and write like I normally do, which is whenever I feel like it. Since it’s a goal, I can easily get back on track.
2) Expand my marketing efforts.
By this I mean, I want to try new marketing avenues. I love facebook, but it’s never done me any good as a marketing tool. Therefore, I am no longer going to expend my energy on it (as a means of marketing, instead I will use it for my enjoyment as it was meant to be used, that and for whining about sports teams, mother-in-laws, and plagues). I’m going to look at more guerilla marketing based tricks. I might be sharing more depending on how things go.
3) Finish the manuscripts I have waiting on my desktop.
Remember that vampire/zombie interstellar romance you wrote 10 years ago? No? Me…neither. Stupid concept…Anyway, some books are left half written because they suck. But others, like a few I’ve abandoned over the years, are good books that just needed more time to percolate. This year I am getting out the red pen and working on those manuscripts.
How about you? What are your goals for this year? What would you like to do more of (if you had the time)?
I don’t even know where the first three weeks of January went, Julie, so I feel as though I’m just now starting the new year and setting a few goals. Among them is your #3. It’s time to finish up the stuff I started (muffled sound) years ago.
I really prefer the goals to resolutions. I always make some short term and long term plans.