It's A Brand New Year

A LOLcat starring my cat, Sophie.

With a new year comes a new writing journal (pictured above with Sophie) and, of course, New Year's Resolutions. Here are mine:

1. Submit a short story for publication.
2. Finish a novel.
3. Write in my writing journal every day.

I don't think I'm shooting for the moon here. These are all things I can easily accomplish if I try. I think one of the keys to setting goals is making sure they are things within your power to do. For example, I said "submit a short story" instead of "get a short story published" because whether it's published is up to an editor, not me. Setting a goal for something that is out of your control is dooming yourself to failure.

My first resolution will probably be the easiest, since I have a story written that I believe is publishable. All it needs is a bit of editing and it can be sent out. Getting it accepted, well, that's another story. My goal is to get either five rejections or one acceptance, whichever comes first. I shouldn't have too much trouble with resolution number three either. Even if all I write is "I didn't write anything today," that's good enough for me.

I think I'm going to have the biggest challenge with my second resolution. As I was making my resolutions, I was horrified to realize that over the last year I began four novels but finished none of them. I'm working on the problems I have that are keeping me from finishing (they're mostly mental, I think) and with some perseverance this year I know I can see at least one of my stories through to the end.

Do you make New Year's Resolutions? If you do, did you make any this year?