Toast yourself with a glass of expensive champagne, sign that contract and then get started on your next project immediately if you haven't already. A good rule of thumb for unpublished writers is to keep one to two projects ahead of your submissions. For a published author, keep one to two projects ahead of your contracts. It would bother me a lot to start a new year with no definite plans, let alone contracts. I generally finish my projects on contract about six months into the year, then the rest of the year is spent writing books I'll submit, hopefully for release the next year.
Momentum is one of the most important things an author has to advance their careers.
Don't sabotage yours by not having specific goals to keep it rolling. If you only remember one thing about this column, that's the line to memorize. Fear not, help is here. In this step, I'm going to suggest ways for you to set goals in order to improve your productivity. Your yearly goals should challenge you, make you work a little harder than you think you can and they should, above all, be flexible.