My 2009 Commitments

I don't make New Year's Resolutions. It's a terminology issue--I don't make resolutions. I'm not Congress, or the United Nations.

I also don't set goals, because that word has been poisoned by years of working in Dilbertville. (I reserve the right to punch, in either nose or neck, the next person who invites me to discuss "stretch goals" or "sandbagging.")

No, I make commitments. Besides being the name of a great movie, the word implies something personal. It's most often used in reference to relationships; e.g., a man's fear of same cited as why he ain't popped the question yet. When you commit to something, you give your word, you make a promise, you take an oath. And that's not just a piece of paper--that is a matter of honor.

So you can hold me to the commitments below. If I fail to meet any of them, it won't be for lack of trying.

• post a new 512 Words or Fewer story (text and audio) every Friday
• finish "Freefall: No Fate"
  • post a new chapter every month until finished (ETC: May 2009)
• get 2 short stories published in pro/semi-pro markets
  
  • 1 NEW submission every month! (resubmit rejected stories continuously)
• critique 1 VPXII classmate's story per month
• send out 2 novel manuscripts (past query stage)
  • finish 2nd draft of Waypoint Kangaroo by end of March, start querying
  • finish 2nd draft of EndGame by end of June, start querying
  • finish 1st draft of Spaceship Castle by end of September
• do Script Frenzy in April (dot-com heist caper)
• upload all home videos to YouTube/Google Video by end of year

For you bean counters, this means I'm committing to finishing six pieces of short fiction and one-third of a novel draft per month. That's approximately 45,000 words a month, or 1,500 words a day. I suppose I should jump on the bandwagon and put a word-count widget on my LiveJournal...

~CKL