2012: Goals, Plans, Dreams

It is customary, as the old year slips into the new, to make resolutions regarding the accomplishments one hopes to achieve in the coming year.  Since January 1st, I’ve been thinking over my own goals and resolutions for 2012.  The month is nearly half-over, now, so this may not seem timely.  But a good plan for the year shouldn’t be taken so lightly.

 2012 promised to bring many changes and opportunities for me and my family.  Many of these are private matters, of course, and suffice to say Dear Wife and I have a few important changes and goals in mind for the year to come.  But there are some big changes that are pretty clear.  2012, for instance, will be the first full year in which I will not have any MBA classes, owing to my graduation from the program last May. 

This being the blog of an aspiring author, though, most of what I want to talk about, with regards to my goals, plans, and dreams for 2012, concern my writing.

One thing I want to clear up: 2012 is not the year that Stephen A. Watkins gets published.  First, as a technical matter, that year was 2011, anyway.  But I don’t anticipate repeating that success in 2012.  It could happen, but I’m not planning on it.  And how could I?  It’s not exactly in my control.  Which gets to the point of how I want to think about my writing goals and plans for 2012.  I want SMART goals.

Why Yes, I AM a Fan of the Old Rankin & Bass Hobbit Movie, And I’m Not Afraid To Admit It

And it looks like I’m not the only one.

I’m pretty sure this:

is at least in part an homage to this:

Partly, of course, that’s because both utilize the same source material.  But the style of the song in the Peter Jackson/Howard Shore version of The Hobbit is strikingly reminiscent of that of the song in the Rankin & Bass version. (It’s also a bit reminiscent of Aragorn’s song in Jackson’s version of “Return of the King”, but that’s probably because it’s the same composer.)

The lament of the dwarves, as portrayed in the Rankin & Bass version, was actually a big inspiration to me. It became the model for a particular culture in my currently-shelved novel-I’ve-been-working-on-since-forever, “Project SOA”.