I’ve said before I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. It’s nice to point at a specific date and say “that is when I’m going to change,” but it’s far more important to be able to do it without any particular event or milestone to signify it. A change made for oneself is more genuine when it isn’t made on the timetable of the Gregorian Calendar.

But I can set goals for myself. In no particular order, here they are:

1.) Continue (or get back to) writing.

I didn’t really stop writing last year, but I sure as hell slowed down. Now I’m at 2 years in a row of about half the productivity I would like from myself. This is a little weird given that I have enough stuff to post every other day for pretty much the duration of 2019, but it’s all short. I already have a 3-novel idea for fic sorted in my head that I’ll start putting together as soon as I have fewer other, more immediate chores to accomplish (like dishes and laundry). However, once I churn through those, we’ll have to see how things are going. Depending on #2, my additional goal might be to write the next book for querying. As always, I want to make sure I have enough weeks of content for 2020, but there’s an additional pressure to get stuff written — if all works out as I dearly hope, I might find myself with less time and capacity for fic writing in the future.

This was a conversation with my copy-editor; she made the point that actually publishing a work is going to take away from other writing time as it is, and publishing means being ready to write the next in the series or the next series, which leaves even less space for fic. She asked me what I would want to make sure I got written if I was someday soon not to have 47 weeks of fic to post. It helped me immediately prioritize my writing. I do want to get this new 3-novel thing done, but then I need to go back to my roots and make sure I’ve put enough into my stories and my ongoing series to know that I could walk away for a time and not feel that I’ve left my fandoms hanging.

(Which really means the next entry or even 2 in Fate Is A Gift.)

Beyond that? I’m hoping this is the year I get back to 300,000 of finished writing (not started and incomplete stories). Even if they’re oneshots, even if they’re short, even if they come in fits and starts, I want to get that production back. I miss it.

2.) Continue querying.

It would be NEAT if I could make this goal “get published” but we’re trying for realistic expectations here. The thing about publishing, besides that it is a business and that cannot be underestimated, is that it is a sphere in which I as an author have very little control. I can write the story. I can edit the story. I can query the story.

That’s where my control pretty much ends.

I can’t make agents want to represent me. Even the best query in the world won’t mean that my novel is the one an agent is looking for. Even a kickass query letter that gets me requests for full manuscripts won’t guarantee that the agent doing the reading becomes an agent wanting to sign me. That’s just reality.

And then for publishing, it’s that all over again. Even having an agent doesn’t guarantee that the book will get picked up by a publishing house. It doesn’t ensure it’ll make it into the world. And it absolutely, positively doesn’t mean that it’ll get read or earn much in the way of actual money. Other than being a good person who is honest and kind to work with, and taking feedback as politely and thoughtfully as possible, there is literally nothing I can do with this process.

So I can’t set a goal of “get published” or even “get an agent.” I can only set a goal of querying my 50 agents as I told myself I would for the current novel. If none of those pan out, then I write the next one and query it. Getting to those 50 might be tough, not because there aren’t 50 agents who are amazing and who I would love to work beside, but because that means bracing for 50 rejections. It’s a lot some days. But 50 is the magic number I gave myself, and come hell or high water, I’m going to try.

3.) Improve upon the exercise plan.

Last year, the transition to working from home also meant a transition to being able to work out during the day. I got away from it in the couple of months with the chaos of the holiday season and the Illness of Fuckery, but I want to get back to it. Events in my personal life in 2018 drove home how fragile we all are as people. The slightest thing can stack up and leave you dead on the floor before you even realize. Exercise doesn’t prevent cancer; it doesn’t promise a long, healthy life. But it does help.

Any time I faltered last year and hit the “do I REALLY wanna go work out today?” stopping point, I reminded myself that exercise isn’t just what helps me be healthier now. It is also an investment for the future. And if working hard on my exercise plan today means I have a better shot of making it to my 100th year healthy and of sound mind, that I have a chance of spending all those years with the people I love, then I am going to give it all I’ve got. I really, really want to be here for the long haul. And that takes work.

4.) Be a better CoHead to CVG Operations than last year.

I got thrown into CoHeadship last year due to circumstances somewhat behind my control. For the most part, I think I did okay. But there is always room for improvement, and with all the exciting changes to CONvergence for 2019, there’s also a whole extra bundle of work to be done. I’m not asking myself to be perfect. I’m not expecting myself to make zero mistakes. But I am setting the goal for myself that I will feel more comfortable as a CoHead this year by putting in more and better work ahead of time. I am setting a goal of managing my time and my resources (especially mental/emotional) better at Con. I am setting a goal of taking on a little more weight now that there is more to be passed around, and fewer shoulders to bear it. Last year was the year of chaos. This year, I am hoping, is the year I get into a rhythm which I can sustain for a few more.

5.) Sort out the housing situation.

This one’s a little unexpected. So, we’ve been thinking a lot about selling our house and buying a condo in downtown instead. Much of the discussion has been around the logistics — how much space would we give up? what’s it like living in a dense, urban setting? how do we get all our stuff and crap out of the house? — but the origin point of the idea has to do with various limitations. I have an absolutely fatal allergy to wasp stings. The next time I get stung could very well kill me. Which means I can’t go outside for the entirety of spring, summer, and fall. I can’t mow the lawn, can’t weed the garden, can’t even hang out in my own backyard in a lawn chair. So, not only are we paying for property I literally cannot use, but it also means that the work of that property falls almost entirely to Sarah, and that is profoundly unfair.

There are other pieces, too. My job situation is currently stable, but should that ever change there aren’t a lot of options in our neighborhood. There’s a good chance I’d end up having to commute to the city, and even a bus ride means 50 minutes or more out of my day each way. That’s a lot of time to take away from Sarah, from writing, from CVG, etc. A lot of the reason I’ve never really considered leaving my current job is BECAUSE I don’t want to have to deal with that commute. But living downtown would mean I could swap jobs if I so desired and I could simply walk to work. (Though the preference is still working from home because it ROCKS.)

There are concerns, too. We currently live a bit over a mile from some of our dearest friends and we see them a lot — that would change. We currently have everything from a dentist and a vet to a favorite tea shop and Indian restaurant in our area — we’d have to find new. We don’t know how we would feel about collective living spaces if, for example, the walls or floor/ceiling were thin and it had an impact on when (and how loudly) we could watch our movies. And we are utterly, almost fanatically picky about space. If it isn’t absolutely perfect, we won’t be happy in it. It took us the better part of a year to find our current house. And I think living here has made us even more picky.

Which, in its own way, is a good thing. It means we can walk into a space and know instantly how we feel about it. And while there are some things we can compromise, there are many more that we won’t.

So my hope would be to make a decision this year. Either we find a condo and buy it and move into it, or we scrap the idea for a couple of years and focus on making improvements in this house instead. Honestly, I want the condo more than I want to stay here, partially because I do feel so trapped with nowhere to go (whereas Minneapolis has a SKYWAY), but I also think that taking away the worries would help me a lot. How many nights have I had to run and peek in the basement worrying about flooding? How many winter storms did we anxiously watch, knowing we’d have to shovel the driveway? How many nights did I hear weird sounds in the neighborhood and brace for a home invasion? A condo would have its own problems, but it might do wonders for my baseline, nagging sense of worry.

But we’ll have to see.

So that’s my 2019. Write, query, exercise, CoHead, and condo. No matter how it all turns out, it’s going to be a roller-coaster of a year — and that’s just speaking about my life, not the wider world and its myriad doings. And we’re already on the first hill.

Therefore, to close, I’ll borrow this line from the movie “Parenthood” — because it’s never been more appropriate for me, I think:

You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride! I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn’t like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.