Tag: 2011

A New Year, a new stack of books

My first glimpse of 2011:  a bleary-eyed grab at the alarm clock.  It’s 4:45am and I remember, with faint horror, that I must get up.  There’s a flight to catch; we’re off to New Orleans for a visit to the in-laws.

Staggering out of bed, cramming the last few things into the suitcase, and gulping rather desperately at a too-hot mug of tea, I grab the the book off the top of the pile on my nightstand, “Sandman Slim” by Richard Kadrey, and shove it in my purse.  Rather optimistic to think I’ll do much other than drowse and drool on the plane ride, don’t you think?.

This morning’s blind and random literary snatch, however, was momentous nonetheless, as it anointed the first book I’ll read in 2011.  After the delicious gift-giving frenzy of the holidays I’ve got a nice fat stack of books to plow through, including the aforementioned Kadrey book, as well as:

  • Ysabel, by Guy Gavriel Kay
  • Dervish House, by Ian McDonald
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip K Dick
  • Sixty-One Nails, by Mike Shevdon
  • A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge

So, my New Year’s promise to all of you is the following:  I will read each one and report back with a review.  So, enjoy the start of another waltz round the calendar, and stay tuned for bookwormy goodness in the month to come!

ps. if you’ve already read some or all of these delights…no spoilers, please!

pps. Happy New Year!

Dreams of 2011

2011 is staring us down from next weekend, steely-eyed and implacable.  We’ve got less than a week to go until New Year’s and nowhere to hide.  Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic…but what can I say?  I’m coming off a Christmas food coma and waiting for a threatened snowpocalpyse to hit New York.  My husband is already going stir crazy from being off work for 4 days, and his office is closed all next week.  He’s got a wild look in his eyes.  Mr. Ramses has built an impregnable fortress underneath the Christmas tree and keeps launching sneak attacks on passerbys.  Everything seems dramatic right now.

But I digress.

It being New Year’s soon, and in light of the list of 2010 accomplishments (and failures) I posted last week, I thought I’d reflect on some goals for the coming year.  So, here goes:

1. Set more realistic writing deadlines.  Or rather, come to a better understanding of how to balance my writing life with my home and work life.  I tend to set writing goals independent of how much I have to do in other arenas of my life.  Inevitably, I get a massive amount of writing done in a few weeks and then spend an equivalent amount of time burned out and catching up on everything I let slide.  This is exhausting.  So, in 2011 I’m going to strive for more consistency and balance.

2. Increase my output.  I don’t currently have a daily or weekly word count goal, and I think it’s time to start.  I also think this will help me achieve #1.  I wrote about 130,000 words in 2010, so I’ll shoot for 200,000 in 2011.

3. Finish final revisions to “A Blood Red Sun” and start querying it by the end of February, maybe sooner.  Then finish a revised first draft of “Absent” by the end of the year and have the next novel in early draft form.

4. Work on novels one at a time.  Last year (thanks to NaNoWriMo) I decided I could multitask on two novels simultaneously.  The result was a slowdown in productivity on both.  A better formula (for me, at least), is to work on one major project (such as a novel) with short stories and development work on future novels going on the side.

5. Though I consider myself more of a novel writer than a short story writer, I resolve to continue writing (and hopefully) publishing short stories.  Last year I wrote and subbed 4 short stories.  This year I’ll shoot for 6.

6. Attend at least two Cons and continue/increase my in-person and online interactions with other writers.

7. Continue this blog with regular and substantive posts and hopefully widen my readership.

8. Continue exercising regularly (5 days a week), lose 4lbs and then maintain that weight.

9. Be (much) better about practicing my guitar — at least 2x a week outside of my weekly lessons.  At least!

10. What travel time and money I have, I want to use it to see friends.  Trips to Miami and London are particularly overdue.  You guys know who you are, so consider yourselves forewarned 🙂

That seems like a good line-up, so I’ll stop there.  No sense going overboard, eh?