You're out of your gourd if you think you're going to find a "Year In Review" type of posting here. I am glad to let 1998 slide into the past. I survived it. That's enough.

But, this year I do want to get more serious about writing. Last year was a "learning" year for me. I didn't submit for much of the year, in an attempt to concentrate on improving and refining my craft without worrying about rejections/submissions, and without falling into the temptation to send stories off as soon as they were finished.

But I'm more secure now about my writing, and I'm ready to make this the year that I actually sell something. Plus, thanks to Clarion, I now have a good group of people who will read my stories and tell me straight out if they are not ready yet (which is usually the case.) And at the same time, thanks to Clarion, I also have a good group of people who will kick me in the ass if I don't write and submit. Since my post-Clarion writing output has been pretty horribly dismal (one story...that's right, I've written **one** new story since Clarion) I'm joining a quasi-dare that Daniel proposed, namely to match our Clarion outputs. However, we must take into account to intrusions of Real Life, so since I managed to write 8 stories in 6 weeks at Clarion, my present challenge is to write 8 stories in 6 months. That really shouldn't be a problem, should it? Moreover, I'm adding rewrites onto that challenge. So, in 6 months time I expect to have 8 new stories, and 4 rewrites.

No problem.