Last night, I rang in 2012 with a group of online writer friends and my new novel. The writers hung out on Twitter, joking around and counting down the minutes. The new novel stared out from the computer screen, half promise, half dare. It’s a stranger yet, and the two of us are far from intimate, despite the level of commitment already made.

After the clock struck twelve and all the New Year’s greetings were said, I spent another half an hour at my desk adding words to what I think will be the opening chapter. It wasn’t a hugely productive writing stretch, by any measure, more of a symbolic gesture of intention.

I wanted to spend the first moments of this brand new year exactly as I plan to go on – writing.

2012 holds tantalizing promises for me. I have an agent now, and that makes all of my other writing goals seem suddenly plausible, instead of airy-fairy, pie in the sky day dreams. It’s possible that I could be published, soon, rather than sometime before I die. I could even possibly be lucratively published. Maybe some day I could even write full time.

None of these things will happen without a lot of hard work from me, however. Many hours of writing and revising lie ahead, and I wanted to have an understanding with myself, 2012, and the brand new novel, that writing gets priority focus this year.

No resolutions for me, only goals and a list of dreamy wishes which I’ve tucked away from everybody’s eyes but mine. One of the goals is to finish this new novel before the end of 2012, though, so it’s time to get with it. Which is why I’m also spending a big chunk of today writing.

As I mean to go on.