New Years Resolutions

Its the second day of the new year, and I'd say its about time to promise to accomplish something! For writers especially, I think New Years Resolutions are important. Writing is a task that takes a lot of perseverance, dedication and will power. Sometimes its only our promises to ourselves that keep us going. Or other people who know about our resolutions and push us to succeed.

So today I'm mostly going to talk about my writing resolutions rather than any of my personal resolutions. Because this is, after all, a blog about writing and that's what most of you are interested in anyway.

1. Write 3 rough drafts 

As I've discussed before, its become tradition every fall for me to write two rough drafts. Its happened for the past three years and its probably going to happen again this time around. But my Summers are vastly unproductive. So I figure I'll make myself write at least one rough draft in the Summer. I have tons of time, so there's no excuse.

2. Read fifty books.

Part of me wanted to say 100 books, but I know that's a resolution I probably won't keep. So I'll shoot a little lower and if I read more, awesome. I neglected reading as much as I'd like to during the year and ended up reading about twenty books just this fall. If I can achieve that same rate, this shouldn't be a problem. Reading is important for writing after all.

3. Edit all eligible manuscripts

There are lots of finished manuscripts I have sitting around that I never got around to editing. In addition to editing the first draft of the sequel to HOUR OF MISCHIEF, I want to edit those as well. Maybe they'll get published and maybe not, but its still good to get them in their best shape.

4. Start a video series

To build a youtube presence I want to start a video series called Writer's Thoughts. I already have audio for a few episodes recorded and need to film. I know that youtube is a valuable tool for reaching audiences and its fun, so I'll be looking forward to that.

5. Write some short stories

Short stories are not my strength. They usually end up blowing up into novels. My mind expands the plots too far. But I need to improve on my short story writing ability, so I'm going to try to write more of them.

6. Find every Opportunity to Reach Out to New Writers

This year I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of budding writers, whether it be through judging online contests, working at Shared Worlds creative writing camp or just giving advice to those who ask. I think its the job of agented and published writers to help those who aren't there yet. We all remember when we were starting out and needed a helping hand or a kind word. It took us awhile to get here but we had people helping us along.

In addition I'm going to make an effort to read books by new authors. Since I'm going to be new myself soon, I think its only fair.

Those are my new years writing resolutions for the year. Share some of yours in the comments and happy 2015!