I thank JA Konrath with providing a list of resolutions for writers that I could edit for my 2009 resolutions:
- I will finish revising the damn book.
- I will start on the next book.
- I will listen to criticism.
- I will update my website.
- I will master the query process and find an agent.
- I will quit procrastinating in the form of research, outlines, synopses, taking classes, reading how-to books, talking about writing, and actually write something.
- I will refuse to get discouraged, because I know Konrath wrote nine novels, received nearly five hundred rejections, and wrote over one million words before he sold a thing–and I’m a lot more talented than him.
Nullius in Verba 
I especially like the last one. I didn’t take long after I began trying to read one of Konrath’s novels for me to conclude that his is a story of the triumph of marketing over talent. His writing is pedestrian, sometimes plain old sophomoric, his characters mostly two dimensional and unoriginal and his “humor” labored. But he does know how to work the system and of course he has a bunch of undiscriminating fans who just don’t seem to know better.
Hell, after writing this I believe the only proper thing to do is cancel my “friendship” with my fellow on MySpace. Otherwise shame on me.
Alan