New Year's Resolutions

It's that time of year again (for those of us who follow this particular calendar anyway?). Time to start writing the wrong year on all of your checks reinventing yourself! Or at least your life at present. Cause we all have little changes we'd like to make (such as become ripped in manner of Kyra Gracie) or reasonable goals to attain (such as becoming a NY Times bestselling author and living out rest of days in Parisian cafe sipping wine and writing an epic fantasy of a Martinesque* scale that no editor will dare to reject because we are so awesome make them so many buckets of money).

Reasonable, attainable goals, right?

Ahem. But seriously, there's something hyper-motivating about seeing all the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed bastards overachievers driven people making resolutions to be harder/better/faster/stronger. It makes you want to leap off the cliff of insanity right along with them, like the fabled lemming, only more hopeful!

Honestly, I don't even remember what I resolved last year. "Improve," maybe? Or "evolve into superior life-form?"

No matter! THIS year is a new year. THIS year, we will possibly all die a fiery death. So it seems like a good year to make changes (you know, while still alive and such).

Okay, I did make a joking notreally resolution to win a bunch of money this year. But besides that! I decided to actually take a look at my goals for 2012:

1. Find an agent.
This one is partially out of my control. But I currently have 2 queryable** manuscripts and another one on the way whose premise I'm really excited about. So in practice, this resolution boils down to: Send at least 1 query letter per weekday. No matter how many months this needs to continue for.

2. Finish next novel.
I'm about 35 pages into draft one right now, but like I said, I'm really excited about the premise for this one. And it's contemporary YA. No spaceships or dragons or explosions (though I'd still class it as a thriller). WEIRD FOR ME. So we'll see how that goes. I'm optimistic I can get a first draft knocked out before vacation in March, and finish serious edits by the summer, all going well.

3. Join a gym.
Yes, this is a total cliche, I know. But DO YOU KNOW how much gyms cost around NYC? ARHGHGH. Why do I need to pay to be healthy? Shouldn't I have to pay to be lazy instead? That seems more appropriate... Anyway! I will finally pick a gym and suck it up and pay the insane joining fees this year. I swear. And then I'll find someone to teach me Brazilian jiu-jitsu and I'll get all buff like...



... wait, straying into impractical again!

4. Try new things.
Yeah, that's really general. But that's because there are so many new things I want to try this year. Like zumba (why do I seek out ways to embarrass myself? We may never know!). And that Brazilian restaurant on the Upper East Side where waiters just walk around with slabs of meat and shave off slices onto your plate whenever you give them the green flag (literally). And kickboxing and the industrial club over by Alphabet City that I keep hearing about and going to Italy and riding a gondola in Venice and being like "EFFYEAHIAMDARRYL" except not out loud because it is nerdy to talk about your book characters that way!

... So yeah, I just lumped all that into one category there. Seemed easier.

Oh, and one more resolution: post a new book giveaway soon! Preferably this week!

So what about yinz guys***? Making any resolutions this year?

* if this is not a word, it should be...

** I am on a roll with the word-inventing here

*** HA. fooled you. I did NOT make that one up! ... I just spent too much time in Pittsburgh this winter break...