As I mentioned in my last post, I saw quite a bit I didn’t like when I looked back on my writing accomplishments for 2015. A colleague “happened” to reach out to me right around then to ask if we could be writing buddies. Basically, we touch base once a week to confess how much writing we did or didn’t do during the week, as well as swap a bit of writing we did. We’re hoping this will keep us accountable and help us reach our goals. Today was the second Sunday my new partner and I swapped our accountability emails. So far, so good. Last week, I got a great critique out of it, as well as some insights about how I’ve been spending my time.

All of this means I had to pin down some goals. That Annette Gendler exercise I mentioned in that End of Year post helped me set them, as did my emails from my new writing buddy. So did a nice chat I had with Marc Lumer (a local writer/illustrator/animator) last week.

My Primary Goals for 2016:

1. Finish the rewrite on Glixman in a Fix. It’s due to the publisher by Pesach (Passover).
2. Finish my novel in-progress, entitled Finding Freya, re-write THAT manuscript, and then hopefully start shopping it around.
3. Complete the world creation for my next novel, which I wrote a couple chapters of before getting completely sidetracked by Glixman and small projects on tight deadlines. Once I finish the first two projects on the list, restart the rough draft.

Secondary Goals:

1. Make more money this year over the previous one.
2. Figure out if I can turn my recently discovered love for teaching Torah to women into writing more directly about Torah topics.

One of the complicating factors here is that what has brought in money for me in the past has been editing and/or writing shorter pieces. If I’m shifting towards long-form writing, I’m frightened that I’ll lose income…and I’m kinda afraid of that happening. Balancing short-term and long-term projects will be a major challenge in the coming year.

Please share your creative goals for 2016 in the comments.