A Writer's New Year's Resolutions

Hello folks, Mark here with a few thoughts on the new year.

I've never been a big fan of new year's resolutions. I figure why wait for some calendar moment to make some necessary decisions about one's life just because "everyone else does it." Besides, from what I know about the practice, most of us who make those resolutions don't keep them. Part of the problem might be that we tie those resolutions too closely with unrealistic expectations to lose all the weight we put on during the holiday season. Let's face it, temptation increases exponentially once we start slinging around mashed potatoes and gravy, turkey and prime rib, dressing, divinity and the plethora of sweets attendant to the times.  I've never made weight related resolutions. I like my wine and chocolate too much to curse myself to disappointment.

But since publishing The Poets of Pevana, I have been making writing centered resolutions. Having publishing dates and deadlines for edits to meet facilitated the practice. I'm happy to report that I met all of last year's! This year, feeling the need to shake myself out of my own funk, I've decided to post my Writer's New Year's Resolutions. Here are my personal writing goals for 2014.

I will edit and clear volume three of my Pevanese Mosaic: The Path of the Poet King before the end of the school year. The project has been waiting for me to commit. Time to tickle the keyboard.

I will develop in earnest the fourth, and likely final tale with these characters, during this spring and summer. I've made a good start and copious notes, and there are a few folks whispering in my sleep. I can almost understand the language they are using. I keep seeing a painter, a poet, a teacher and a warrior interacting in a way that feels like a storm of cultural significance. Perhaps it is just the tinnitus I'm battling...

Perhaps I'm being presumptuous, but I think the working title is The Price of the Poet King's Peace....or something shorter like King's Peace.  It's madness, but it is my madness...:)

I will develop a workable website with a more active personal blog. I started on Livejournal, but have not done a good job creating a presence. That changes this year.

I will place on that website/author page, a good chunk of my poetry and other material both writerly and teacherly. Call it ego, but I have a career's worth of things from the classroom and opinions I want to find a place for. Go Daddy.com here I come.

I will also place on that site extensions of some of the folk tales for Pevana that I've hinted at in early volumes regarding the various exploits of Minuet, Renia, Tolimon and the rest of the pantheon of Old Way's deities.

So, forgive my pompous declarations if you can. Somehow this coming year I intend to squeeze out 200,000 words about myself and a place I've come to love dearly. At the same time I hope to get a bit more techie and at ease with the whole author persona.

These are my writerly intentions for 2014. What are yours?

Mark