12 in 12 Challenge

It's the first week of January and the week of New Year's Resolutions. We all plan them. Some of us complete the list and some say screw it. Generally, I'm one of those people who says screw it. Mostly because I have a really bad memory and can't remember what I resolved to do that year by the time March rolls around.

This year will be different. I will complete my resolutions. Why? Well, first let me tell you my main goal: I intend to complete the 12 in 12 writing challenge. What's that you ask? Well, the 12 in 12 challenge is to write 12 novella sized works in 12 months. A novella is defined as a work of fiction between 20,000 and 40,000 words in length for those of you who are curious.

Technically I started last year (in December, I've been wanting to say "last year" for two days now) and completed my first month with 22,000 words. Yes, I barely squeaked by. But I did it and that's what counts.

Back to why this year will be different. Well, I'm not the only one doing 12 in 12. There's a whole bunch of writers from National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) who decided to do the challenge as well. So I've got a support system of sorts to remind me to actually keep on track. There's even a Facebook group.

Since we're on the topic of resolutions, here are a few more writing goals I have for this year:

1) Promoting currently self-pubbed titles
2) Read a few craft books and promoting books
3) Put out my fifth anthology in March
4) Release my second novella in February
5) Write 200,000 words for NaNoWriMo 2012
6) Finish Book 3 in The Tale of the Twins trilogy
7) Write my fantasy spoof novel
8) Start working on my 10-13 book crime fiction series, as well as coming up with books 11,12 and 13 if it does get that far. This begins with Face Snatcher which you can read about here. You can also read about the two main detectives in a short piece in my recently released forth anthology called Hodgepodge.
9) Finish fleshing out the belief system, maps, event time lines and other important things for the world of Ambrosia. This is the world for my second trilogy and it's all in my head right now. It's a massive undertaking as I've been working on this thing ACTIVELY for at least a decade. You can meet some characters from Ambrosia in my Apocalyptic.

I'm also loosely hoping to hit 500,000 words in total for this year, most of which will be written during November. I know, I know, I'm insane. Lock me in a padded white room wearing a white un-fashionable jacket. Actually, no. I'm not insane. I'm a writer.