Bring on 2010!

Okay, it's that time of year many people (myself included) look back and forward to figure out what went right (or wrong) and what to change or attempt next. I'm going to look back in a future post on this blog, since there's still a week left for anything to happen. In this post, I'm going to look forward.

Here are some goals I'd like to accomplish in 2010:

1. Write at least one poem every day of 2010. I already write more than 100 poems each year for the Poetic Asides blog, but I plan to write and share a poem a day on this blog.
2. Get a collection of poems published. This goal may be very difficult to accomplish, and who knows? I may even go the self-publishing route if all else fails. But this is my big goal.
3. Get back into the shape I was in around May. As some of you may know, May is when I was in the best shape I'd been since college. It's also when I lost consciousness, quit breathing, turned crayon blue, and nearly died--for unspecified reasons (the cardiologists thought it was my brain; the neurologists thought it was my heart). Much of the second half of 2009 has been a struggle for me as I've suffered a depression of sorts wondering "what if this" and "what if that," but the great thing about the New Year is that it gets me in the mood to move on and forget the past.
4. Run a few road races. I wanted to do this in 2009 but only ended up running the Peachtree Road Race (10k on July 4th in the ATL). That was fun, and I want to have more fun running races in 2010.
5. Improve the quality of Writer's Market and Poet's Market for the 2011 editions. This is always a goal. With a new database that's entering it's first full production cycle, I think this is possible. Plus, I think I've got some great articles assigned for the front of the books.
6. Spend less time working. I often felt guilty if I was only working 50 hours a week in 2009 and often ended up working as much as 60 or 70 hours a week (and sometimes still feeling guilty when I put in those hours). That's not healthy, so 2010 will be spent trying to be more productive in less time.
7. Create a website. I admit that I often know the best way to do things, but that I'm sometimes slow to adopt my own very good advice. I should've created a personal website years ago, but 2010 will work better than 2011, I guess.
8. Write fiction. This (and not poetry) used to be my strong suit. I won cash prizes in college and would spend hours upon hours each day typing and outlining stories, figuring out characters, etc. I have several story ideas stuffed in the back of my current composition notebook that I use for my poetry. I need to write these stories down in 2010.
9. Create a bookazine on getting published for Writer's Digest. This is an assignment and a goal. I'm pretty excited about putting it together and am sure it'll be the best bookazine on getting published ever released. More details as they come.
10. Travel more. Tammy and I recently had to abort a trip to Tennessee to visit my mother and grandmother in Dandridge. We ended up in a pizza shop in historic Marietta, Georgia, where we read our horoscopes in a local paper. Tammy's said to look into more education in 2010; mine said to travel. Good idea.

Knowing me, I may add to this list later, but this seems like a good starting point.

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I've been interviewed twice recently by these folks:

• Didi Menendez
• Paul Grimsley

Interviews are always fun, whether I'm interviewing or being interviewed. Thanks to Didi and Paul!

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Finally, I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!