Happy New Year!

When the dial ticks forward another inch and we enter a new year, everyone seems to go into a resolution frenzy. Everywhere you look, people are resolving to do things differently, be better people or achieve that ever-elusive goal. Social media, Amazon indie publishing, the news. New Years resolutions are everywhere. I even have a writing assignment at my day job around this theme this month.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the idea of a clean slate, my very own yearly tabula rasa with which there is so much possibility. It’s a cultural phenomenon and one that I usually don’t buy into. But this year, I’m motivated to make even more progress on my writing given that last year I achieved my lifelong dream of publishing a novel.

Like many of you, 2016  was a pretty crappy year for me. There were a few positives to be sure and those positives are truly stellar things that don’t deserve to be lumped in a corner and forgotten – and believe me, they are certainly remembered and beloved. But there was more than my fair share of disappointments/sadness/change/challenges. Nevertheless, I have high hopes for 2017 and for myself.

The newsreel of course latches on to the story of resolutions, but it was Amazon that particularly caught my interest. Being that I published The Green Lady through their indie publishing service, their messaging tends to catch my attention . They have a great new slogan and marketing campaign that surely will resonate with all indie writers. New Year. New Stories. Ain’t that the truth!

I have a couple of writing goals for 2017 and I can’t wait to both write new stories and put my stories out into the world.

Number one: I’m planning to complete my edits of Withered World and get it published! My dream would be to get that accomplished sometime this spring. We’ll see how that goes. But I am very excited to read through my edits from my first beta reader, write back cover copy and hire a cover artist and then share the work with my network of additional beta readers and editors. I wouldn’t allow myself to work on the cover project until after I finished the draft. And with the draft complete, I am free to pick my next artist – it was my reward for persevering.

My number two goal for 2017: write a draft of NightWind. This one will be a little harder to accomplish. I have a basic – very basic – plot and one character outlined. I have a second in the works. But I have a lot of world building to do before I can progress and I’m not making a lot of headway in this department. World building is something I both love and loathe. Creating an entire universe and history is a hell of a lot of work! I’m learning more about steampunk and this is the issue that has me mostly blocked. I need to figure out how it all fits together. It will come.

What are your writing goals for 2017? Please share in the comments!