Mid-Year Goal Status and June/July Goals

June has ended up being my best writing month in a long time. Like I said in my mid-month goal check, I'm not quite sure what changed, but I'm very happy and it seems to be continuing.

So, here's how I did for June:

1. Make 20 non-reprint submissions of short stories. - KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK! I more than doubled my goal by making 44 non-reprint submissions of short stories. Along the way, I reached a new personal best for number of stories out for non-reprint submission -- 43.
2. Submit one backlog story for each full week in June. - KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK! I more than doubled my goal here, getting not just four backlog stories out for the first time but nine! On top of that I got three new stories out the door from late-May and June which don't really count as backlog, but brought my total for stories which went out the door for their first time for the month to TWELVE!
3. Write at least one story. - KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PART! Two stories (one flash, one about 2000 words) were written this month and also went out for their first submissions. I also completed two more stories (again, one flash and one about 2000 words) which will likely get submitted for the first time in July.
4. Read at least 30 short stories. - DONE! I count 41 short stories read this month.
5. Reply to all Kazka Press submissions by June 23rd. - NOT QUITE. I didn't get all my responses in to the publisher until a couple of days after that self-imposed deadline but as far as I know, everything got to him with plenty of time to be ready to roll with the July issue.

A very satisfying month. Now to see where I stand for the year as a whole and set some goals for July.

May Goal-Check and June Goal-Setting

The year is almost half-over. Toward the end of this month I'll look at my progress on my 2013 goals overall. (Spoiler Alert: It's not gonna be pretty.)

For now, though, I'm going to focus on the month that just ended and the month that's beginning.

Here were my May goals:

1. Make 15 non-reprint submissions of short stories. - Got it. In fact, I surpassed it with a total of 20 submissions.
2. Write at least one story of more than 1000 words. - Done.
3. Submit at least one story for the first time. - Done.
4. Reply to all Kazka Press submissions by May 25th. - I came up a bit short... err... long on this. I made all my first-round decisions by the 25th but didn't make final cuts until the 27th. Since we try to put issues out on the 1st, that really put the publisher in a time crunch. So I'm going to aim to be better about this in June.

Speaking of June. Let's have some goals!

1. Make 20 non-reprint submissions of short stories.
2. Submit one backlog story for each full week in June. - If I do this, I'll get four of the stories out of my "backlog" of drafted-but-not-finished stories out the door.
3. Write at least one story. - Writing new fiction isn't going to be my main objective this month, but I do want to meet my Write 1/Sub 1 monthly goal.
   
4. Read at least 30 short stories.
5. Reply to all Kazka Press submissions by June 23rd.

Goal Check-In for "Mid"-May and Submission Stats

May's about 2/3 over now, but that's still vaguely "mid"-month. So, here's a real quick goal check-in.

1. Make 15 non-reprint submissions of short stories. - Just achieved that one tonight.
2. Write at least one story of more than 1000 words. - I have one in progress that will be well over 1000 words. The question is, will it be complete by month-end?
3. Submit at least one story for the first time. - Also achieved as of tonight.
4. Reply to all Kazka Press submissions by May 25th. - Still got a lot of work to do on this, but I don't anticipate it being a problem.

So, for my relatively-unambitious (for me) goals, I'm doing fairly well.

In the big picture, I'm still WAY behind on my for-the-year goals. My short story reading has slacked off this month and my new-story submission rate has been abysmal. A direct consequence of that latter item is that I have very few upcoming publications at this point. That's partly due to some quick turnarounds on recent sales, but it's also a reflection of the fact that I haven't been as on top of getting new things out as I have in the past and there have been times when I haven't been great about getting older stories back out the door after a rejection.

How big of a difference has that made? Well, here are my stats for January 1st through May 21st from 2012 and 2013.

Year	Submission Respones	Acceptances	Rejections
2013	70	6 (3 pro) [8.57% overall, 4.29% pro]	64
2012	161	14 (2 pro) [8.69% overall, 1.24% pro]	147

I've got to admit that I wouldn't have guessed that my actual acceptance rate was higher, even fractionally, during that time frame in 2012. But you can see where the big difference is. We're 141 days into this year (and we were 142 days into last year, now that I think of it...) and I've averaged basically half a response per day. Last year I was averaging over a response per day. (In fact, I'd averaged over a REJECTION per day...)

I'm not sure I'll ever get back to early-2012's pace. There was a point there where I had over 40 short stories circulating and I've been in the mid-20s most of the last six to nine months. Which is still quite a few!

And I'm not sure there's any huge point to any of this musing, other than for my own benefit. But if you find it useful or inspirational or interesting, that's cool, too.

April 29, 2013 Goal Check-In

There's still a little over a day left in April, so I'm not going to call this final just yet.

1. Submit three stories for the first time. - I got one out the door, which is better than zero.
2. Read seven short stories each Monday to Sunday week. - Four-for-four. I think this format is better for me, though I may up this to 10 per week to try to move me closer to my year-goal.
3. Reply to all Kazka Press flash fiction submissions by the 24th. - Got it.
4. Make twenty submissions of non-reprint stories. - Also got it.
5. Outline and get at least 4000 words written on a novelette for general submission. - This one isn't happening.
6. Write one non-flash story which is NOT inspired by any pre-existing prompt/theme/etc. - I've got an idea outlined for a story which will probably come in at 1500-2500 words. I'm intending to get started on composing it yet tonight.
7. Blog every Monday about my goal progress. -  Two weeks out of four. Could be worse.

I'll pop in later in the week to set up my May goals and close out April in terms of goals 1 and 6.

April Goal Status

Well.

April has not gone to plan. But then, how often do things go to plan?

1. Submit three stories for the first time. - I am once again failing to get any traction on this goal. I won't say that I've already blown my chances at hitting my goal for 2013 in terms of getting new stories out the door, but it's going to require much more focus than I've given to the goal so far. There's at least some chance I'll still make this goal with a little over a week left in April.
2. Read seven short stories each Monday to Sunday week. - Having a weekly goal here has helped quite a bit with keeping me from getting off track. I've hit the mark three weeks in a row.
3. Reply to all Kazka Press flash fiction submissions by the 24th. - I'm on target for this.
4. Make twenty submissions of non-reprint stories. - I'm at ten so far for the month. A good chance I'll hit twenty.
5. Outline and get at least 4000 words written on a novelette for general submission. - As much as I'd like to do this, I think it needs to have lower precedence than getting stories already drafted finished up and out the door.
6. Write one non-flash story which is NOT inspired by any pre-existing prompt/theme/etc. - I like the idea behind this goal, but ultimately it's as much an "ego" goal as anything else. If I end up having an idea I love and writing it this month, fantastic. If not, I won't be too upset.
7. Blog every Monday about my goal progress. -  This is the one I'm most disappointed in myself for not following through on so far in April because it's so incredibly easy. It only takes maybe ten minutes and it gives me an opportunity to mentally check how I'm doing. Maybe if I'd done this some of the other Mondays this month I would have made more progress on the goals I'm not on track to meet. Maybe not, of course. Nevertheless, I want to include something similar in my May goals and make sure I follow through.

Goals - March and April 2013

I got lazy in March. I really don't know any other way to put it. I let myself be way too lax on productivity and though I did a halfway decent job of keeping stories out on submission, that's really about the only aspect of my writing that I kept on top of.

I said a while back that if I got bad about staying productive when I moved away from the Daily Writing Chain that I would feel a need to re-institute it. (I wrote about the Daily Writing Chain extensively in "Write Every Day.") I'm putting myself on notice. A rough April and the Chain is coming back. That's not a threat to myself or a means of punishing myself. It would be a way of recognizing that without it I wasn't sticking to the discipline I need to have if I want to build a successful writing career.

So, with all of that in mind, let's see how things looked for March. My goals were:

1. Submit three stories for the first time. - I did this.
   
2. Read thirty short stories. - I didn't just fail at this, I bombed it. In impressive fashion. 6/30.
3. Reply to all Kazka Press flash fiction submissions by the 25th. - This one went fine.
4. Make fifteen submissions of non-reprint stories. - I succeeded at this, though just.
5. Outline and get at least 4000 words written on a novelette for general submission. - I haven't gotten off to a good start on this goal. I need to put some thinking time in on it because I'd like to at least get an outline put together before the end of the month. 

So, anything that had to do with submissions -- either making or processing them -- went fine. Everything else? Not so much...

But March is over and it's time to move on to April. So here are some new goals:

1. Submit three stories for the first time. - This is so I can keep moving forward on my goal for stories submitted for the year.
   
2. Read seven short stories each Monday to Sunday week. - When I got behind last month, I think I felt "heck with it." This way I get a fresh start every week. We'll see if that helps.
3. Reply to all Kazka Press flash fiction submissions by the 24th. - I'm keeping this as pretty much a standing goal. It gives about a week for turnaround on the back end with contracts, etc. before publication.
4. Make twenty submissions of non-reprint stories. - Keeping the stories out the door is important for getting them accepted and published.
5. Outline and get at least 4000 words written on a novelette for general submission. - Yes, this is back again. I really want to stretch out some and the only way I'll accomplish that is by putting forth the effort.
6. Write one non-flash story which is NOT inspired by any pre-existing prompt/theme/etc. - Maybe this one is a bit unnecessary, but I feel like an awful lot of my recent writing has been driven by external prompts and themes. I'd like to make sure I'm writing the things that are important to me and while I basically think I've done fine with that while working a lot with prompts and themes, I'd like to encourage myself to do some self-starting as well this month.
7. Blog every Monday about my goal progress. -  I think I'm missing some of the accountability I set up for myself with more frequent check-ins last month. I hope this will help me out.

That's a lot of goals for the month, but -- as always -- I am hopeful that I will be successful with them.

Quick March Goals Update

It's still basically mid-month and I have time to keep working on my goals for March. So, with that in mind, here's a quick status check...

1. Submit three stories for the first time. - DONE!
   
2. Read thirty short stories. - I am way behind the pace on this one. I hope I can still get a decent number read before the end of the month, but 30 is unlikely.
3. Reply to all Kazka Press flash fiction submissions by the 25th. - Barring an absolute flood of submissions in the next couple of days, I should be able to do this without a problem.
   
4. Make fifteen submissions of non-reprint stories. - On pace for this.
5. Outline and get at least 4000 words written on a novelette for general submission. - I haven't gotten off to a good start on this goal. I need to put some thinking time in on it because I'd like to at least get an outline put together before the end of the month.

February Goal Results and March Goals

Here were my February goals and how I did with them.

1. Submit three stories for the first time. - I made zero progress on this. Got to get better at this..
   
2. Read twenty-five short stories. - Done.
   
3. Develop a convention schedule for the year. - Basically done in February. I had to wrap a few things up on it tonight. But it's done now.
4. Reply to all Kazka Press flash fiction submissions by the 24th. - Done.
   
5. Make twenty submissions of non-reprint stories. - Done.

So, other than not getting new stories out the door (which is, I need to acknowledge, a big part of what I should be doing writing-wise) this was a good month. Now, as for March...

1. Submit three stories for the first time. - I probably should set this at four since I'm zero-for-two-months, but one of the issues I'm running into is not having enough markets to submit to for some types of stories, so I'm going to leave this at three for now and make accomplishing this a very high priority. 
   
2. Read thirty short stories. - Bumping this up to a slightly higher number, since I hit 25 last month.
3. Reply to all Kazka Press flash fiction submissions by the 25th. - Pretty straight forward, get responses out quickly allowing time for contracts to be signed, etc.
   
4. Make fifteen submissions of non-reprint stories. - Bumping this down a bit since I've got most of my stories out at the moment and if replies don't come in quickly enough it might be hard to get to twenty again in March.
5. Outline and get at least 4000 words written on a novelette for general submission. - This ties in to my goal for the year to get four novelettes and/or novellas submitted.

Quick February Goal Update

I'm still on hiatus.

If anything, my hiatus has gotten even more hiatus-y. On top of the previously-existing issues I've been navigating, my father-in-law had a medical issue and my wife has been away helping tend to his and her mother's needs.

But I'm still plugging away with things, though still slower than I would like. Here are my goal statuses for February with about 1/4 of the month remaining.

1. Submit three stories for the first time. - 0 for 3. Really? Yes. Really.
   
2. Read twenty-five short stories. - Nicely on the way to this goal. I'm at 20 for the month. Yay!
   
3. Develop a convention schedule for the year. - Not done yet. If this slips to March, I won't be too upset.
4. Reply to all Kazka Press flash fiction submissions by the 24th. - Well on my way to having this done. Will get it done barring a true surprise in my schedule.
   
5. Make twenty submissions of non-reprint stories. - I'll either make this or come close. I'm at 15 right now and should be able to get to 20.

So, other than the struggle to actually get new stories out the door, I feel good about how the month has been going. As always, onward!

January and February Goals

Oof.

I think January is going to have been one of my least successful goal-meeting months since I got back into writing. On the one hand, I've had an impressive amount of first/second draft productivity having gotten initial versions of seven short stories written this month. On the other hand, I haven't directed nearly as much energy toward my stated goals for the month as I should have. I could give explanations and make excuses, but the bottom line is this: I've gotten some good work done but I haven't gone in the direction I intended to go.

January Results

1. Submit four stories for the first time. - A complete whiff. This isn't good since my goal for the year is to get 36 stories out for the first time. On the bright side, I've still got 11 months in which to do that work. But I can't afford many more months like this one if I'm going to meet that goal.
2. Read fifty short stories. - I'm sitting at 26 right now with a few days left in the month. If I can manage it, I'd like to get that up to 30 before January is out. We'll see.
3. Submit programming interest form for Marcon. - Completed.
4. Publish a revised blog strategy. - Completed.
5. Reply to all Kazka Press flash fiction submissions by the 25th. - I was on good track for this but then ended up not getting the last of the responses out until the 28th. I basically am okay with this, since the pattern of stories coming in this month seemed to be very different from when I guest-edited -- in brief, about 2/3 of the stories which came in arrived within a day or two of the deadline on 1/20. Still, next month is a short month. So this was my month to learn and next month will be my month to meet the goal.
6. Have some point during the month where all of my stories which I consider to be on submission are out the door to a market. - Not even close.

February Goals

For a variety of reasons, I'm going to take it a bit easy in February. Some of the things which ate up time in January will continue to eat up time in the beginning of February, it's a short month, etc.

1. Submit three stories for the first time.
2. Read twenty-five short stories.
3. Develop a convention schedule for the year.
4. Reply to all Kazka Press flash fiction submissions by the 24th.
5. Make twenty submissions of non-reprint stories. - I still want, some month, to do the "get everything out the door" goal. But having a purely numeric count might be easier for February. We'll see.

"Awaiting the Captain's Ghost" in DEEP CUTS & Goal Updates

The horror anthology "Deep Cuts" is live now on Amazon.com. This book includes 19 short stories including my own Civil War-era tale "Awaiting the Captain's Ghost." I've been working occasionally on writing stories which are inspired to one degree or another by English and Scottish ballads such as those collected by Francis James Child. [SPOILER LINK WARNING: Clicking the link in the next sentence and reading about the related ballad will give hints as to where the story is going, in part.] "Awaiting the Captain's Ghost" explicitly references one such ballad, "The Knight's Ghost."

I'm very happy with how this story turned out and looking forward to reading the other stories in the collection. I hope that if you purchase this book (or if you already have it on its way via their Kickstarter effort from last year) that you enjoy the book and my story.

And now, for goal updates! Here's where things stand for January as a whole.

Two Story Sales and More Goal Updates

I ended 2012 with two more short story sales. My story "Act of Penance" was accepted for the December 2012 Kazka Press Flash Fiction contest. I'm very pleased to have had one more story accepted there before I take over the editorial reins for the monthly contests. This story should go live today or in the very near future.

Also, "Back to School", my zombie teacher story, has been accepted for publication by Plasma Frequency. It will be in the fourth issue of that publication, due in early February.

Now to close out December's goals and declare goals for January.

For December...

My 2013 Goals and a 2012 Goal Recap

I've previously blogged draft versions of my goals for 2013 and in the end, I've decided to make no real changes to the list. To have them in a nice, consolidated place I'm going to list them out here along with links to the original blog posts which covered each individual goal and the details behind them.

Sunday Links: December 16, 2012 Edition

I had let myself get horribly behind on short story submissions. This is normally something I'm very good about, however over the last couple of months in particular, as I got rejections I wasn't getting around to sending stories back out to another market. I've made a major push to that end this week and I'm basically caught up now. The only things not currently out the door are stories which I'm considering making revisions to before submitting them again. As of tonight I have 36 submissions out, five reprints and 31 originals. It feels good to be back to where I've got a lot of stories on on submission and I'm going to make a concerted effort to not fall behind again.

As a side note, with this week's efforts I've crossed the 300 mark for 2012 submissions. There was a point where I thought I might have 366, which would have been neat, but my slacking off in recent months ensured that wouldn't happen. Still, 300 submissions is a lot and I'm quite pleased with what I have accomplished.

Something in early 2013 I'll do a Year-in-Review for 2012 with all kinds of statistics. For now, though, let's move on to the writing-related links I've come across this week which I want to share:

December Goals Progress and Holiday Hiatus

Usually, around the middle of the month I'll post an update on how my goals are going so far. After several months where things weren't going quite as smoothly, December has gotten off to a very solid start. Here's my goal progress so far:

1) Keep my Daily Writing Chain going. - No issues so far this month.
2) Write and submit four new stories. - My goal is to have a new story out the door every Friday in December. I have accomplished that for each of the first two weeks of the month. Two to go.
3) Revise and submit one story from my backlog. - This is not done yet, but I have an idea which story I might tackle first, so there's a bit of progress here.
4) Finalize my 2013 goals. - I finished up my "first draft" goals. Now I'm going to finalize the goals and put together the blog post on them.

At this point, I have no reason to think I won't go 4-for-4 here. There's always the chance of a challenging day or two for the Daily Writing Chain with the holidays, but I managed it last year and I'm optimistic that I'll do the same this year.

Speaking of the holidays, I tend to go on a blog hiatus around major holidays and this December will not be an exception. I'll have a post up on Monday the 17th, but I don't plan to do another post after that until Monday the 31st. As usual, there's nothing that says I won't decide to put up a bit of news or something else that strikes my fancy, but it's equally possible that there won't be any new posts from the 18th through the 30th.

Finally, I wanted to note that author and editor M. Bennardo put together a list of his favorite stories from 2012 which were not published in pro-rate-paying venues and he included my story "Twenty-Seven Rules for Coping" (originally published in Goldfish Grimm's Spicy Fiction Sushi and slated for Greek and French reprints) on the list.

Best wishes to all of my readers and friends as we head into the home stretch of 2012!

On Goals and Aspirations

I've written a lot about goals lately. Monthly goal wrap-ups, monthly goal declarations, drafts of goals for next year, and on and on.

Well, goal-setting and goal-achievement certainly has been one of the main themes on this blog throughout its existence, so I guess it's not a surprise that I've been talking about them a lot. And here I am, again, talking about goals. Though I plan to mostly talk about things which aren't goals: Aspirations.

An earlier blog post of mine talked about setting "SMART" goals. So, for example, I wouldn't have considered "Qualify for Active SFWA Membership in 2012" to have been a good "goal." Ultimately, whether I did so or not was something I couldn't directly control. I could influence it very heavily by working to improve my writing, submitting diligently, etc. But in the end, it was up to the editors of various markets to determine if that happened or not. (I'm still very excited, by the way, that it did...)

I refer to things like that -- which I would like to see happen but have incomplete influence over -- as "aspirations." I believe that it's very important to not mistake aspirations for goals. Doing so can lead to frustration and disappointment because you are making your satisfaction dependent on something which is outside your ability to control.

So that's why, as much as I'd love to see it happen, I won't create a 2013 goal for myself like "Sell a story to a major print SF publication." That's an aspiration because I can't make it happen. I can try very hard and do all the right things toward that wish, but once I've done that it will either happen or it won't. ("Sell a story to a major print SF publication" would also be a poorly-defined goal because it doesn't define "major." But I digress...)

Goals, for me, are the things by which I measure myself. But aspirations are what I dream about -- they are the things which I hope the goals drive me toward. And while my goals are things I talk about on a regular basis in public, my aspirations are the things I for the most part keep close to me, discussing them with relatively few people.

2013 Goal #5: Attend Four Conventions (And a Non-Goal. No Word Count Goal for 2013)

I'm going to be working out my 2013 goals publicly here on my blog between now and the end of the year. Note that all of these posts will be considered "First Draft" goals, subject to being modified, enhanced, shrunk, contorted, folded, spindled, mutilated, or even out-and-out obliterated at my own future whim. These goals are also being presented simply in the order that I decide upon them. So Goal #1 isn't any more important than Goal #5 (or whatever). I probably will reorder the goals in order of importance when I go to wrap this all together in a final set of 2013 goals.

2013 Writing Goal #5: Attend Four Conventions

This is a rather straight-foward goal. I want to continue to work at meeting other writers and getting the benefits of going to conventions. The most difficult thing was deciding what number to place on this goal. On the one hand, there are three conventions locally (Marcon, Context, and -- if I include it -- Pulpfest). On the other hand, with a family, making time to go to these events can be a challenge.

Still, in the end, I decided that these are goals, not "must-do"s. I'd like to travel to at least one out-of-state convention again this coming year. So setting the goal at four feels right.

---

This may well end up being the last of my draft goals. One goal which I explicitly know I will NOT have for 2013 is a word count goal. This isn't because I missed (badly) on my 2012 word count goal. I have two main reasons.

1) It's a bit of an awkward goal to track. I had a spreadsheet which I was using to track it for the better part of 2012 before I realized I wasn't going to make my goal and that I didn't really need to know exactly how many words I'd written in 2012 anyway. Once I set up the spreadsheet it wasn't terribly hard, but it still meant a little bit of fiddling on a lot of days.

2) More importantly, I'm not trying to produce words. I'm trying to produce completed, out-the-door stories. I've put together multiple goals around story production, so I should be well covered in that regard. In theory could I write 4 7500 word novelettes and 32 100 word drabbles and meet my goal? Well... Yes. But it would be obvious to myself and everyone else that this was cheating and not really moving me forward. And if I was inclined to go that route, I doubt a word count goal would all of a sudden "shock" me out of such an approach.

I suspect there's a very good chance I'll end up writing 100,000 words in 2013. And I'll certainly have a good idea of my count of final draft words for 2013. But I won't be tracking every word day-by-day because it just doesn't seem like a productive activity for me at this time.

2013 Goal #4: Read 500 Short Stories

I'm going to be working out my 2013 goals publicly here on my blog over the next couple of months. Note that all of these posts will be considered "First Draft" goals, subject to being modified, enhanced, shrunk, contorted, folded, spindled, mutilated, or even out-and-out obliterated at my own future whim. These goals are also being presented simply in the order that I decide upon them. So Goal #1 isn't any more important than Goal #5 (or whatever). I probably will reorder the goals in order of importance when I go to wrap this all together in a final set of 2013 goals.

2013 Writing Goal #4: Read 500 Short Stories and Document What I've Read

As I've discussed in several recent blog posts, my focus as a writer is primary around short fiction (For the purposes of this goal I'm using "short stories" to cover everything shorter than a novel, from flash fiction to novellas.) One of the things which I can do to improve my abilities as a writer of short fiction is to be an avid reader of short fiction.

When I say that I'll document what I read, I pretty much just mean note what I read, who wrote it, and where I read it. I'll also make some kind of notation if it's a story which I want to keep track of for award nomination purposes. That will not be public documentation; just a spreadsheet or something like that which I keep for my own use.

I've occasionally set myself short fiction reading goals and there for a while I was doing a very good job of taking part in #storyeachnight on Twitter. (Exactly what it sounds like, read a story every day and tweet about it.) This goal is a bit more ambitious than a story a day; a little more than four stories every three days. But it's the sort of thing I shouldn't have any real difficulty with as long as I keep reading at a steady pace.

November Goal Wrap-Up

Toward the end of each month, I review how I did at meeting my goals for the month. November was not a shining example of goal-meeting for me. Here's how it played out.

1) Keep my Daily Writing Chain going. - Yes and no. I didn't announce any sort of hiatus for Philcon prior to heading to the convention and there was probably at least one day in there where I could have gotten writing done and wasn't actually at the convention and still didn't write. So I'm semi-considering the chain "broken" but I did write a big "PHILCON" across those days on my calendar so I guess I'm semi-not-considering it broken as well.
2) Write and submit one brand-new story. - Done.
3) Revise and submit one story from my backlog. - Done.
4) Finish a draft of my story for the Codex Novella contest. -Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. No. The good news: the contest doesn't end until December 10th. The bad news: at my current pace I'll be done by December 10th. 2013.
5) Enjoy myself at PhilCon. - Done.

You know, looking at it like this, it really doesn't look too bad. Only one true "swing-and-a-miss." But that was on in some ways the most substantial goal. However, I think the real reason I felt less-than-accomplished this month is because I didn't actually finish goals 2 and 3 until this evening. I spent pretty much all month with "Well, I enjoyed Philcon!" as my "What I unambiguously accomplished from my goals" list. And I think that led to my sense of being way off the mark.

Regardless, November is basically done and I'm moving on to December. I've got new goals for that month and I'm hoping to have a solid performance on them and pave the way for a great 2013.

My Goals for December

As I do every month, I'm documenting my goals for the month of December here. Thursday I'll review my progress for November. As I mentioned yesterday, it's not going to be the most impressive set of results.

But for today, I'm looking forward. My December goals are:

1) Keep my Daily Writing Chain going. - This goal shows up every month.
2) Write and submit four new stories. - I'm doing a mini-Write 1/Sub 1 weekly like I did last December. My goal will be to have a new story out the door every Friday in December.
3) Revise and submit one story from my backlog. - Still chipping away at the backlog.
4) Finalize my 2013 goals. - Rather straightforward.

You'll notice this is a very pared-down goal list compared to some from prior months. There are a couple of reasons for this, but the main one is that since I've been struggling a bit to reach some of my goals, I want to make sure that I'm focusing on the things which are of the highest priority to me. Right now, my writing identity (both in terms of how I believe other writers/readers see me and my own internal writing identity) is that of a short fiction writer, mostly in the science fiction and fantasy genres. All of the goals above either help me reinforce that identity or relate to defining future goals, which makes them valuable in my mind.

I'm hoping that I can have a solid 4-for-4 performance on these goals. While I'm perfectly fine with not reaching all of my goals every month and with giving myself some slack, I think it's time to rein things in a bit and go for a clear "win" of a month.

Wish me luck!