Looks like we’ve made it mostly intact into 2011. Hope everything went well for you and yours over the last couple weeks — it certainly did for me and mine. I thought I’d take a break this week from the ’30 Days of Writing’ series to talk about my writing plans for the first half of 2011.

I’m aiming to produce a couple new short stories — one all new, and currently under way, and one a full-scale breakdown-and-rewrite of an old one I think can be made saleable. Additionally, I’m determined to produce a detailed outline for Minions, my next novel. (Well, unless Brutal Light finds a publisher, in which case I’ll switch gears and start on the sequel to that one.)

I’m also working on worldbuilding for what I hope will be a long series of fantasy/horror short stories and novelettes and novellas, set in a lush and bizarre world populated by… but that would be telling. I’ve been sloppy in the past when it comes to worldbuilding, I’ll admit — I’ve always preferred to write, see what falls out of my head, and adjust my story to fit it in. But for this particular series to work, I’ve got to nail some things down, or at least come up with a sketch of what these things, and the nail, might look like. I’m quite looking forward to playing in this sandbox.

As far as established works go, I’ll be submitting True Places to another publisher, and see if I can find a home for the short story Fabulous Beasts as well. Plus I need to find somewhere to submit Onyx Fire, and maybe Brutal Light if it gets rejected by the publisher that has it now. You might think this doesn’t belong in a ‘goals’ post, but I’ve been lazy about keeping my momentum with submissions in the past, and that’s got to change.

Stay tuned, and I’ll keep you updated as to how these plans are going. Hope 2011 rocks, for all of us and ours.