When you make goals, I think it’s good to go back over them occasionally to see how you did. Otherwise, the goals just become this far off barometer that you’re vaguely aware of in a sort of existential way. I started this blog with some definite, and some not-so-definite goals, in mind. So with that in mind I wanted to share some of these goals and how they ended up playing out.
First, writing a short story every week. Well, this didn’t exactly work out, though it wasn’t quite the monumental failure it could have been, either. Writing a short story every week wasn’t so hard, in and of itself, but with all the other writing projects I had going at the same time, it became a bit to much to handle. Which is fine, I’m actually really satisfied with the number of stories I put out this year, because with the exception of a few, I think they are all quality in their own way.
Second, read a book every other week. I actually did this one, so boo-yah.
I’ll post a list of the books I read at the bottom of this post if anybody is interested, though anyone will be.
Third, I wanted to average 1,000 words of writing per day for the year. That would give me a grand total of 365,000 words written in a year. The average length of a novel is just under 80,000 so that would have been about 4 1/2 books worth. My total ended up being about half-that at 180,000. Which works out to be about 500 words a day. Which is not so bad, considering I took about 5 months entirely off of writing. In 2013, the goal will be to hit that 1,000 word a day.
Those were all of my big goals for 2013, in addition to writing the Gods and Children Trilogy, which I haven’t completed, yet. The first book, Birth of God, is done and I’ve just been working on a bunch of novellas and short stories to take a break from the story world, but I’ll be getting back too it very soon.
So, how did your 2012 goals play out? Did you hit some, miss the others? Miss them all? Hit them all? Did you even have 2012 goals? Are you going to make any for 2013? Leave a comment and let me know, I’d love to hear how your year went. I’m going to be finishing up a long short story I’ve been working on this week called “Masters of the Universe”, and I’ll be posting it in chunks starting at the end of this week, so you”ll have something to look forward too if you were expecting a story in this post.
Here’s my 2012 reading list if anybody is interested, I’d love to hear what you guys read this year, recommendations are always wanted.
2012 Reading List
Ender’s Game
Hunger Games
Catching Fire
Mocking Jay
Term Limits
9 Out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistake.
Fiction Writing for Dummies
Game of Thrones
Clash of Kings
Techniques of the Selling Writer
City of Bone
Retribution
Plot and Structure
Xenocide
Speaker for the Dead
Children of the Mind
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Foundation’s Edge
Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Time Machine
Invisible Man
Starship Troopers
Asimov’s Complete Short Stories
Character and Viewpoint
Fahrenheit 451
Something Wicked This Way Comes
The Mote in God’s Eye
Thanks for reading guys, leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.
