Welcome to The Distracted Writer, your resource for… Ooh! Shiny objects! You can see all M.J.’s distracted (and distracting) writing posts here.

2016 is well underway, and while I don’t know yet if it will be as eventful as 2015, I am super excited about making this a year to find balance as a working mom, continue my fitness journey, and to grow as a writer. First order of business: create an actual time warp machine to add six hours to each day and make it all possible.

ASIDE: Don’t tell anyone, but in high school my friends and I were obsessed with the Rocky Horror Picture Show. We’d sneak out and pile seven of us into a mid-80’s Honda Accord and drive to Hilltop Cinemas in Mableton, Georgia at midnight on Saturday and sing and dance and throw things at the screen. I played Columbia. My friend Nan once accidentally ratted me out to my Dad and I was grounded for six weeks. She’s still apologizing for this.

So, anyway. Writing stuff. Here are some of my writing goals for 2016, I hope other writers might find them useful and encouraging, too.

• In 2016, I will write dangerously. This means writing what interests and inspires me, knowing that the right audience will come to it. I will not try to write safely or to please everyone. I am okay with the fact that not everyone will like me or my work. (Mostly.)
• I will be truer to my unique voice in everything I write. I will be badass and funny and brave. And if my true voice turns out not to be badass and funny and brave, I will murder it and replace it with Lara Croft. (Or maybe that badass Julia Sugarbaker from Designing Women. To be honest, I’m not sure I’m Lara Croft material.)
• This year, I will silence my inner critic during the drafting process. That should be pretty easy once my inner critic sees what happened to my wimpy true voice. And you don’t fuck with Julia Sugarbaker, that’s for sure.
• While writing this year, I will not stop the narrative flow mid-sentence to do any of the following: research the application process for astronaut school, try to think of a better name for the secondary character’s dog, or try to remember who this guy is.
• I will write like I have a week to live, and edit like my books are forever.
• I will make time each day to put writing first. And I do think it’s going to require literally making time. If anyone has any experimental technology I should know about, now would be the perfect time…

Edit to add:

MJ Pullen

M.J. Pullen is a distracted writer and the mom of two boys in Roswell, Georgia, where she is absolutely late for something important right now. Her books include quirky romantic comedies and playful women's fiction. She blogs erratically with writing advice, random observations, and reflections on raising very loud kids and dogs. Join her Distracted Readers newsletter list for updates, free content, giveaways and more.