We arrived home about 8 PM last night, after 10 days and 9 nights on the road. How nice to have time last night in my own reading chair, and at my familiar work station in The Dungeon. How nice to sit up till 1:30 AM reading. Today is the day our company decided to have for New Year holiday, so I’m home. My wife and mother-in-law are still in bed as I begin to write this, though both have stirred at times in the last four hours.

I was up at 8:30 AM, tired of the prone position, and ready to drink some coffee and read. So I’ve been doing that. My mind thought to the new year. I’m not one to make resolutions, though goal setting is always possible. I thought about my writing career, and what I would like to accomplish. So I wrote some goals, quickly, without giving a lot of thought to exactly how achievable these are. I used to post monthly goals on this blog, but gave that up early last year. I will, however, post the goals I wrote on the last page of my current journal notebook.

• Finish In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. Currently at 15,000 on its way to 85,000 words, it’s well along but far from done. I will consider finished to mean having the book completely written and having gone through one round of edits.
• Finish A Harmony of the Gospels. The harmony is done, and I’m working on passage notes and appendixes. This goal is definitely achievable.
• Write 100 articles for Suite101.com. This might be a stretch. I have 116 written and three started. This is a good goal, one I should try very hard to meet.
• Continue writing for Buildipedia.com, with a goal of earning at least $2000 from articles there.
• Finish the Bible study I’m currently researching, To Exile and Back. This has turned out to be more involved than I originally expected. In a vacuum it would be easily achievable, but with other writing to do I’m not sure.
• Plan, research, and write a small group study Essential John Wesley. This has been on my mind for some time. I’ve been mulling over what I would consider to be essential of his writings, and may even have a few notes somewhere.
• Work on my small group study book Screwtape’s Good Advice. I began this three years ago because I had a publisher in mind for it, and prepared a detailed outline and four sample chapters before meeting with that publisher at a conference. When, after a considerable delay, the publisher said he wasn’t interested, I let it lapse. But it’s a good idea (if I say so myself), and so would like to follow-through with some more of the chapters.
• Develop the Bible study Good King, Bad King. I began this a year or two ago, doing two lessons in it, but then didn’t find time to work on it further. I’d like to at least know the length of the lesson series, have an outline of the lessons, and know the research needed prior to writing. The actual writing, if the planning proves there’s really something worth doing here, is most likely a 2012 project.
• Blog at least 120 times. Only 119 to go.

So there they are: 2011 writing goals, with some justification added and some thoughts on how achievable they are. I may check in from time to time on what I’m doing on them.