Getting Started in a New Year...Goals, Motivation and My Conflict

I probably should have posted this blog earlier in the week...like Monday...but I wanted to talk movies on Monday and it's my blog. :)
Recap form Movie Monday? Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber in Defiance. Recommended and drool worthy...yum. :)

Okay - Back to business.
I'm a firm believer in goals. This is not a secret with anyone who knows me well.
I have my 2009 goals framed and in front of me on my desk. As I complete each one, I mentally check them off with great satisfaction and accomplishment.
A standard goal each year for me is to improve or beat my last year's total word count. As a goal I think it's worthy, but difficult to achieve.

I'm one of those writers who keeps daily track of my word count. I put it in a spreadsheet. It makes me happy. :)

Why then does it seem to be so difficult to get started in the new year?
Does anyone else have this issue?
I have goals. I should be motivated. My conflict?...January is almost always my worst month for total word counts.
So far in 2009 I've written just over 14,000 words which actually is better than last year.
In 2008 by the end of January I'd completed 12,565 words. In 2007, a pitiful 6,298.

Now by the end of 2007 I'd written almost 300,000 words.
In 2008...245,672
My goal for 2009 is to beat 2008. Which was also one of my goals for 2008. Sigh.

I had 8 releases in 2008.
It wasn't a goal for last year, but it makes me feel good saying it. :)

January - The Mercenary's Wife
March - Kissed By Fate in the duet with Emma Wildes called The Sins of Their Fathers
March - Rapture Volume One: an anthology with my entry of The Prosecutor's Paramour
June - Menagerie
October - Mr. Right
November - The Perfect Tool
December - Sex Or Suffer
December - The Mistletoe Mistake

So can I do 9 in 2009? I'm not sure.
That would be really pushing it, and much of it is out of my control, but you never know. Could I write 9 books in a year? Sigh. My fingers ache at the thought. ;)
I'll give it a whirl though.
L