Everybody left today. Our house party began a week ago, when the snow started falling and didn't stop 
for days. There's still snow on the streets, but now it is accompanied by deep tire ruts filled with water, because it is raining. Hooray! We Oregonians love the rain. At least this Oregonian does.
Regretfully, I waved goodbye to my daughter, the last house guest to leave, this afternoon and realized it was time to get back to work. For quite some time I've wanted to enter the new year with a plan. I'm not good at planning and scheduling because I am a rebellious sort. You know that advice you always hear to schedule time for what you want to get done and write it on your calendar? Doesn't work for me because once it is written down, I rebel against it. Too much of the free spirit in me.
Just as I was writing that last paragraph my friend Suzanne called, disturbed because she felt that another friend of hers was disrespecting her time. In hashing all this out we touched upon the idea that perhaps he was disrespecting her time because he didn't respect his own. And then I remembered what I had just written about being rebellious about time and realized that maybe it is a matter of respecting oneself more than anything. Does it ever cease to amaze you how these things get pointed out to us?
I'm determined to change, and the path to change is going to be my plan for 2009. I'm going to think deep thoughts about what I want to accomplish this year and get them all written down in a way that I can follow. My inspiration is a post I read on Chris Guillebeau's blog about creating an Annual Review. It's worth a look, and even if you don't make it all the way through, I suspect that the acting of thinking about it will have a big impact.
I'm going to work on my 2009 plan this weekend. As part of it, I'll be going back through the posts I've written this year and creating my own personal Greatest Hits of 2008 list. So I'll report back soon.
Meanwhile, what are you writing goals this year? Let's all fess up together. There's strength not only in numbers but in stating our plans. Leave a comment and get next year's writing success rolling.
Lindsay Price
I have a writing/marketing goal for 2009, which involves consistent communication within my cyber-community. Consistent content on my blog, reading and commenting on other blogs, writing articles, being ‘out there’ instead of ‘in here’ which is where I like to hide.
I’m in a very comfortable space with what I write and how I write and when it goes done. But it’s time to get more of an audience for the what and the how.
There’s also a more technical 2009 goal of converting first time visitors to our website, which actually involves A LOT of writing (writing out new play descriptions, writing articles for landing pages, whew!)
Linda
What I really want to do this year is build my historical marker site to where it’s not just breaking even, but making money. This means pushing for at least 5,000 members, which is no mean feat. I’ve done a lot of preparation in 2008 and now I’m ready to rock and roll. I will probably consider writing to be part of the marketing plan, but I already know I can’t do everything, so that’s where I’ll be at this year. :)
rebecca
My first goal is underway for 2009. I am participating in the National Blog Posting Month competition. It’s a chance to write daily for the amount of days that in the calendar month. Certainly, a little easier than The National Novel Month where you write an entire 50,000 word novel in a month. Charlotte, enjoying and learning so much from this blog.