New Year's Resolutions for the Writer

Now that 1 January is almost here, it's time to pick a New Year's Resolution for your writing.

What I think would be a good resolution is to pick one thing you want to improve about your writing and set some goals leading to that improvement. For example, let's say you've been dabbling in writing poetry. For the upcoming year, choose a type of poem you would like to learn to write--say the sonnet. In January, you would learn what a sonnet is, what its usual rhyme schemes and meters are, and how the subject matter is handled. In February, you would work on writing a sonnet, evaluating it against what you've learned about sonnets. As the year progresses, you would set more goals to work on. The same could be done for writing essays, short stories, or novels.

You might also want to set some publishing goals. Do you want to start a blog? Do you want to look for markets for poetry, essays, or whatever you are writing and submit your material for consideration? Set some goals for researching markets and preparing manuscripts. Learn how the various markets want submissions handled.

If you are already reasonably accomplished at poetry, you can work on publishing it and, at the same time, learn to write short stories. That way you can work on more than one area of writing. There would also be room for goals improving your grammar, spelling, or other nuts and bolts types of goals that will make your writing much better. Study some articles or books about writing, too. Those can help you learn new things that you may not have considered before.

Any ideas out there for some good writing goals? Feel free to put them in the comments! Good luck!!