New Year's resolutions: six months on

At the beginning of the year I posted my New Year’s writing resolutions in order to pressure myself to keep on track. Let's see how I did in June.


Write 7,000 words per week minimum, 10,000 preferred.

I've been keeping up the word count this month, helped by my job at Gadling. Having to write a minimum of five posts a week keeps me busy, and the blogger interface even keeps score. Today it reads "You have written 19,381 words in 47 posts since you started publishing 56 days ago." Looks like I'm doing more than my minimum number of posts.

Get through that huge list of magazine article ideas I'm going to pitch. As I send them out, the list will be added to, so this is a perpetual goal. Same goes for several book proposals I have.

I sent out a few magazine pitches this month, as well as a nonfiction book proposal.

Search for another paid blogging job.

This is now no longer a goal, because in May I started blogging for Gadling, the single largest travel blog on the web. It's lots of fun and they even pay on time!

Finish a how-to book on writing that a publisher is interested in.

This project has been put on the back burner while I get up to speed with Gadling and take advantage of the research opportunities while I'm here in Oxford.

Try to get an agent for my fiction and nonfiction.

I've been keeping my novels and nonfiction book proposals on agent’s desks, but so far no luck. Why are these people so SLOW!!!!????

Do another round of edits on all three of my novels.

I did some editing on my first novel this month, but have been more concerned with new writing.

Write my next novel, set in London and Oxford.

I did a fair amount of writing this month.

Finish two short stories and two novellas I've been fiddling with.

I haven't done anything with these.

Write and send out "Willoughby: England's First Great Explorer", a book proposal I was supposed to write last year (whoops!).

Still haven't done anything with this proposal.

Increase my online presence.

I'm continuing with my personal and writing blogs, and my work with Gadling accounts for another five or more posts a week, so I'm getting my name out there. I'm also writing for another blog with eight other writers.


In general, I think it's been pretty productive. I've been doing a lot of research along with the writing, so I think I'm over the case of the lazies that gripped me when I first got to Oxford. The weather has been alternating between sweltering and rainy, so that helps.