My New Year's Resolution...for 2013

I've never been much for New Year's Resolutions because I don't generally need such an occasion to give me a motivational push. Especially when it comes to my writing. I've got enough goals and plans created to meet those goals that New Year's comes and go as just any other day.

But, in preparation for 2012, I looked out across the New Year with one definite goal in mind.

By 2013, I'd like to take it easy. Or, at least, easier.

For the last few years, I've taken on more and more writing projects. To say that I'm burning my candle on both ends is close to the truth, if you added three more wicks all along the length of the candle and torched those as well. I've got at least five different projects that are all in various stages of completion and I'd like to finish those in 2012. That's my hope. I'd like to meet 2013 with a blank slate, all my projects complete and ample time to relax. Perhaps that's a strange resolution to make when--to the rest of the world--my writing career is just starting. But I've been at this for awhile and I'd like to learn this thing called "pacing". I'd like to see myself limit the number of projects I take on and only work on the ones that really get me excited. I'd like to take more time to take long drives in the country, watch really cheesy monster movies, and get some reading done. I can't remember the last time I truly stopped and watched the sun set. I miss that.

It's not a retirement, just a better management of time. If all goes according to schedule, by February of 2013, my epic The Coming Evil Trilogy will be in stores in its entirety. That's a major accomplishment that's eaten up my entire adult life. I think I'd like to take a second to enjoy that. To reflect.

In our world--especially in the entertainment industry--it's all about "your next project". The past is quickly forgotten and the future is always in our sights. I've played that game for a long time, and I think that, while my children are still little, I'd like to slow down a bit and smell the roses awhile. God has been incredibly faithful and gracious to me and I'd like to take time to appreciate that a little more.

But in 2013. For 2012, it's work, work, work :p