Things I am eagerly anticipating in 2009:

1) President Barack Hussein Obama.

2) The release of In Ashes Lie.

Other stuff too, but those stick out particularly.

I don’t generally make resolutions, and I’m not going to make any right now, though you could argue that there’s only a semantic difference between that and what I am about to do, which is to talk more generally about a goal.

I’d like to get my discipline back.

Dear Friends Who Think I Am Ridiculously Disciplined Already: Thanks. I appreciate it. But I see all too clearly the ways in which I am not, some of which used to not be true. If there’s something I need to do — particularly something overdue — that I don’t feel like facing, then I avoid it like an avoidant thing, which does not in fact make the problem go away. If I don’t have a contract or deadline holding me on course, I flit from project to project, to the clear detriment of my productivity. And since I go to work at the end of my day instead of the beginning, it’s very easy for me to put off my start time — after all, I can just stay up later, and then sleep in tomorrow morning. The work gets done, but not in a sensible fashion.

I want my discipline back.

There’s no point in trying to set a year-long goal for that; the markers are too subjective. Let me say instead that I’d like to get three things done in January:

1) Revise the Sekrit Revision Projekt
2) Write “Chrysalis”
3) Work on ANHoD.

Leaving that third one vague because ANHoD is an unfinished spec project from two years ago that I’m only playing with while I wait for my marching orders on the novel front. My brain handed me some ideas for it this afternoon, though, so I might as well let it be my play project for now. If I don’t commit to that, I’ll flit around not committing to anything until the marching orders arrive, and the intervening time will be wasted.

So. A short story, a revision, and some fun.

I can do that.