So, 2018 is drawing quickly to a close. Did you accomplish what you hoped to? Were you able to make progress? How did your views on what you intended to accomplish change?

What are your goals for 2019? Have you considered it?

For my goal, I'm going to be continuing to work on honing my short story craft, writing at least another six short stories, as well as continuing to send out short stories to publication markets like magazines and journals.

I love that you're working towards publication next year! That makes me happy. (Do let us know whenever you have stuff that goes to print so we can, like, buy our collectible copies...)

I haven't narrowed down my goals for 2019 yet, but I am waiting until I finish a major ghostwriting project in the next few weeks. Depending on how the client responds to that project will greatly determine my writing prospects for the year. My job schedule is also up in the air... So I'm going to see how all that lands in the next few weeks before committing to any hard numbers. I do intend to focus primarily on Peter's Angel as far as fiction goes, since I did finish the Red Rain sequel this year... I will probably do a small project in the Red Rain universe to keep it going, but I accomplished my immediate goal for that one.

Yeah, definitely! I've sent a couple stories out to a few places this year, but they all got rejected. Once the practicum started, had to set them aside, but I'm not doing any academic creative writing this semester, so I can focus more on that instead.

Nice! Those are good goals. It's cool to see Red Rain is still going on.

Well, I had hoped to finish a draft of my work in progress... Instead, I filled in some plot holes, did some long overdue research, and finished an "outline" of the whole thing. I'm just starting the actual revisions, and I'll need to consult my research helpers some more (Let's just say one section of dominoes in my book was laughably inaccurate...), but overall the story is much richer. I'd say a good goal for 2019 is getting the story revised to my liking, which may be ambitious for a novel-length book... Especially since I think I began messing around with my first draft in 2017... But I'm aiming high, and I'm really excited! And if I could get past revision and into editing, publishing, etc... (I'll likely self-publish, but I figured I don't need to choose until my manuscript is complete)

Congratulations on all you both accomplished this year! Varon, I haven't received any rejection letters, but I also haven't finished any projects. Hoping you get published in 2019!

Lt. General Hanson, that is great that you finished a sequel! Hoping the coming year brings continued creativity!

I managed to meet a couple of my writing-related goals for 2018, mostly ones that had slipped from last year:

• I completed all my planned prewriting/planning tasks for The Invasion
• I found illustrations for all the poems in Dreams & Prayers
• I finished my comprehensive revision/polishing pass through the poems of Dreams & Prayers.

But I failed on essentially every other goal (related to writing).

Based on how the changes I made to task scheduling a year ago worked out this year, I decided not to set goals for the entirety of 2019, but instead just the first quarter. (I have a month-by-month plan laid out for the whole year, but that's so I only have to do the busywork of creating worksheets in the spreadsheet I'm using for this once every twelve months instead of every three; I firmly expect a very great deal of "churn" in the further-out months of my plan.) Here's my writing-related goals for the first quarter of 2019:

• Finish the "for poetry" post in the blog series on LaTeX I'm working on
• Design a cover for Dreams & Prayers
• Write all the prose sections (dedication, preface, acknowledgements, blurb, ...) of Dreams & Prayers.
• Develop a plan for releasing and promoting Dreams & Prayers as it approaches and reaches readiness.
• Write at least three blank-verse Psalm settings
• Write a review of at least one book.
• Write at least 20 scenes of The Invasion.

(I am again very sorry how far behind my critique/close-reading pass has fallen, and I've increased the emphasis on catching up and finishing it in my plan. Feel free to poke me every week or two if I neglect it again ...)

I mean, that would require me remembering every two weeks...

("Feel free to" doesn't mean "I expect you to" ... ) When I'm waiting on someone to finish something in their spare time (e.g. for a player in my strategy game to finish his strategy for the turn) I tend to feel like I'm badgering if I send reminder inquiries more than once a month or so, but I'm so far behind on this already that a little badgering might well not be amiss .

I have found my best planning is when I take December as "off" as I can. My term for it is "New Year's Dissolutions"; I stop everything possible. Still go to work, still smooch with the wife, but all social and planning and other expectations are dropped. Usually the first half of the month is spent decompressing. Often it's right after NaNo, and I also pile learning projects during the entire year. Spend about a week evaluating the past year's successes and challenges, and then start to kick around ideas for the next year. When I don't do this I tend to emotionally crash early in the following year.

Major Writing Goals for 2019:

1. Submit a revised "Iana" for Writer's Digest contest. I just trimmed it to under the maximum of 4,000 words and submitted it on Critique Circle.

2. Plan out TDW.1429.4, "Tinny". This one is emotionally difficult but needs to be written. The plan is to NaNo draft books 4-6 before starting the major revisions. Wrote TDW.1429.7, the last book in Al's series, in November. It was cool, Al died. There was also some kissing involved.

3. Start marketing. At least at the 'publicly talking about things' level.

4. Hit a conference if affordable.

That triggered a light bulb moment for me! Last year was my first to really plot out goals and strategies, but I didn't finish until the end of January. December is also one of my busiest months of the year. Since that is the same every year, I realized that for me January makes a better planning month. I guess my first goal of the year, then, will be to finish my concrete planning in January.

That's definitely a really good point. December is finals month for me, so I almost never get any writing done, especially if I was doing some sort of academic creative writing project.

It's almost a sabbath month when it comes to creative writing.