BRING IT ON, FUTURE BITCHES!

It being the last Sunday of the year-- oh yeah, don't think I don't keep track of these things-- Luscious and I peeled the children away from the X-Box long enough to deposit them in our favourite outdoor cafe and discuss our goals for the coming year. Every year we set some personal goals, as well as a list of things we'd like to achieve as a family. We stick them up in the kitchen where everyone can see them, and run a thick black line through each one as we achieve it: simple stuff, but remarkably effective.

I spoke about my 2013 goals, and how I maybe might have scraped a pass mark provided you squinted at them through a plate of sheet metal in a darkened room in my Year in Review post. So now, for your entertainment and my ultimate embarrassment, here are my goals for 2014:

1. Finish and send Father Muerte & the Divine. It's written, but it needs some heavy structural edits. It's by far the most complex work I've undertaken, and the first draft reflects that. I've been avoiding it like a cowardly coward for about three months now, so it's time to gird my girdables and get about it.
2. Finish and send one picture book. I've actually started three, and it's a fun holiday project. I've enjoyed the process of completing a children's novel so much I'm eager to explore the territory further.
3. Finish and send Canals of Anguilar. I managed approximately 12 000 words during Nanowrimo, until the month went severely southward and banjaxed all writing attempts. Along with the Muerte novel, it's my next major novel work and I want them both off my desk by year's end.
4. Finish and send Cirque. A teen fantasy novel, I've had 15 000 words of it sitting in my desk for over a year, waiting for reasonsthat'swhydon'tjudgemeYOU'RENOTMYSUPERVISOR! I'm committed to expanding my repertoire. Here's an opportunity waiting to be seized.
5. Volunteer for the Aurealis Awards Graphic Novel section. I did this a couple of years ago, and enjoyed it. Simple as that, really.
6. Exercise 4 days out of every 7. I'm not setting weight loss goals. I've done that every year for the last 5 or so years, and it's never worked. This is a change of approach-- I'll work on the root causes, and if the weight loss follows, all the better. But at least I'll be raising my energy levels, keeping my muscles limber, and dealing with the general health complaints that have built up and made my 2013 a difficult one. To which we can add...
7. Stick to a controlled eating plan 5 days out of 7. Elevated uric acid levels, elevated cholesterol levels, and I'm a fat bastard. Bit of a non-brainer, really. Except I have no brain, which is how I got into this state in the first place...
8. Write a list of 50 home maintenance tasks, and complete them. I hate our giant white elephant of a house. It's a ramshackle, dodgily-built mistake. But we're stuck here for the foreseeable future, so there's little I can do but set about fixing everything that makes me so depressed when I look around. 

So there it is. How will I do? Your guess is as good as mine. But it'd be nice to think the me that faces 2015 is thinner, fitter, happier, and has a more impressive writing CV than the one who faces 2014.

Also, I'd like a unicorn.