I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions. By mid-January (if we even make it that far), they’re forgotten about – swept under the rug like dust bunnies and little balls of cat hair. The “new” has worn off, the media buzz is gone, and we’ve settled back into our boring, old routines.

Writers aren’t immune to this trend. There are blog posts galore, like this one, from authors resolving to do all sorts of very specific things, such as write for allotted periods of time. But I’m afraid – for me anyway – this style of resolution is an invitation to cat hair and dust bunnies. I like my friend David James’s approach a little better, so I’m adopting his style to craft short, sweet and they’re-so-broad-they-must-be-achievable resolutions. Therefore, in 2014 I resolve to do the following:

1. Write more.
2. Sell a book.

Pretty straightforward, huh? I could get specific and, say, toss out daily word count goals, but that’d be setting myself up for failure. Who needs metrics?

Agent Steve is bearing the brunt of #2. Blades of Grass is out there making its rounds. Feedback has been slow to trickle in. Maybe that’s a seasonal thing? I don’t know. In any case, it’s a waiting game on that one. No news is good news, I guess.

Since that one is largely out of my hands, let’s move on. To strengthen my chances of #2 becoming a reality, I need to focus on #1. After finishing BOG, I went on a bit of a hiatus to regroup and figure out what the hell I’m going to write next. While I recently landed on a new idea that I think has legs, I’m also toying with the needed revision of my first book, Straightville, U.S.A. Longtime followers will recall that we got a lot of good feedback from editors on that project early last year, but failed to make a sell in its current form. My plan after finishing BOG was to revise Straightville based on that feedback, but by then I was so far removed from that book that going back to it didn’t feel quite right. I initially started that book way back in 2008, so making it fresh for myself felt like a chore.

However…

Over the past couple days, I’ve sketched out a revision idea that I think could do the book justice while propelling my interest in working on it again. I figure a rewrite of Straightville could come more quickly than starting a new book from scratch, giving me two viable options for Steve to circulate.

So that’s where 2014 is beginning for me: one book being shopped around for publication, a revision of my first book on the front burner, and a fresh, new idea waiting patiently in the wings.

Happy New Year, folks.