New Year’s Resolutions

What Will You Do This Year?

By Jerry Blaze

Another year has come and passed. Now, it’s 2026!

First, Happy New Year!

Second, and more on point, what kind of goals do you hope to achieve in this new year? New novels? New short stories? New book collections?

It seems like some have already set out to flame and smear others over past ills. Literally day one of the new year, we saw a publisher attack another publisher and effectively catch serious heat for it. Now who knows what the future holds for indie publishers in the horror world? Personally, I’d like to see more people self-publish their works rather than rely on indie publishers who don’t seem able to stay afloat or can’t let go of past slights.

Maybe we should hope for less drama in the new year? Is it possible?

I’d like to think so.

As with every year in the world of literature, I personally plan to write and write as many books as I can. I intend to continue writing horror and erotica and maybe some bizarro.

I look forward to exploring new publishing avenues and trying new subgenres of horror. I intend to answer anthology calls with short stories, maybe even start a few calls myself to get aspiring writers out in the world.

Maybe you’ll write a novel, your first full-length factory standard novel (50,000 words or more)?

Maybe you’ll write a collection of short stories all centered around zombies or vampires or werewolves?

Maybe you’ll start a new pen name and tackle options you didn’t have available before because everyone thinks you can only write one subgenre?

However, and I think most people can agree, I think a big new year’s resolution should be to promote, push, market, sell and advocate for new releases that aren’t their own.

I personally intend to spend a majority of my year endorsing other writers, something that I feel that we as a community should do on the regular.

After all, writing is not a competition.

You should not be competing against others in the horror community for the bestseller list or trying to make a name for yourself by bad-mouthing or cutting off others just to sell a couple of ebooks. We are a community.

A community is a group of like-minded people coming together to create something.

The horror community has been ravaged with drama and torn apart the last few years because of trivialities and serious issues alike.

It’s never going to heal if we don’t come together to help each other when we need it the most. And it’s not going to hurt you to push someone else’s book.

In fact, I intend to make use of paid promo services to promote others' books. Yeah, that’s right, I’m going to pay to have someone’s book made available on a newsletter for a day. I might do this once a week or more than that. I intend to see others achieve the same kind of fame and success that I’ve discovered.

I think a strong new year’s resolution for me is to return to enjoying the writing process. I spent too much of last year trying to crank out books for deadlines and scraping my brain for ideas; this year, I’m going to enjoy the situations, write out the books I want to read and give the public something worthwhile.

So it’s my opinion that we all focus on helping each other and writing our own books while simultaneously spending less time on drama, what’s new in the gossip world, and trying to belittle each other in hopes of securing a few page reads.

After all, we’re in this together, we’re all here for the same purpose that we’ve found in ourselves. We want to tell a story. We want to give readers something to enjoy. I see it in a lot of newbies and first-time writers, they want their story to be read, so why not give them that extra push that a lot of us got when we first started?

You don’t need to give up on writing your own best story, kindness costs nothing and lasts forever if done right. Focus on writing, concentrate on bringing out your best and learn to help others along the way; it’s really all that simple.

And I’m not simply saying this to the people out there that have been in the community for a year or three; I’m also saying this to the big names, the successful writers who’ve been at this for years and years, the people who everyone knows.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO COME TOGETHER.

So, what’ll it be?

What’s your new year’s resolution?

ABOUT JERRY:

Jerry Blaze is an award-winning author of Horror and Bizarro fiction.

After achieving success in the erotic market, Jerry decided to undertake Extreme Horror/Splatterpunk/Bizarro fiction writing and released several books. Some of his books have been bestsellers on Amazon. He has been awarded the 2025 Golden Wizard Book Prize and the Literary Titan award.

Jerry is a fan of Grindhouse and exploitation films from the 70s and 80s, often modeling his work on them. He currently lives in the American Midwest, but travels often to get inspiration or to run away from angry mobs.