I went through my writing papers today, and I found 15 writing projects that I've started and are in various stages of completion. There are stories I finished, and I want to keep working on. There are stories I started, and I'm not even sure I'm even interested in writing them anymore. I found some notes for a weird story I was interested in writing called "The Unsettler", and I couldn't believe I had written this story about a group of murders taking place in the West Virginia hills. I'm reading my own handwriting and thinking, where the heck did I get this idea from?

I'm going to type up the notes for the story only because they're so bizarre, but I'm not sure I'm ready to write a murder story. I'd like the story to be a short story or maybe a novella, but not another long novel. Novels take so long to write, and I don't have the patience for writing them.

I'd like to at least finish one story this year and I decided that since I'm going to Texas for the holidays, I figured I might as well finish the novel I started in 2003 called "Texas is a state of mind". I've got 3.5 chapters to go. I managed to finish 1.5 chapters this year, which is sad.

My writing productivity for 2004 has just been really, really bad. The stress of having to find a new job, then starting a new job really took a toll on my writing. I started writing again just before red-haired guy came into my life, but then things went emotionally haywire for me and my creative writing practically ceased. I've been writing like mad in my personal journal, but not story writing at all.

I've got to really get a handle on that in 2005. I think my life functions much happier when I'm writing and I feel productive and creative. I have to figure out how to make writing a habit. Journal writing is a habit for me. Blogging is habitual most of the time. But I can't seem to make creative wriitng a habit.

Some people at Nanowrimo were blogging their novels online. That would be wild to post a novel entry every day for people to read. It would be bad first draft writing and who wants to come across that and read it on the screen. Yucky!

I'd like 2005 to be a big breakthrough year for me with my writing, where I develop good writing habits and start finishing stories and sending them out. I think it's the next step in my writing process, but I have no idea what I'm going to have to do, have to give up in my life to get to that point.