Another year has ended and new one is ushered in.  Every January 1^st  I’m compelled to take a look at the past year for an account of what I’ve accomplished and what I haven’t in relation to the writing goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year. It’s all in the spirit of accountability.  If I can’t be accountable to myself, then I will not be accountable to anyone else.  So, taking a look back at 2011, the goals I set for myself included:

    1. Complete polished draft of Edge of Desire (the UF) and begin submission process
    2. Complete 1st draft of WFF and get the first 3 chapters polished (for submission & contests)
    3. Outline 2 new projects
    4. Apply for PRO status
    5. Set up office

And just how did I fair with these, you may ask:

1. Not quite– I am actively still working on my polished draft of the UF.  To say I got side tracked in 2011 is an understatement.  But on the flip side, I have renewed energy for this story and I am furiously working on it right now.

2. Umm… No– I got nowhere near touching WFF in 2011.  Outside of my new outline, WFF has been in a coma… waiting to be revived.  In fact, I like to think of it as a modern day Sleepy Beauty, just waiting for its Prince to come along.  (And by “Prince” I mean me sitting my butt in the darn chair and hammering out the outline and cranking out the words.)

3. Yes, but No– I now have the next 2 stories in my contemporary romance series formulated (yay!),  but I have not put my thoughts on paper yet or made any tangible brainstorming progress. (I know, I know… There is no excuse)

4. No.  It’s a tad bit hard to apply for PRO when you are working on multiple manuscripts, yet not finishing one of  them.  But I digress…

5.  And for the 2^nd year in a row, I gotta say NO!  This really shouldn’t be this hard; I’ve YET to redo my office.  But I have a feeling I won’t have a choice but to get this one done in 2012.  In fact, I’m almost willing to bet that if I don’t do a thing else, I will definitely have a new office set up going 😉

Now that the year-end accountability is over, I’m looking towards 2012 and the things I plan to accomplish this year.  Instead of my traditional resolutions and goals, I’m going to take my critique partner’s advice and rally around a theme.  After much thought, my theme for 2012 (In all aspects of my life) will be PURSUIT.  Just in case you are unfamiliar with this term, Dictionary.com has it defined as:

Pursuit [per-soot] –  an effort to secure or attain; quest:

I am very committed to my goals of becoming a successfully published author.  I have invested years into increasing my knowledge and understanding of the craft, improving the consistently of my writing, and the development of my voice and style.  So, in keeping with my Pursuit theme for 2012, I have two areas I want to concentrate on as far as my writing goes.

In pursuit of my goal to become a published author, I will:

1. Complete my polished UF draft, enter it into contests and pitch it to editors/agents for consideration
2. Complete a rough draft of WFF (book #1 in my contemporary romance series)
3. Complete a rough draft of book #2 in my contemporary romance series

In pursuit to my goal to develop/expand my own author platform, I will:

1. Develop  workshops centered around my subject matter expertise (social media, branding and PR) as it relates to helping authors promotion themselves and establish a web presence.  It is my hope that I will be able to conduct said workshop(s) throughout 2012 at a variety of venues.

So here you have it. You know what I’ll be working towards in 2012, what about you?

Someday I’ll fly, someday I’ll soar
~John Mayer

If interested, you can check out my personal 2011 reflections and plans for 2012 here.