The New Year bristles with good intentions, resolutions, and many times, regrets.
For me 2015 is a year of beginnings. 2014 I completed many things: folded 1000 Paper Cranes, paid off a few credit cards and got within one class of completing my MFA. It was a roller coaster ride but well worth the price of admission. I only published one short story, but I didn’t submit much so that was as could be expected.
January of 2015, I am embarking on my thesis. I’ve agonized over it and worked on it for the past year. I was originally planning to write the diary of Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary- historic fiction) while she was in quarantine for two-plus years on North Brother Island. I did the research and completed about 40 pages of the projected 100 pages required for the thesis. But the difficulty of using a diary format is very challenging. Close first person point-of-view limits use of action, dialog and little more than what Mary Mallon experienced first hand. It’s not an impossible project. In fact, I believe it’s a very worth-while endeavor, but not for my thesis. I was really stressing out about it. Then I realized I don’t have to be so stressed about it. I can write something else.
I switched my thesis to The Haunting of Sugarloaf, an historic, ghost story. I’m well into it with sixty-six pages already complete and it is not due until mid-March.
I’m excited to take to heart that 100 pages of fiction is publishable. What was once considered a Novella and not publishable is very much part of the selling market of digital books. E-books open the world of publication to authors as the serial-story published in magazines was once in the early to mid-1900s. It’s like there are new dragons to slay, and new adventures to pursue. 2015 will be a year of submissions for me as I edit the many stories I wrote in class, pushing them out to the public.
But I digress, my goals, not resolutions are as follows. And I’m counting you to keep me true to accomplishing them.
New Year / New Beginnings:
- Publish 10 short stories
- Acquire an adjunct teaching position in creative writing
- Edit and make ready at least one novel for publication
- Acquire an agent for said novel above
And the last two, which are the most difficult for me personally,
- Get out of debt
- Lose 50 pounds
Whew, I better get busy! What are you goals? We’ll keep each other honest.
jmlandon 