This will be my last post of 2010. Last year, I spoke a bit about New Year’s resolutions. Namely, that I don’t make them. Instead, I like looking back on the year and seeing if I had left anything unaccomplished that I would have preferred to do before the start of another year.
2010 was a pretty transformative year for me, in both my professional life and personal life. I sort of loved this year. I added the word Agent to my professional title, took on some outstanding authors, and even made some serious headway on my own novel, which I finally started. For obvious reasons, I keep my personal life out of this blog, but I will just say that independence, self-discovery, and confidence had a lot to do with making 2010 loads better than 2009. Plus, I started watching Community. I mean, that alone made this year awesome.
I’m looking forward to 2011 and excited to see where I’ll end up by the end of that year too. Maybe it’s the fact that since I was about eleven years old, I’ve wanted to be a grown-up, but realizing I actually am one has been making every year better and better. Don’t worry, I expect this to taper off around age thirty-three, and if you check in with me again in ten years, I’m sure I’ll be way less Pollyanna about the whole aging thing.
My goals of 2011 are to work as hard as humanly possible for my clients, keep publishing wonderful stories on Glass Cases, and maybe (gasp!) finish my own novel. If you follow me on Twitter, you also know that I’ve resolved to “live outside of my comfort zone.” I expect that to last about a month, tops.
Tell me, writer-friends, what is your #1 goal for 2011 and what were you proud of accomplishing in 2010?
Sarah LaPolla 
I'm proud of the fact I completed a novel and have made it through another year in the house I'm renovating. It's freezing and unfinished, but it's home. So my goal for 2011 is to write an awesome book (I know it's in there somewhere!) and earn some money so I can get better heating!! I don't know if that actually counts, but other than that, cut down on my sugar and caffeine intake maybe?
Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!
-Erin
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In 2010 I made it a goal to read all of Jane Austen's novels, and I'm proud to say I finished last night. Persuasion has officially jumped to the top of the list (along with Pride & Prejudice, which was the only Austen I had read before last January). In 2011 my big reading goal is Lord of the Rings, because for how big of a nerd I am it's kind of blasphemous that I've never read it before. In general, I'd like to make more of an effort to focus on my writing, which was a resolution I completely failed at in 2010.
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In 2009 I lost a job I held for a very long time. In 2010 I returned to school and became a Web Developer & Internet Marketer. In 2011, I will start submitting a novel to agents that I am presently rewriting.
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I have yet to watch Community… but from how many friends of mine love it, I guess I need to get on board!
This year I finally did it: finished my first draft of my first novel (Thank you NaNoWriMo)
This next year… its time to polish it like nothing else and see where it goes! Oh… and learn to bake bread. 🙂
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YAY Community! Proud to have finished a book, and want to finish another next year 🙂
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Wow, I have a lot that I accomplished this year. Not only did I finally nab an awesome agent 🙂 but I also got more involved in the writing community by attending 4 conferences this past year. I also challenged myself by writing the 1st draft of a YA horror/supernatural story–something that's completely out of my comfort zone. For 2011, I'm looking forward to FINALLY completing my MFA and challenging myself even more with my writing, taking more risks with styles and topics. I'm actually pretty excited just thinking about it. 🙂
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I love Community!
2010 was loads, loads better than 2009. I don't make New Year's resolutions, but that was in the back of my mind. A “wish.” Thank God.
My goal for 2011? Work on the inner peace thing. I need to be a rock not a palm tree.
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Right now, my only goals for 2011 are to make it to New York, get my book out to agents, and oh yea, graduate. Ideally that's all before June. 🙂
I'm glad 2010 was a great year for you. Here's to hoping 2011 will be made of awesome, too!
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The thing I'm most proud of in 2010 is I took a young adult manuscript and revised it to include an unreliable narrator. The story is much stronger and the missing piece of where is “her” story has now been answered.
2011's goal is similiar to what Feliza said, there is a story that I need to write which scares me a bit. I spend so much time angsting over it, and I think if I'd just sit down and draft it, I might find the whole process not so overwhelming. I'm beginning to think it is actually the “putting it off” which is making the whole thing seem bigger than it is!
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Why am I writing this comment as that song “You Gotta Be” by Des'Ree starts to play on my Slacker Radio? It's so perfect that it's sappy.
Anyway, I'm proud of lots of things for 2010, not the least of which is finally moving forward with my writing career. It's not just the whole getting-a-fab-agent part, either. I actually wrote a mystery, which is a genre that I didn't think I could ever pull off.
As for 2011? Well, there are always new stories to write, and I think that the ones that terrify me and make me feel like I'm completely unqualified to write them might be the best bet to make me a sharper writer. I guess that's my writing-related goal for 2011: work my butt off to become a better writer than I was this time, last year.
Oh, and in the meantime, try to stock up on canned goods for the upcoming apocalypse.
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