New Year's Day 2017 - Resolutions and Goals

Happy New Year’s Day 2017!

I suppose many of us make resolutions on the first of January every year. I know I do, and have for awhile. For many of us, resolutions often zero in on health. My weight management plan involves limiting my intake of sugar and weighing myself only on the first day of each month. That allows me to have splurge days and not go crazy with every half pound gained or lost. It’s worked for me for going on a year and a half now. So I’ll keep on doing that.

Cooking
Another thing about myself I want to improve on is my cooking. My wife is a fantastic cook. Just last night, we had chicken and sausage gumbo. Her Louisiana heritage always shines through when gumbo is made. But I’m not nearly as good as she is. We have a great system: she cooks and I wash the dishes! There are a few things that fall under my bailiwick—grilling is the primary one—but I’d like to develop a few things I can whip up with little notice. My wife can look in the pantry, assess what we have, and, in about an hour, has a great meal ready for us. Me? I can easily do a recipe, but I can’t do that. I’d like to beef up (as it were) my ability to cook on the fly and expand my current repertoire of recipes.

Reading
Put simply, I’d like to read more books in 2017 than I did in 2016. I can’t recall the exact number—and don’t feel like looking it up—but to read at least one physical book a month. For me, physical also equals my Kindle. Throw in another audiobook a month and I should safely be able to handle 24 books this year.

Professional
Those are resolutions. But on the professional side, I think of them as goals. What do I want to accomplish in my fiction writing life? The obvious: more sales. But, here’s the catch: I cannot control that aspect of the business. What I can control is productivity, output, and marketing. As far as marketing is concerned, I’ll be starting the third year of my professional fictioneer life come February. I would like to sell more. That means I need to market better. That’s my long-term goal for 2017.
But the main aspect of this fiction life is productivity and output. That is something that is 100% in my control. I plan to write more. A lot more. I’m hesitant to divulge the number I’m aiming for, but it’s a big one. And I’ll be tracking the numbers and speed rates and time taken to write.
Word count isn’t the only metric I’ll be using, although it will be my daily one. Products—books and short stories—will also be a metric by which I measure 2017.
The good news is that, as of today’s writing session, I’m 5217 words into the first brand-new western novel of 2017. Not a bad day’s mark by any stretch.
Happy New Year indeed.

So what are y’all’s resolutions and goals?