I didn’t write a ton in 2017, mostly because I was busy revising a project, revising it again, and then creating auxiliary resources (like a series synopsis) for submission. Once that all got handed over, my job as a writer became: WAITING. For the first time in two years I was without a project to hold my attention, and it was a feeling that was both liberating and stupefying. What was I going to work on next? I’ve avoided asking myself this for ages, for two reasons.
First, I am not a person ruled by religion or faith; I am instead a person ruled by the inconvenient paranoia of superstition likely a byproduct of my Greek heritage. When I was working on my first book I always prevented myself from asking what was next for fear that any foresight would result in some sort of poisoning of probability. Greek lore wired me to believe that any sort of confidence in the future will corrupt that future. For the superstitious, to ponder your dreams nakedly is to expose them to the fates, who are the terrific combination of nosy and spiteful. Therefore, the vulnerability of hope was never something I allowed myself, only revealing my dreams to myself after they had materialized in the present, only after I’d achieved them, and they couldn’t be taken away.
The second reason I didn’t ask myself what was next was out of the very real fear that I would have an immediate answer, and my answer would become the undeniable realization that I should stop what I was doing and start on another project. I treated my creativity like a beast in this way, limiting the known world to just what was known, with blinders set firmly against anything that might pry open my focus. The more I write, the less I need to enforce this sort of willful ignorance, but for my first book it was important to always know that nothing was next if I didn’t end the story. It’s how I got that book done.
But now it’s a new year, and it’s time to make some goals, so here’s what I’m looking to accomplish in 2018:
- Sell my first book to the right house. Print out the marketplace announcement and mail it to my enemies.
- Outline and write another book. I’ve got at least 6 ideas I’ve been hiding from.
- Post on this blog once a month.
- Revise DC
- Draft DC Book 2
- Write elaborate Sailor Moon fan fiction
- Write 3 short stories and submit for publication
- Write 2 essays and submit for publication
- Beta-read three books for my writer friends. Set up some editorial services.
Seems like a lot for just one year, but I’ve always needed to reach a critical threshold before starting and finishing anything, so here we are.
Good luck to everyone else scoping out their writing goals in 2018 🙂