January is almost over. Is it too late for a blog post on setting intentions? I would venture not! The pandemic and being a new parent (do I still get to say "new" now that my child is one?) is a constant reminder to be gentle with myself and find the right level of ambitious that I find fulfilling without giving myself a migraine.

What soldiering through a migraine feels like?

So what are my writing and publishing goals for this year? With my second novel releasing from Lanternfish Press in late September, I have to be mindful of the marketing and publicity work just around the corner. I learned with my first novel, Daughters of the Air, that marketing and publicity can be ::e n d l e s s:: I do like it! But I also need to keep space for work-work, creative writing, and life.

I started writing my second novel two days after I began submitting my first novel—with a haiku workshop as a palate cleanser in between. I started writing my third novel, my current work-in-progress, just a year after starting my second novel. It's a long story as to why that I won't get into here, but I was heartened to learn that Jess Walter juggles multiple book projects simultaneously, and I'm sure many other writers do as well. Welp! The big hope for this year is I "finish" that third novel. (NB: Here's my silly essay "How to Finish a Finish a Novel in Only 15 Years"; I love that this essay landed in The Nervous Breakdown.)

My other writing goal is write two more essays for the collection that I began the same year as Novel #3. I'm taking an essay writing class through Atlas Obscura, where I've been having a great time teaching fairy tale writing. It'll be my first time as a student since taking a wonderful Hugo House class in 2016 with Alexander Chee on making fictional characters of historic figures, and I'm really looking forward to it. My plan is to write one piece arising from the class and one essay after finishing reading A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays, which I have ordered from one of my favorite Chicago bookstores, Exile in Bookville, which is located in one of my favorite buildings in the city.

That's it for my writing. I think those are plenty of goals for the year, given what I've got on my plate. I stopped aiming for 100 rejections per year a few years ago, though I do think it's a good goal to have if you're starting the submissions process and need to develop a callous against rejection. By my calculations, I had a 17% acceptance rate in 2021 so I do need to aim a little higher as my general goal, per advice from Creative Capital, is 10%. But I'm not going to tear my hair out over this one. As I say to my son, "Gentle! Gentle!"

My last goal is to continue to help emerging writers stretch their craft and hone their approach to getting their work out in the world. If you have short stories or a novel you're working on and if you'd like to work one-on-one with me, you can check out my coaching and consulting page at Hugo House here.

What are your goals for 2022? Any special plans for writing, reading, publishing? Or maybe you want to learn to cook something special this year? My cooking is toddler-centric now, but I've been dipping in and out of Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. I love her opinions: "Powdered rosemary must be shunned." Onward & upward & twirling, twirling, twirling!

There's one day left in our Baby Kentagyi campaign! Over on Facebook, Mike and I have been posting, drip by drip, Top Ten Reasons Why Mike and Anca Will Be Great Parents. Here's that list, all in one place. If you've been thinking about donating, now's the time. And thanks so very much. This is the last day.Top 10 Reasons Anca and Mike Will Be Great Parents:#10: It's not fair that Anca should be the only one subjected to Mike's puns and corny dad jokes.#9: Anca reading Goodnight Moon to a blank wall is starting to get creepy.#8: Our chocolate collection is not going to polish itself off - we'll need help!#7: Now that Mike is sleeping through the night, Anca will need someone else to keep her on a 90-minute sleep cycle.#6 We need a better excuse to put meat in a blender.#5: Pacifiers make us nostalgic for our days as ravers.#4 We can't keep going around burping strangers on the bus. King County Metro has a three-strike burping rule, and we've been warned.#3: A two-person conga line is pathetic.#2 Mike's outgrown the Baby Bjorn and has given Anca a hernia.#1 Because of you. Because of the network of family and friends who have supported us through this journey, and who we know will help us foster a loving, nurturing home for our future little one. With one day left in our adoption fundraiser, we've received 62 contributions totaling $6,665. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.This is the last of the fundraise-y posts! Thank you for bearing with me. I'm looking forward to writing about the home study process next, which is what we're doing through early February.