Plans and Goals: the 2013 Edition

Happy New Year, everyone! I’m a day late, thanks to spending the last week fighting off a cold that left me sleeping 18 hours a day, whining for 4 more, and attempting to keep on track with the writing for the remaining 2. In other words, I was in no mood to wish anyone a happy anything. Today, however, the sun is shining, I have ceased attempting to remove one of my own lungs through vigorous coughing, and I feel almost human again. Right then, 2013. Bring it.

I never make resolutions for myself, because I know that no matter what I say on January 1, I will never give up cheese. Goals, however, are a different thing, and I have plenty of those, particularly in regards to my writing. I have plans for 2013. PLANS, I tell you, and I’m setting them down here because putting things in writing always makes them a little more real.

• Publish Shifting Selves, book 2 in the Elements series (as Shifting Selves is already written, this is a gimme, but it’s nice to start with a goal you know you’ll achieve, right?)
• Finish writing the first book in the new series by the end of April. I have 20,000 words already, but considering that I’ll also be responding to my editors’ suggestions for Shifting Selves and working on getting that published, the next four months will require a tremendous amount of discipline and focus. As I said: bring it.
• Attend the RT Convention in May. Meet people. This is becoming increasingly important the further I get into this whole writing thing. Writing is an incredibly solitary exercise, and I miss having a support network.  I’m looking forward to meeting other fantasy writers, agents, editors, and readers. I’d like to feel a bit more a part of something, rather than like the crazy mountain hermit tapping away at her keyboard and hoping someone notices someday.
• Explore different avenues of publishing. The current plan is to shop the next series to agents and see if mainstream publishing is interested in what I do, while continuing to publish the Elements series through more independent channels. Publishing is an interesting world these days, with many choices, and I do love having choices. I want to try them all, damn it.
• Write book 3 in the Elements series.

The best part about these goal is they’re things I control. Yes, I’d love to increase my readership and have more attention from reviewers and have agents sending me fruit baskets, and I can do things to help bring those events about, but at the end of the day, that’s about other people. Sadly, my superpower is the ability to recite several episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from memory, not the ability to control others. So I’m just going to stay focused on what I can do and see what sort of 2013 I can build for myself.

That should get me through the end of September, at which point I have absolutely no idea what will be next. Let’s just see how the first part of 2013 turns out and go from there.