What are your resolutions?

To write more? I bet one of them is to write more. All us writers tend to make that resolution every year. But the trick to keeping those resolutions is to make your goal something measurable, and achievable.

For example, no nebulous ‘write more’ goals. Pick something solid like ‘write a story each month’ or ‘post a blog entry every day’. It’s also important to make it realistic. If you normally only write a chapter or two per month, writing a novel in a year may not be realistic. If February rolls around and you’ve only written two chapters, you may sense that you’ll never make it in time, and give up altogether.

Instead, pick a goal that increases your pace, but not by so much that it requires you to become a whole new person before you can even start. If your current pace is a couple chapters a month, make a plan to write a chapter per week. If you get into the year and that pace seems not so hard, then increase it further.

Here are some goals of mine:

• Get my novella (finished already) out to beta readers, implement their feedback, and find somewhere to submit it.
• Complete the second draft of my novel.
• Write at least 40k words of a new novel.
• Write six short stories worthy of submission.
• Read/listen to 40 novels.

While that is less writing than I did last year, it is more editing! And overall more attention paid toward writing.

What are your goals for the new year?