I'm not a fan of New Year's (the holiday). The Christmas season is always really busy for me (used to be lots of church/school related stuff, now it's just life in general), and I tend to get sick mid-to-late December (this year was no exception *sigh*), so I'm always worn out by the time New Year's comes around, and the idea of partying because a clock turns & I have to remember to write a different number at the end of the date just doesn't appeal to me.

I've also never liked New Year's Resolutions. It made no sense to me when I was in school-- why make resolutions in the middle of the year? Instead I wrote a list of Dos and Don'ts at the beginning of every school year (8th-12th grade), and that was pretty much it.

This year, though, I started following Maggie Stiefvater (m_stiefvater) here on LJ and her fantastic post on resolutions really got me thinking. I need solid, quantifiable goals. I learned that back in the beginning of December, but I guess I never really thought of resolutions that way.

So this year, on New Year's Day, I sat down and thought about it. What did I do last year? What do I want to accomplish this year?

In 2009 I...

- Revised Two Novels: THE TIES OF BLOOD (formerly ARION) and WINGS & FANGS: BEWITCHED

- Started Querying Agents (Haven't found The One yet, but still looking!)

- Started Drafting Two Novels: WINGS & FANGS: TAKEN and QUENTS (super-new story I started last month!)

- Added to another WIP: WITH SOUL SO DEAD (formerly MORDAGRIN)

With all the above, I wrote approximately 418,000 words in 2009.

So in 2010 I want to...

- Begin querying WINGS & FANGS: BEWITCHED. This involves another round of revision, but that's got to be done anyway, so that part won't be a resolution.

- Finish at least one second-book-in-series, either WITH SOUL SO DEAD or WINGS & FANGS: TAKEN. This is because I hear a lot of talk about how writing the second book in a series is Really Hard, and I want to tackle and conquer that challenge.

- Finish a first draft of JORA, QUENTS or BROKEN PROMISE and begin revisions as necessary. I didn't finish a first draft of a novel this year, and I want to get faster on first drafts in general, so this one is pretty important to me.

- Write at least 30,000 words per month. According to my Daily Word Count Spreadsheet, I almost always hit this anyway. But there are some months I don't, and I really want to try and do it. I'm no longer attempting to write Every Single Day (meaning if I miss a day, I won't beat myself up about it), but this goal will keep me moving each month.

I'm really excited to get into these goals. I think they're varied enough to keep me interested in what I'm doing, but still hanging out just outside my comfort zone, so I'm definitely going to have to work to reach them.

Anyone else want to share their goals/resolutions?