Yikes! December is Nearly Gone!

Accidentally I found a list of my 2013 resolutions- this was a good and bad thing. I think resolutions are good to have, to help you reach for goals, to stretch yourself.  They're not good if you get to the end of the year and are demotivated by the fact that you've not accomplished many of them, which is sort of where I am now. Let's take a look at this list:

1. Get a book accepted by Mills and Boon
The main point of this was to convince myself that my romances might have some international appeal. I have a novel that is finished and has gone through a few edits, but it's not ready yet. My romances seem to have a natural length of about 30,000 words, this books needs to be 50,000. So resolution not accomplished, but I'm going to give myself big lee-way since I was sick for the bulk of this year. I'm about a quarter of my way to this goal so I get a 1/4

2. Finish If Not For This and find an agent for it
I've finished the novel. I have sent it out to agents. Now I'm waiting. So I'll give myself a 2/3 on this one.

3. Attend one writers' workshop and one writer's residency
I got accepted at Chateau Lavigny and was meant to go but couldn't because I couldn't sit or walk at the time. I did attend a poetry workshop at the Maun International Literature and Poetry Festival. I'd hoped it would be more writing poetry than talking about it, but I did attend. So I think here I get 1/2

4. Get a story taken at Take a Break
Take a Break is a great UK market for short stories. I've tried and tried to get a story taken to no avail. A friend brought me the magazine from the UK so I could get a better idea of the types of stories they use and I wrote two and sent them off. I never heard anything, so I assume they were rejected. In the end, I sent them to Drum Magazine in South Africa and both were accepted, so that's something . But still I think on this I get 0/1

5. Read three books a month
I read more than that thanks to being stuck in bed for some months, so I get all the points. 1/1

6. Write and submit one short story a month
I've checked my records just now and despite being sick for a big chunk of the year, I actually wrote a new story and submitted it in every month except February and this month December, which I might still do. In some months I wrote more than one. I'm quite happy about that one. 10/12 points I think.

7. Blog posts two per week
I failed miserably for this one. My blog has been the most neglected. 0/2 points

8. Do marketing for my books one day a week. 
Nope. I'm even surprised to see this on the list considering how much I hate marketing. I do occasionally put up a blog post or mention some news on Facebook, but mostly I'm useless.  0/ 1 points

So that was it. 15/26, 58%, not very good. Must try better next year.

BUT- I did get a new kitten named Bunny for Christmas, so that may push my score about at least 20-30 percentage points...right???