When the zombie apocalypse came, at least Paula was wearing comfortable shoes.  That’s what they teach you in school, but no one ever really listens.  And if you knew Paula, you would have known that wearing comfortable shoes wasn’t high on her list of priorities — she would normally be seen hitting the clubs wearing 3-inch black stiletto heels.  But on that stormy day in September, there she was, wearing a sensible pair of Stegmann wool clogs.  Not exactly the best shoe for running from zombies, mind you, but at least it was supremely comfortable.  That was the last thought to go through her head…”At least my feet don’t hurt”…as a zombie devoured her brain.  In the months and years following that rain-filled day, the Stegmanns passed from survivor to survivor, and achieved an almost mythic reputation.  Survivors seen wearing the shoes would be told “ah, you’re very lucky to have such comfortable shoes”.  Finally, as the years passed and the survivors dwindled, the last person alive on the earth–a pretty young girl named Melody–had inherited the ragged but still comfortable shoes.  She was doing a poor job of escaping from a rather large group of zombies, and ultimately, she was caught and quickly devoured.  If only Paula had decided to wear a nice comfortable pair of running shoes, things might have turned out differently for the human race.

Also, to add to goals, I want to start writing “Tiny Fiction”. I got the idea from the “New Times”, a weekly free news magazine I used to read in in Phoenix.  Every week, they had this tiny little one paragraph piece of fiction. It was fun, and it seems like a way to really stretch the imagination.  I like the idea so much, about two years ago I registered the domain name tinyfiction.com with the idea of setting up this place where people could submit these little micro-stories.  But, like many of my ideas, I never did anything with it, and didn’t bother to renew that domain, so I don’t own it any more.  Ah well.  Anyway, on to the goal:

• Once a week, I will write a piece of “Tiny Fiction” and post it to my blog.  I will do this as long as it’s sustainable.

It’s a little early to start making New Years Resolutions, but I’m going to start setting some goals for myself.  Here are some of them, in no particular order:

• Write short fiction, one story per month, for the next 6 months, starting in December. That means by December 31, I’ll have my first story done. Of course, I’ll post it here.  I’m going to focus on short fiction for a while as practice for finally working on a novel, which I’m planning to start on next summer.
• Finish at least a preliminary, multi-player version of WGTA (a video game).  Nik and I have been kicking the idea around forever, and I have a good, working base, I just need to finish it.
• Focus on getting myself out of debt.  I just paid off one of my smaller bills (yay!) and I need to make sure every available dime goes to my debt.  Which mean (really!!!) cutting out on non-essentials.
• Paint more of my Battlelore minis.  I really enjoyed painting them, and I’d like to get back to it.  I’ll make this goal more specific when I look at my minis and see how many are left to be painted.

That’s all for now, and I think it’s enough — these are reasonable things to accomplish, and I need to just set my mind to it.