Writing & Reading: New Year's Resolutions

Writing
I will make more of an effort to write fully-formed fiction and non-fiction in 2013, rather than spending so much time on blog posts and Facebook posts. Among the things I plan to do:

• Finish my story 2012: A Parable, about Karl Rove's efforts to swing the 2012 election towards Republican candidates, especially the Presidential Election.
• Finish my story "Abducted," about a man who believes he was abducted by aliens and is now recruited by a shadowy government agency to develop a language for communicating with an alien captured after its spacecraft crashed in Roswell, NM near Area 51.
• Write a short story or novella about an alien invasion of Earth that involves an alien presence totally unexpected.
• Write an op-ed about the gun debate in America titled, "War of the Worlds," which explores the diametrically opposed world views of the Second Amendment fanatics and the vast majority of sane Americans.
• Refocus my non-fiction blog on climate change
• Write and study various forms of poetry.
• Re-write and re-publish my collection of poetry, "All Hearts Break, All Dreams Die."
• Publish my novel, "The Lion and the Sun," in hard copy (possibly using Createspace).

Reading
I plan to read these books, among others, in 2013. The list is in no particular order.

• Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee
• In the Heart of the Country, J.M. Coetzee
• The Orphan Master's Son, Adam Johnson
• Gold, Chris Cleave
• The Submission, Amy Waldman
• Birds of a Lesser Paradise, Megan Mayhew
• The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk
• A Bend in the River, V.S. Naipaul
• Water Music, T.C. Boyle