2010 Already!?

It snuck up on me! The end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010. I have no clue where the year went! But it is a new year now, which means renewed vigor to get things done. I hope. It's only the 3rd day of the year and I already feel behind...I hope I don't feel that way for all of 2010.

Anyway, with one of the silly collecting games I play, they have new creatures for the 1st of the year. I snagged a bunch on the 1st and named them after my hopes for the year. Here's the list, along with my pretty little Wisdom bird:


Wisdom
Balance
Patience
Diligence
Intuition
Determination
Creativity
Optimism

I need to think of these eight things as I take everything I do step-by-step, with each task I check off of my endless list.

I'm not going to post a yearly goals list here this year (that won't of course stop me from drawing one up otherwise, as I am a compulsive list maker - it's an obsession). I will continue to post my monthly goals, though. Nice doable chunks that way - right?

Sorry for not posting an update in December, but I got crazy busy with holiday stuff (we celebrate Yule in our house, but visited the in-laws since they celebrate Christmas). And since I was crazy busy with holiday stuff, I didn't get all the goals for last month completed. Sigh. That's why I feel so behind.

It doesn't help that a short story I had lined up to write in March decided it wanted to be written NOW. Fickle characters.... That means I'm behind on Dead As Dreams, even more so since I didn't attain my monthly word count. I have time to slowly catch up, really I do!

Are you wondering what I accomplished in December with writing? Mainly a heck of a lot of critiquing, about 3,500 words written between Dead as Dreams and "Love Fades", and I read a little bit.

The goals for January are as follows (some are copy and paste from last month):

- Study - clean, organize, file the papers away, put pictures up...finally make it usable for a writing hideaway! (Did I mention the holidays made things crazy? - Not enough time to clean - sigh.)
- Dead as Dreams rough draft and "Love Fades" short story - write at least 3,000 words per week, ultimate goal of 20,000 words by the end of January.
- Revise/Edit "Ancient Ways," then subsequently submit it somewhere.
- Revise "Ode to Buses and Libraries," then find a few people to critique it. =)
- Edit and Submit "Ode to Buses and Libraries," depending on when I get it revised and critiqued.
- Revise "Hell Hath No Fury," then then send it out for critiquing (why do I see this one taking me a really long time - it's a massive short).
- Continue critiquing - lots of critiquing! - I am halfway through one manuscript, but it is now on hold because another manuscript has priority.
- Update Blog and Website bi-weekly (likely opposite weeks).
- Send out 3 Queries for Mind.
- Keep my completed short stories in slush piles (I have a few that came back and really need sending out).
- Read 50 pages per week in the current novel I'm reading. (I read a little bit in December.)
- Start to catchup with online Writing Groups and Newsletters that I am tremendously behind on.

I am really hoping the holiday craziness doesn't leak over into January too much. One of my Saturday's will be shot, though, to do the holiday thing with my mother. =(

Diligence, right? Have to get it done! Happy writing, all. =)