9 New Year's Resolutions for Science fiction/Fantasy Writers

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Well, we're in a new year and that means for many of us new books to read, new books to publish, and new writing plans. And at this time of year new plans often come through new year’s resolutions. I have my new year's writing resolutions made out, ones that I also recommend to fellow science fiction and fantasy authors for themselves. They’re in no particular order and some are ones any writer, regardless of genre, can use while others are focused more for writers of speculative fiction. However, as they often say, new year’s resolutions often get broken. So, don’t expect me to follow through with all of these (except for number nine) and neither do I expect you to follow through with them all. But the important thing is that they are goals and when we set up goals for our selves we can focus so much better and easier. So, here’s a list of nine writing resolutions I've come up with which I think will help many of you too. 

My 9 New Year's Writing Resolutions for 2022

1. Read subgenres of speculative fiction outside my own. I'm mostly a reader of science fiction and supernatural horror. I do read other genres outside speculative fiction but that's only a few times a year. This year I plan to read subgenres of speculative fiction that I normally don't care to read such as modern-day fairytale retellings and alternative histories. The exception with the latter has been that I often read alternative 1950s/atomic era fiction. (So, I guess I'll have to read an alternative World War II era story or such, right?) The important thing about reading outside our preferred genres is that it expands our minds and imaginations. We get to know more tropes that we wouldn't otherwise in which some of those may integrate well with stories we write in our preferred genres. When we stick to our own subgenres too much, our writing and creativity can stagnate.

2. Submit an article pitch to a publication every other week. I've been really lagging on doing this for the last several years. Ever since I started my day job as a library technician, I swayed from pitching articles and focused more on my fiction. But I have the time to write articles for publications other than my own blog, and so I'm going to regularly pitch to news publications again. 

3. Submit a short story to at least three anthologies. I think I only submitted to one last year. I know, that's bad. It's because I was working on my book of short stories in which I still am (which I’ll talk about further down the list) and I had surgery that put me back. Submitting to anthologies is a great way to get your work noticed besides going only one or two other venues (such as self-publishing or submitting a book to a major publisher). The more publishing venues you open yourself to, the greater the chances your work will get known.

4. Engage more with other writers in my genres. I often glance over my social media groups of writers in my genres. A lot of that has to do with many of these groups getting too caught up in posting memes about writing rather than actually talking and sharing tips about it. Facebook groups seem to slip into this problem although there are some groups on there that do well in their discussions. So, I'll engage with those groups more and I'll also see about joining a sci fi/fantasy writer’s group on Reddit since the platform seems to concentrate more on actual conversation than Facebook does.

5. Subscribe to "Locus" Magazine. I used to read an issue here and there of this magazine that talks about the world of science fiction and fantasy publishing. It was insightful but I've been realising lately that I have not been staying up to date with new speculative fiction works that are out there. It’s impossible to read every new book that comes out. So, a better way to keep up to date with new works is to subscribe to this publication. Many experienced authors in speculative fiction recommend it and so do I.

6. Review more and newer books on my blog. I'm aiming to do this at least once a month and this is in addition to the Book-To-Movie reviews. The Book-To-Movie reviews tend to be about older works in which I like and believe are important to keep alive in conversations but the world needs to know about newer ones as well, especially those by authors who would not get recognition otherwise. So, I’ll try to include at least a couple unknown authors’ work in my reviews. If anybody out there has a story they want me to review let me know. However, I want to be up front with two things: I only read print books and I give preference to science fiction and supernatural horror. I don’t read fast and I concentrate better reading in my preferred subgenres. (Well, whadda you know! I’ve already broken one of my resolutions! Well, just when it comes to book reviewing.)

7. Have an author's table at at least one live event. I have not had a table of my books at a live event since 2017. Much of that has been due to events getting canceled because of the pandemic. But with more things opening up, I'm going to do at least one vendor's table at a live event this year. I'll let you know which event it will be as soon as I make the arrangements. 

8. Work in a different media. For me this will be animated gifs. A lot of self-publishing authors are promoting their work through these under-one-minute, auto-replaying but often out’a sight videos, and so I'm going to learn how to make these to promote my work. Other ways of promoting your work besides blogs and social media can be through regular video and podcasts, in which I've considered working with these two but I think I'm going to start off with gifs since they’re a little easier to work with (or at least it seems) and then eventually I might move on to the other two.  Also, a gif is an art within itself. I've seen some really neat ones out there by other authors.

9. And finally, I'm going to finish and publish my book of short fiction. I know, I've put this off too many times. But it really is hard to anticipate when you can have a book done by. Writing is a very dynamic process so things can come up that can slow projects down. But I'll keep you informed on the progress. The best way to stay informed on this is by subscribing to my author's newsletter. It's free!

So those are my plans for improving my writing and the promoting of it. Look out for the next issue of my author's newsletter, “Night Creatures' Call”, within the next week or two. Also, next week will be the first Book-To-Movie review of the year, so be here for that! What are your news year's writing and/or reading resolutions for 2022?

Until next time . . .