This article is very late, and I’d like to start by apologizing for the delay. The end of 2012 and beginning of 2013 were both quite eventful. I spent all of December in Arizona visiting with old friends and family. Then when I made it back up to Washington, I had to move within a few days, which created a whirlwind of packing and preparation.
The end of the year is always a great chance to look back. 2012 was very crazy. To call it an eventful year would be an understatement. We had a ton of fantastic films, great books, an election, not to mention the various personal events that happened in my everyday life.
For me, resolutions are not just “goals” for a year. They are meant to represent what I want that year to be. I don’t just go “I’m going to lose 10 pounds” and call it a day. I look back on the year before and see how fulfilling it was, which always informs what I decide to do going forward.
That said, I can’t really list my resolutions for 2013 without first pointing out what I managed to accomplish in 2012.
In no particular order, here were my resolutions for 2012 -
1. Get a girlfriend
Accomplished! We also broke up after six months. I should have rephrased that as “KEEP a girlfriend”. Still, on a technical level, I can check this one off.
2. Get a sailing license
Failed. The summer just sort of evaporated, and that’s really the time to try learning to sail in Seattle. I may give it a try again in 2013 though!
3. Learn to scuba dive
Failed. This was part two of my plan to get a sailing license, learn to dive, and then to explore the area around the Puget Sound.
4. Sell a novel
Accomplished! There will be further announcements about this as the year continues onwards. But it is a Young Adult Fantasy novel, and I’m quite proud of it.
5. Finish a novel
Accomplished! I wrote the above book in the period from March until December 2012.
6. Read one novel every month
Accomplished! This one was really downright accidental. I just love reading. In fact, I’d say I over-achieved and probably read at least two books each month.
So I managed 4/6! Not bad, if not exactly perfect either. Oddly enough, it feels as though I mostly excelled at the resolutions which were (at least in some context) outside of my complete control (getting a girlfriend requires meeting the right girl, and selling a novel requires a stroke of luck).
What do I want 2013 to look like? Well I’m scaling back the number of resolutions from 6 to 5, but they are still pretty ambitious.
1. Sell another novel
This one seems pretty self-explanatory. I am a writer, and wish to continue being a WORKING writer. I know that it should be about the art, but who doesn’t want to make a living while doing what they love? That is the ultimate goal here. Because life is a fusion of ones personal and professional lives. A person must find passion in every day, even the days spent working.
2. Write another novel
Speaking of spending days working, I wish to continue writing! Part of being a working writer is the constant doldrums of editing, blog maintenance, article writing, and so on. All of those do hold a certain element of appeal to me. Still, my favorite part of writing is the rough draft. Yes it always tends to be messy and need months of work. That doesn’t change the fact that it is my absolute favorite part of the writing process. It’s the moment where anything could happen in the story. That’s where the excitement always seems to be, for me.
3. Go somewhere unexpected
Obviously this is quite vague. Unfortunately it is meant to be that way. Not because I’m trying to make it easy to accomplish, though. In fact I would say quite the opposite. I want to be somewhere I’ve never planned to be, to wind up in a place entirely different and unexpected. Basically, I want an adventure, I want that sense of newness so often pushed aside due to the unimportant requisites of everyday responsibility. This is the resolution on the list that I most want to accomplish.
4. Get up to 500 Facebook “Likes”
Clearly one of my more ambitious goals, since I’m only hovering in the area of 100 at the moment. A great way to help, if you’re reading this and new, would be to go to my Facebook Author Page and click “Like”! If you aren’t new, then recommend me to your friends! At every milestone (100, 150, 200, ect.) I will be doing a contest or giveaway. If we make it to 500, then there will be a BIG giveaway, something awesome and expensive.
5. Finish NaNoWriMo
The past two years I have participated in NaNoWriMo, and both years I failed to finish. In 2011 it was because I just wasn’t motivated enough. As for 2012, I had to balance apartment hunting, holiday shopping, and other daily responsibilities. In particular, the apartment hunting is what killed my momentum. So my goal in 2013 is not only to participate in NaNoWriMo, but to finish it, as well!
So these are my goals for 2013. They show the shape I’d like the year to take, the path I want to walk - which is primarily growth in my career. I want this to be the year that I finally make my big break as a writer. I know this is a task which requires a bit of luck. I know it is, in many ways, outside of my power. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t do some things to propel myself in that direction.
I’m happy to be back and updating! This is actually the first of three posts I intend to put up over the next week. Stay tuned for my “Most Anticipated of 2013” and updates on all of my stories.
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