Some of my goals are personal (dealing with health and finances, for example), and some of them (the ones I'm sharing here) are more writer-ly.
- Goal One - Maintain my bi-monthly column at Paperback Reader. This should be easy and a no-brainer; my "Papercut" column is part editorial, part critique, and I've got plenty of thoughts about the horror genre that I can put to virtual paper.
- Goal Two - Non-fiction book project Number One. Yeah, yeah, I'm being purposefully vague here, and I will disclose more as I get closer to seeing this one completed . . . which, if I can keep my head down and nose to the grindstone (and that's the very last time that I, as a writer, will use that clichéd phrase), I can see being completed in three months time.
- Goal Three - 2010 Novel Number One. I'm working through an old National Novel Writing Month novel I completed in 2006, expanding the text, changing the perspective and fleshing out the characters a bit more. I've started work on this already, and would like to see a finished draft by summer.
- Goal Four - 2010 Novel Number Two. This novel features a character that will appear in my contribution to the upcoming anthology Dark, scheduled to be released later this year. I'm as excited about this one as I am about 2010 Novel Number One, and look forward to learning a bit more about this great city in which I live(-ish - technically I don't live in Portland, OR, proper) as I hope to tie some of this novel into the history and geography of the Portland, OR, area. The goal for this is to see a first draft completed by the end of 2010.
- Goal Five - Non-fiction book project Number Two. This is a big one, with a lot of work to do and headway to make. I'm looking forward to tackling this as it's been bubbling around in my brain for at least a year now, and it's about damned time I throw those words down. More details as this project becomes more concrete.
- Goal Six - As much short fiction writing as I can. There are some markets that have asked to see some of my work, and I can't let them down! Besides, I can always go back to a short story to keep the writing gears turning if any of my novel or non-fiction projects give me any grief.
- Goal Seven - Not quite a fiction or non-fiction project, but there's still some writing involved, so there you go. I meant to complete this project in 2009, and I need to touch base with the collaborator with whom I was working, but I think this will be a fun project to get off the ground and shop around.
