Goal Line in Sight

I’m looking at you December. You’re almost gone and I’m trying not to notice. The fall has gone quickly and now I am staring at the end of the year in my sights. This is the last week of classes for me. I’ve completed everything for the class, save showing up and having one last discussion in class on Bluebeard. (Side note: I had no idea there were so many stories about Bluebeard! Really, it is a bit nuts.) So the pressure is off. I have registered for my thesis class, worked on my stories, completed the form for the class, and have a few short weeks before I will begin my final work.

In the beginning of the year, I laid out some goals. Currently, I have 11 completed pieces and I have no doubt that I will get the last one done by the end of the year. I have 15 days of vacation in December, so I have lots of time to write.

Other goals might not happen. I left the goal of buying books wayyyy behind earlier this year. But I won’t meet my reading goals. In truth, school just kept my too busy. Even though I read books for class, I just didn’t get to all the other books I have on my list to read. The class I’m in now is for short stories and those handouts came first. So it’s hard to read for pleasure when you have to get through 100-200 pages of short stories for class. All in all, I’ll get through about 20 books. My goal was 25, but I’ll take the 20.

I got one story published. So that goal was hit. Yay!

Ah the credit card… Yeah, grad school is still expensive. If I hadn’t gotten furloughed this might have been a kept goal, but two weeks with no pay hurts. Writers need all the money they can get.

Finally, I have my goal of completing one longer work. I haven’t finished it, but I have more words than I did before. I don’t know if I will finish by the end of the year, but I am not disappointed. It is coming along. Maybe I will get to it too over vacation.

It is vacation after all. I gotta hit some of those after X-mas sales!

Looking ahead for 2015, I still think I want to try the One Year, One Hundred Rejections. I have lots of material now, so time to submit more stuff. Also, I want to keep up the pace of one new piece each month. I can speed up after I graduate, but I want to keep it low for now.

Back at the end of December with final numbers.