Looking Back, Looking Forward

New Year's Day makes me doubly reflective, because it's also my birthday. (I'm 36. I feel oldish, or at least not-so-young. And I'm not sure where the past ten years went, except by too quickly.)

2006 didn't turn out as well as I hoped. I'm still not published. As for the rest of my life...well, I still need to lose weight, we still need a a better house, etc. My accomplishments this year mostly had to do with balance, compromise, and accommodation. Thanks to my agent's patient tutelage, I'm better at editing and rewriting than I was before. I learned to be a reasonably productive writer despite working 40 hours/week and having a husband and a toddler. I made less-than-ideal career and housing situations livable. I realized I needed to make changes in what I write to be happy with my work and (I hope!) improve my chances at publication, and I took the first steps toward making those changes a reality. And that's all important and worthwhile--I'm just ready to have a publishing contract, a house of my own, and a less stressful balance of writing, life, and day job.

So I'm making goals for 2007, hoping they'll get me a little closer to those dreams:

1. Finish my WIP, The Inconvenient Bride, by the end of April.
2. Take a few months to research, then start my alternate history no later than September, with the goal of having at least 150 pages written by 12/31/07.
3. Lose weight and exercise. If I want another 50 years to write and enjoy life, I've got to take better care of myself.
4. Make the housing and career situations better. Somehow. Details of this and #3 are beyond the scope of this blog.