indie publishing – Page 14 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Summer To Do list

They say that the three main perks to being a teacher are June, July, and August, and that’s as true for TEFL teachers as it is for any other kind. I’m spending June in Georgia, but for July and August, I’ll be back in the States. Instead of vacationing, though, I plan to be working hard at my main career, which is writing.

Here’s what I hope to accomplish:

Set up a separate business checking account.
Release POD editions of Genesis Earth, Bringing Stella Home, and Desert Stars.
Set up an online bookstore to sell direct.
~~Redo cover art for~~ ~~Bringing Stella Home.~~ Completed 2 June 2012.
Redo blurbs for all titles.
Identify and submit Genesis Earth, Bringing Stella Home, and Desert Stars to prominent sf&f book bloggers.
Organize a summer blog tour.
Research translation options for all titles.
Put proper copyright pages in all titles.
Track down all invoices and royalty statements.
Switch to the new Kobo publishing platform.
Fill out all sections in business plan.

The list might seem a little daunting, but two months should be enough to do most of it, especially considering that I don’t really have any other obligations. Basically, I want to get everything done that needs to be done in the States, then get back out and spend the rest of the year abroad.

As for writing, don’t worry! I plan to do that too, as always. Here’s what my project list currently looks like:

Finish the unnamed WOTF project and start publishing it serially.
Finish the 3.0 draft of Heart of the Nebula.
Send out Stars of Blood and Glory to first readers.
Get ready to start Edenfall in the fall.

That last one might be of interest to fans of Genesis Earth. The reason I haven’t finished Edenfall yet is because…well, this might sound kind of wishy-washy, but it’s because the story hasn’t really called out to me. For that reason, I decided to put it off and work on other projects that have.

Recently, however, I’ve started to feel the whispering of an intimation that it’s time–that the story is almost ready to come onto the page. Once it does, I have a feeling that it’s going to be quick–much like the first draft of Genesis Earth.

It’s hard to tell, though, and it may still be too early to know for sure. The unnamed WOTF project has something to do with it, as well as living here in Georgia. I have a feeling that rereading Genesis Earth is going to make everything fall into place, but it’s impossible to say. I’ll try doing it at the end of the summer, after I’ve cleaned up my plate a bit, and see what happens from there.

Gah, this sounds so wishy-washy! I’m a professional writer, after all–why can’t I just pound words out on demand? But as a creative-type, I’ve learned that that just isn’t the way I work. There’s such a thing as starting a book too early, and for Edenfall to really shine, I feel like I need to give it a little more time–just a little.

I’m sorry for those of you who have been waiting, but don’t worry! I definitely haven’t forgotten about it. And once Edenfall comes to me, I have a feeling that the final book in the trilogy, The Stars of Redemption, won’t be far behind.

That’s the plan for now, anyway. It’s definitely going to be a busy summer!

Staying in Georgia

So I’ve decided to stay here in Georgia for another semester. Things are working out really well, I enjoy teaching English, and for the full experience I think it will be better to stay for a full year.

I’m not sure if I’ll stay in Kutaisi yet, though. It’s a convenient place to live, but I have upwards of 30 kids in my classes, which can be a real challenge. I’d kind of like to spend the next semester in a village or small town, where I can know all the kids by name. Then again, I really like it here in Kutaisi, and I’m doing so much where I am that I’d kind of like to stay, just to see how things turn out.

Currently, I’m teaching grades 1-6, 9-10, and 12. It sounds like a lot, but I’ve got great co-teachers who help out a ton. I teach 18 class periods per week, which is enough to keep me busy but not so much that I feel overwhelmed. My favorite grade to teach is probably 4th or 5th, where the kids know enough to surprise you but don’t have all the issues that come with teenagers. There are different things I enjoy about each grade, though, so it’s good to have a mix.

The second semester doesn’t start until September, so that’ll give me a few months off to do whatever I like. My current plan is to come home and work on getting print editions of my books out. TLG will pay for my flight out and back, and my parents will let me stay at their place over the summer, so I think things will work out quite well.

As for what to do in December once this tour is finished–that’s an entirely different question. I could probably leverage my experience here in Georgia to get a much higher paying job in Asia or the Persian Gulf, but all I’m really looking for is a job situation to tide me over until my writing career takes off. That, and an awesome cultural experience.

What I’d REALLY like to do is find some remote desert village in the Middle East, where the locals will pay for room and board, my book royalties will pay the rest, the cultural experience will give me a chance to practice my Arabic, and my teaching skills will make a real difference in the local community.

Towards that end, I found this site called Workaway. A friend of mine used it to get a short-term job in a Bedouin camp in Wadi Rum, and there are TONS of other opportunities listed just like it. I freaked out a little when I saw it, because it looks AWESOME. When I was in Jordan, I used to fantasize about spending some time in the desert with the Bedouin, so getting the chance to actually do that would be amazing!

TLG will pay for my flight home at the end of the second semester, but I can opt to go anywhere else, so long as the ticket price isn’t any more than Tbilisi to JFK. Since this is the year my sister’s get together with their in-laws for Christmas, it might be better to go straight from Georgia to my next job at the end of December.

I was thinking about it as I walked around my neighborhood earlier today, and it made me wonder: why did I wait so long? There are so many awesome opportunities overseas–if you don’t have any debt or anyone you need to support, you could spend years hopping from one random adventure to the next. I could spend years doing that. And with epublishing, all I really need is my netbook and periodic internet access to put up new books as I write them–everything else more or less takes care of itself. It’s fantastic.

In any case, that’s the plan for now. I’m taking the night train to Tbilisi tonight, so I’d better go get ready for that. See you around!

Finding the right price

One of the most controversial parts of indie publishing is deciding what price to set for your books. Epublishing is so new that there isn’t any good data to base pricing decisions off of, and everyone seems to have a different feeling as to what is “fair.” Most readers (including me) agree that $12.99 is a little outrageous for an ebook, but beyond that, the opinions are all over the map.

When I published Genesis Earth, I priced it at $2.99 and haven’t changed it since. It remains my best selling novel, but at maybe 5 to 10 sales per month, that really doesn’t mean much. Besides, it’s impossible to know whether price has been the main factor in that. I briefly dropped my other novels to $2.99, and it had absolutely no effect.

My ultimate goal is to make a living off of my writing, so if my books aren’t going to sell much better at $2.99 as they are at $4.95, from a business perspective I’d rather go with the higher price. However, as a reader, I’m opposed to paying more than about $5 for an ebook, even from an author I love. Others might be willing to pay more, but if I can build a readership large enough to support myself at the $4.95 price point, I’d much rather do that.

So, after experimenting with price points and thinking things through, here’s the scheme that I think I’m going to follow:

Short stories: $.99
Novellas and novel installments: $1.49
Short novels (under 90k words): $2.99
Longer novels (over 90k words): $4.95

The important thing, of course, is to build a readership that is willing to pay for my work. I have no idea how to go about doing that, but as far as pricing goes it’s probably important to pick a scheme and be consistent. Some of my friends are doing quite well at $2.99, while Dean Wesley Smith advises charging much more, but this is the scheme that makes the most sense to me–which honestly isn’t saying much.

About the only thing I can say is that the best way to push a title is to make it free. All of my short stories were free at one point or another, and even after the initial rush was over, I was still getting around 80 to 100 downloads per week, sometimes more. I have no idea how many of those people actually read the stories, or how many of those people went on to buy my other titles, but sales did seem to be slightly better across the board when I had at least something out for free.

Now that I’ve got eight titles out, I think it may be a good idea to drop the price of at least one of them for free and keep it there permanently. David Gaughran recently featured a guest blogger who used this strategy to push her other titles at places like Barnes & Noble, which isn’t as indie friendly/agnostic as Amazon or Smashwords.

For that reason, I’ve decided to make Sholpan free again and to keep it there for the foreseeable future. It’s already available for free at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, and Diesel, but Amazon hasn’t matched the price yet–and that’s where you can help me.

If you go to Sholpan’s Amazon page and scroll down to the Product Details, there’s a link that says “tell us about a lower price.” If you click on that, it asks for a link to the site that’s selling the ebook at a reduced price. If enough people fill that out, I’m hoping that Amazon’s algorithms will take notice and match the price–so if you could take a moment and do that for me, I’d greatly appreciate it!

Also, if you’ve read the novella and enjoyed it, I’d appreciate it greatly if you’d take the time to post a favorable review. Amazon has some weird thing where they copyright reviews written on their site, but for everywhere else you can just copy and paste the same review across multiple sites. And a lot of them allow you to just leave a rating without writing a review, including Goodreads (Sholpan’s page is here). I don’t want anyone to be disingenuous, of course, but if you enjoyed the book and took the time to rate it or leave an honest review, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks so much! Until next time, I’ll see you around.

Back to writing (and publishing)

I was snowed in again this weekend, so I took advantage of the time to work on my writing–specifically, to figure out what to work on next. Things have been kind of crazy these past few weeks, so I haven’t written very much, but now that I’ve settled into a new routine, it should be much easier to get back to writing again.

The plan is to finish Star Wanderers first, before April. After taking a couple weeks off, I think I’m ready to get back into that project and write through the wall that I’d run up against earlier. Besides, Stars of Blood and Glory needs more time; it’s only been about a month since I finished the last draft, and that’s not long enough to get a fresh perspective.

I’m a little past the midway point on Star Wanderers–around the middle of part III–so it should be about 20k to 25k before the whole novel is finished. I wrote the first part in a little less than two weeks, so three weeks should be enough to finish at least the rough draft. The main thing is to write every day and get some momentum going, which shouldn’t be too hard–I’m still really excited about this project.

As you may recall, I submitted Part I to Writers of the Future. From lurking on the forums, it appears that the first round of rejections and honorable mentions are starting to come out. I haven’t heard anything yet, so I’m still in the running. Since no news is good news at this point, part of me hopes that I don’t hear back for a while–but the other part wants to hear back soon, so I can go ahead and publish it!

Here’s the current plan:

Finish the rough draft of the complete novel.
Publish Part I at $1.50 (free to newsletter subscribers).
Get feedback for part II, revise and publish.
Repeat for Parts III and IV, with one or two months between each release.

As a teaser, here’s the cover that I made when I was back in Massachusetts. I decided to go with some NASA / Hubble images, at least for the first release. Here it is:

Everything is ready to go; I just need to hear back from Writers of the Future before I can publish it. I’m going to wait until the rest of the novel is finished, though, just to be safe. Expect to see it sometime in April (unless it’s a finalist for WOTF–hey, you never know).

Enough for now; I’d better get back to writing. See you around!

Journey to Jordan is now up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

That’s right–my travel journals from the 2008 study abroad to Jordan are now up on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and almost everywhere else! Here’s a complete list:

Kobo, Xinxii, and Sony should be coming in the next couple of weeks.

I initially set the price for the illustrated version at $4.95, but the transaction fees are a lot less than I thought they would be, so I’ve decided to drop it down to $2.99 with the unillustrated version. The changes should be reflected on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in a few hours.

I had an amazing, life-changing experience in Jordan, and after coming home, I had big dreams of turning my travel journals into a book. Because of ebooks and indie publishing, that dream is now a reality. From the description:

In 2008, Brigham Young University partnered with the University of Jordan to organize a summer study abroad program for its Arabic students. Scattered across West Amman in home-stays coordinated with Amideast, these students spent the summer living, studying, playing, and adventuring in the Middle East.

This is the travel journal of one of those students, and gives a detailed and intensely personal account of his time there. Besides the cultural experience of living with a Palestinian family in an Arab country, it tells the story of a critical juncture in his life, and how traveling across the Middle East helped to shape his personal growth, his spirituality, and his love for a people far from his American home.

Kind of cheesy, but yeah. 🙂 I hope you like it–please share it if you do!

I’m about to embark on another adventure, so this probably won’t be the last travel journal I do. Who knows–maybe a year or two from now, I’ll be doing a book like this on my experiences in Georgia. Or better yet, I’ll make it back to the Middle East and do a before-and-after. Whatever I do, I’ll be sure to keep you guys updated frequently–so definitely stay in touch!

Tomorrow, tomorrow

So, I was going to finish Stars of Blood and Glory today…and then I went and spent some time with an old friend, had some dinner and spent the evening with the missionaries…long story short, I think it would be better just to wait until tomorrow than to do a rush job tonight.

I’ve only got two scenes and an epilogue left, which is very strange, because the novel isn’t even 75k words long yet. Something definitely seems to be missing, and it probably has to do with the storyline of the new characters I introduced. They’re the prince and princess of a futuristic Japanese culture (with a mix of Polynesian elements) that’s built on giant floating cities on a water world that never fell to the Hameji. I think I skipped a little too much on the research, so the culture doesn’t feel fleshed out enough at this point. Also, there’s a whole host of minor characters that I neglected to even give names; in the next draft, I’ll have to work out who they are and how they fit into things.

I’ll definitely finish this book tomorrow, though. There’s nothing stopping me, and I really need to get it done.

After that, the plan is to immerse myself in the world of Star Wanderers. I’ve got to be honest, I’m really looking forward to it. This story came to me like a love child: completely unexpected at a time when I was supposed to be working on other things. And yet, few other projects I’ve worked on have given me so much satisfaction. When I let my mind wander, I inevitably find myself daydreaming about it. And yet, it’s not a story I can force. I tried that once, and it was as if the characters just refused to cooperate; the answer, quite firmly, was “no.”

As for my next publishing project, I’m going to try to get the illustrated version of Journey to Jordan formatted and up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble before the end of the week. It’s a little intimidating, because I don’t yet know how to add pictures in html such that they turn out well in ebook format. However, I think it will be a good learning experience, once I climb the learning curve. Expect to see some news about that very soon.

And as for my New Year’s goal to read a book every week…I know, I know, I missed it last week. But I plan to make up for it with a couple of really good books in the next couple of days. Both of them are indie published, and they’re both really fun reads. The only reason I haven’t finished them is because I’ve been too busy working on my own projects.

So on that note, I think I’m going to retire for the evening with a good book while I wait with baited breath for Kris Rusch’s next Business Rusch post to go live. Have a good night!

Quick update and Star Wanderers cover previews

First off, I’m happy to say that Stars of Blood and Glory is coming along quite nicely. I’m currently finishing up with the last couple of chapters, and should have the first draft done by the middle of next week. Hopefully by then I’ll know if and when I’m starting my TEFL job overseas, but I’m sure I’ll have it finished before then.

This first draft is pretty rough, so I’m sure it’ll be a while before it’s up and ready for you to read. For some reason, this draft is extremely short–I doubt it’ll be much longer than 80,000 words. I don’t know if that means my writing has gotten tighter since Bringing Stella Home, or if I’ve unintentionally left too much out. I’ll probably let it simmer for a few months, do a quick revision, and send it out to some first readers, just like I’ve done for Heart of the Nebula.

In the meantime, I’m getting really excited to pick up work again on Star Wanderers. I’ve been workshopping part II in Kindal’s writing group, just to get some reactions. I’ll probably revise that part while I’m writing parts III and IV, getting it ready for publication after I hear back from Writers of the Future according to the serial model I outlined previously.

I’m so excited, in fact, that I went ahead and made some mock-ups for the cover art!

Pretty cool, huh? These make me sooo happy. 🙂

I’m not quite sure if this is the right design, though. Star Wanderers is very much a science fiction romance, and while these covers definitely scream “science fiction!” they don’t really seem to say “romance!”

My original idea was to use these as backgrounds and commission an artist to do some character portraits from the waist up, using one portrait each for the foreground. But then again, that might make the covers a bit too complicated. I can always redo the first one to get rid of the planet, keeping the galaxy–the other ones probably wouldn’t be so bad with a character in the middle. But then again…

I don’t know. What do you guys think? If you saw one of these covers while browsing for ebooks, what kind of impression would it give you, and would you be interested in checking it out?

(By the way, I made the covers with Celestia. Coolest. Space simulation. Ever.)

EDIT: I decided to redo the first cover; the planet wasn’t quite doing it for me. I’m not sure if that means I should redo the cover for the third part, since that one is a heck of a lot more colorful than the others…hmm. We’ll have to see.

Beginnings, Middles, and Ends by Nancy Kress

I finished last week’s book a couple of days late, but I’m still going to count it. It’s a book on writing by Hug0-award winning science fiction author Nancy Kress, and for anyone interested in writing stories in any genre, I’d highly recommend it.

Kress wrote this book back in the early 90s, after publishing six novels and a handful of short stories. She also taught creative writing, and from the calibre of her writing advice, that’s abundantly clear throughout the book. She tackles just about every aspect of story creation in a straightforward, methodical way, with a calm, almost motherly tone that is reassuring without being too heavy-handed. She picks apart just about every element that is essential to a good story, and explains how it all works in a way that is clear and makes sense.

Because this was written back in the 90s, there are some artifacts of traditional publishing that make the book feel dated. For example, the first few chapters focus on how to construct a beginning that will sell to an over-stressed, over-worked editor, with less of an emphasis on how to hook general readers. Aside from that, however, much of her advice is still quite applicable to today’s indie writers. The book’s main focus is on story, and good storytelling is important no matter which market you’re writing for.

The section on beginnings was a bit overwhelming, with so much “you must do this, you must not do this” kind of advice that it would probably kill my creativity if I were reading it as I was just starting a new book. However, the sections on middles and ends were quite insightful, and sparked a ton of great new ideas for my current project. Either way, her advice is spot on.

If you’re a new writer, I would recommend picking this book up after you’ve written a practice novel, or after you’ve finished a couple of short stories. If you’re already an experienced writer, I would still recommend it, because even if most of the advice isn’t new, it will help you see much more clearly how a good story comes together. It’s a short, easy read, but it’s so packed with good information that I’ll definitely reread it. Highly recommended.

plot vs. PLOT and an interesting serial publishing idea

Back in English 318 at BYU, Brandon Sanderson used to tell us that there was a big difference between “little-p plot” and “big-p Plot.” The first applies mostly to chapters and scenes, which he said he could teach us. The second refers to the overall story structure, which he couldn’t teach in a classroom setting and said we’d have to discover on our own.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently, because it seems that my books are starting to fall into a recognizable pattern–and that pattern has some interesting potential for serials and other alternate forms of publication. Each book is divided into 3-4 parts, each part is divided into 3-6 chapters (typically 5), and each chapter is divided into 3-5 scenes. Here’s how it works:

Chapter 1: Setup for the basic story arc. Introduction of the characters and setting, the prominent theme or premise, and a little foreshadowing of the coming conflict.
Chapter 2: The inciting incident, a discovery or event that starts the plot rolling and puts the characters in motion and conflict.
Chapter 3: Complications arise, the problem gets worse, the first attempt at a solution fails, generally leaving the characters at a loss.
Chapter 4: Setup for the resolution. The characters discover or build something that will help them to settle the conflict. They stop reacting and start to be more assertive.
Chapter 5: The resolution. The characters either succeed or fail, but the arc comes to a close either way. The story question is answered, the thematic elements come full circle, and the story either closes or moves on to the next part.

Basically, it’s the 3-act format divided into five chapters. When I wrote Heart of the Nebula, all four parts fell into this pattern, and now that I’m writing Star Wanderers, I’m finding myself falling into the exact same pattern again. Stars of Blood and Glory is a little bit different; there are three parts instead of four, and each part is divided into six chapters instead of five. But still, it’s all very structured.

In short, Brandon was right. It took me a few books to really learn “big-p Plot,” but now that I’ve found a story structure that works for me, it’s starting to come quite naturally.

The cool thing about this particular structure is that it’s very conducive to serialization. Each chapter is between maybe 3,000 to 5,000 words, so each complete sub-arc is between about 15,000 to 25,000. That’s the length of a short novella, and it takes me only a month or two to write (sometimes three, depending on how much revision it needs).

The only reason I haven’t done more with serialization up to this point is because I’ve found that sharing my work while it’s still unfinished tends to throw a wrench in my creative process. The idea of publishing a work in progress on a chapter-by-chapter basis scares me, because if one of the story arcs has a flawed beginning, I wouldn’t be able to fix it.

However, by following a five-chapter arc format (with bits and pieces here and there to hint at a larger overarching structure), I can see myself publishing a novel or epic in a serial format. It would be something like the Perry Rhodan series, which follows an arc structure of 25 to 100 issues (each a small novella) per cycle.

So here’s how I’m thinking of doing it:

Publish the first installment and price it at free while writing the second one.
Publish the second installment and price it at free, raise the price of the first installment to $.99 and write the third one.
Publish the third installment and price it at free, raise the price of the second installment to $.99 and write the fourth one.
Publish the fourth installment for $.99, drop the price of the first installment to free and publish the completed novel for $2.99.

So what do you think? Does it seem like a good way to publish a book? It gives the reader a reason to keep coming back, and rewards those who got in early by charging them less for the completed work. By selling the novel in shorter chunks, I would be able to put more work out and hopefully gain more visibility, especially by making a portion of it free at any given time.

I’m seriously thinking about publishing Star Wanderers this way, once I hear back from Writers of the Future. I’ve already finished the rough draft for the second part; it probably needs a good revision or two before it’s ready, but since it’s shorter, it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to get feedback from some first readers and finish the next draft. And if the third part is already finished by then…

So many awesome possibilities! 🙂 What do you think?

Writing Resolutions for 2012

As I write this post, I’m riding on the California Zephyr through western Colorado, going to my parents’ house in Massachusetts before heading out overseas on an adventure that I have no idea where it will take me before the end of the year. It’s an interesting time to make New Year’s resolutions, because so much is up in the air at this point, but two things are for certain: I will continue to write, and I will continue to publish.

A lot has changed for me since 2010. Around this time last year, I was still in query-writing mode, looking for an agent, and getting a little desperate for work. I eventually found work at an alarm company, which lasted through the summer until I realized it wasn’t helping me advance towards my long-term goals. And as for the query-go-round, I made the tremendous paradigm shift into indie publishing around the same time, eventually publishing three novels, three short stories, and one novella. Sales haven’t been spectacular, but they have been earning me a trickle of money that amounts to a few hundred dollars by now. Not quite a living yet, but if I keep at it, it might just become that.

My dream since 2009 has been to make a full-time living telling stories that I love. With all the opportunities made possible through ebooks and indie publishing, I have great hopes of accomplishing that within the next few years. However, I do think it’s going to take time, which is why I’ve decided to go abroad to teach English for a while. It’s the perfect kind of career for young people going through a transitional time in their lives, and I think I’ll find it a lot more enriching than bouncing around dead-end warehouse jobs until the writing starts to take off.

I can’t foresee exactly where this path will take me, but I can take accountability for the things within my control. So with that in mind, here are my resolutions:

1: Independently Publish At Least Two Books in 2012.

This shouldn’t be too hard. Journey to Jordan is already in the queue; all I have to do is make a final self-editing pass and figure out how to insert the photos. Besides that, I have the direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, Heart of the Nebula, which I should be able to revise, polish, and publish before the end of the year, perhaps as early as summer.

Besides these projects, though, the queue is conspicuously empty, which is why I’ve come up with the following resolution:

2: Constantly Work on Producing New Material.

This is a big one–in the past, I’ve taken time off from new projects to work on major revisions, and as I mentioned in this post, it’s slowed me down a lot more than I would like. I’ve never been able to juggle two projects for more than a week, but this is a skill I should probably learn if I’m going to do this professionally.

I hesitate to put a concrete number like “four completed novel drafts before 2013” because this is an aspect of my writing process that I still need to explore. If I peg myself to a number, I could as easily find that I’ve set it too low as that I’ve set it too high. The important thing at this point is to learn the self-discipline.

3: Read and Review a New Book Every Week.

This is a tricky goal that I’ve tried and failed at before, but I really feel that reading voraciously is going to help my writing more at this point than working on craft or attending conventions. Those are good too, of course, but there’s something about reading and analyzing other works, both inside and outside of your chosen genre. I’ve been slacking off on this a lot lately, and if I’m not careful, my writing will get worse because of it.

With my Kindle ereader and low-priced ebooks, I have a lot of reason to be optimistic about this goal, even though I’ll be on the go for most of the year. It’s like having an iPod for books–and with the sampling system, I don’t have to worry so much about whether or not it’s worth buying the book. Simply download the free sample, and if I’m still interested by the end, click and continue.

4: Experience at Least Three 10k Days.

This ambitious resolution comes from a post I wrote earlier in reaction to this post here. Basically, I want to boost my productivity and break through some mental barriers that have been in place for the past few years, and pushing myself to do a couple 10k sprints will hopefully help to reset my stride at a much higher rate.

At first, I was going to say “three consecutive 10k days,” but with all the uncertainty accompanying my travels and new TEFL career, that doesn’t seem like a good idea at this point. If/when I’ve saved up enough money to take a few months off from everything else, then I’ll set a goal like that.

5: Attempt to Write a Novel in a Week.

This is more of something I want to do for fun, just to see if I can. Apparently, Michael Moorcock used to write novels in three days, and while I’d like to try that too, a week seems like a more realistic goal. At 40,000 to 50,000 words minimum, I don’t even have to break 10k/day to do it. 🙂

So those are my writing resolutions for the next year. As always, I’ll continue to write for this blog, hopefully with a lot more book reviews in the coming months. In the meantime, though, this post is getting long, and I’d better get back to writing.

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to 2012 and all the possibility it brings!