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Happy New Year (Photo credit: James Marvin Phelps)

Most years I don’t bother with new year resolutions. If I do make one, I keep it, despite all odds. One year I vowed not to eat chocolate for a whole year. Anyone who knows me would know that’s a big commitment to make. Those of my friends who knew about it took bets about how long I’d hold out before I caved and grabbed my lindt. But I proved them wrong. Once it’s made, it’s made.

So I don’t make them often. The chocolate one was for fun, in a peculiar way, and had a side benefit of some (temporary) weight loss. But usually I don’t make resolutions for fun, or even to prove I can keep them. In reality that one was probably made in a rush of temporary insanity.  🙂

But for some reason this year I have a few. It may speak to some inner disquiet, some need for internal re-order. It may be I want a challenge that isn’t about work. It might be that all the aspects of my life over 2013 have conspired to bring these aims into focus. In any case, here they are, and having made them, I have to keep them!  🙂

One: Work balance

I can’t really control how busy my job is, or the hours it demands for the most part, but I can control better how I balance my emotions to do it. In 2014 I resolve to be less emotionally invested in work and more clinical about it. I’m not saving lives. I’m not finding a cure for cancer. It just shouldn’t be taken so seriously…

Two: Blogging balance

To be honest, while I love all my WordPress friends, near the end of this year given how out of balance my work life was, blogging had come to feel like an extension of work. So it often just felt like more hours doing things to meet other’s expectations. Now I know none of you had any real expectations of me, so I’m projecting my own expectations and standards here, but that’s very human isn’t it?

So realising that, I’m going to reduce my blogging load just a little bit to get it back in perspective. In 2013 for the most part I had two poems per day scheduled ahead, and sometimes wrote more on the days themselves.  For 2014 I’m scheduling one at most per day – and maybe sometimes less if I’m struggling with Resolution One.  And while I’ll try to keep up with other blogs consistently I will allow myself to miss some posts on occasion even from favourite writers if it means the difference between balance and exhaustion. (Please don’t feel I’m neglecting you if this occurs, I will be back!!)

This resolution is also partly due to the emotional rollercoaster that was self publishing. hence the next resolution….

Three: Try traditional publishing

I’m going to make 2014 the year I first try to get an agent, and whether or not this is successful, also try to get some interest from a publishing house for my third novel Denial. I’m doing this fully aware of how difficult it is to get either an agent or a traditional publishing deal, so the resolution’s success is not based on actually achieving either, but on deliberately and strategically attempting to do so.

In the meantime, the last resolution has emerged in the past couple of days and already has me in its grip:

Four: Write a novel that is a ghost story

I’ve already started the novel and I aim to have a first draft at least well progressed by the end of my holidays in mid January, then to be dedicated to it on weekends until it is done, edited, and ready should I choose to publish it by mid 2014. I grew up on ghost stories and the works of writers like Stephen King, but I’ve never written a novel like that, so this is kind of tipping of my hat to my youth, but also a new adventure. Wish me luck!!

Do you have any resolutions for 2014? If so, please share!! 🙂 🙂

Oh, and Happy New Year!!