Goals
So what are your goals for 2021? …Perhaps that’s an unfair question as my main “plan” is to hold all plans lightly.
This year mainly taught me that whatever plans we make and take for granted can be undone or thwarted in ways that never occurred to me would be possible, and the frustration has been difficult to overcome at times. So I am going to look forwards with hope and a whole list of possibilities, but try not to hold on to them.
I never make New Year’s resolutions anyway, and when I do they are usually a long list of increasingly grandiose and ridiculous things, like “visit every sea area in the shipping forecast” which my husband has always wanted to do, but we still haven’t managed. This year I have a few more practical things in mind, and a few schemes I don’t want to unveil just yet because who even knows what might happen. But I do have a few things I can share already.
1. The much-anticipated second novel set in Pagham-on-Sea, Thirteenth, is going to be released!
Genre: Weird Gothic | Adult | Eldritch Horror
Wordcount: 100K
Release Date: tbc – March 2021
THIRTEENTH is an eldritch family drama that puts a Lovecraftian twist on HANNIBAL RISING x FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, set it in East Sussex. Content Warnings for drug use, self harm, suicide ideation, violence, gore, body horror, and strong language.
2. My short historical weird fiction novella The Reluctant Husband is going to be in the SPOOKY BY ASSOCIATION anthology. It is set in the 1930s and features the awfully mediocre Nathan Montague Porter, civil servant, book collector and dabbler in arcane secrets, who gets more than he bargained for when his dabbling draws attention from the Watcher, an entity whose presence overshadows Nathan’s life. It is a kind of anti-romance, in which Nathan courts an eldritch tea lady, Dierdre Wend, to get some answers and ends up as the title suggests.
3. I want to write more short stories in 2021. I have made a list of anthology deadlines up to March and already submitted one piece. I have another in the beta stages, and a few more ideas. Let’s see how this goes. Pieces that are not accepted will be worked on further, and possibly I will release my own anthology, or continue to shop them around. That sounds like 2022’s problem.
4. Reading for pleasure is very hard for me when my brain refuses to cooperate. I DNF things a lot, not because of quality but because I can’t focus. Having my usual routine and structure taken from me really doesn’t help. My Goodreads goal this year will be the same as last year: 12 books, one a month. I count short stories and novellas in my score. If it looks like I will get to 20, I will increase it!
5. To reveal at least one of my two secrets. MWAHAHAAAA. There’s a hint regarding one of them in this post.
Wishing You A Happy New Year
So I wish you all a very happy new year, and hope that it will bring some good/better things your way. What are your goals/aims/plans/hopes/dreams for the coming year? Feel free to share them in the comments if you’d like!
C. M. Rosens 