So with the end of the year coming up, (how did that happen) I want to look back at the year and see what I did well and what I’d like to improve on for next year.
RECAP GOOOOOO
In terms of reading I’m finally much closer to where I’d like to be. I fell down a lot near the end of the year, but I still met my Goodreads goal of at least 50 books, and I’m still working on adding a couple more before December is over. I’d like to match that at least next year, and I’d really like to shoot for more. I was, at least at one point, a fast reader. I know that I can do better than roughly a book a week. Hopefully that will also help me really cement my desire for an established reading time during the day. It’s hard when my schedule changes as dramatically as mine does from day to day, but I need to find a way. I can’t let myself get dragged back into the complacency of the past few years. It’s a very bad place for a writer to be.
In that regard, I want to be much more intentional about writing for submission this upcoming year. I wrote something for a submission earlier this year, and managed to miss the submission deadline entirely. (In my defense, that was around November, and my whole life fell apart around then, so that wasn’t the only thing to be lost.) I find a lot of ideas, and then never write any of them. If I want to keep growing my portfolio as it were, I need to keep writing and keep submitting. Now, of course, in addition to that, I also want to finally finished work on my novel in 2017. It’ll be 8 years since its inception at that point, and honestly, that’s enough. I know what edits need to be done, I’m pretty sure I know how to do them..all I need now is to just put my button in the chair and do it. So that’s a definite goal for next year.
I’ve been pretty good about posting blogs and videos this year, too–with the exception of November–so I’m hoping to keep that up as well. I enjoy writing this content and making the videos, and I hope you all like reading/watching them as well! It’s a fun way for me to stay in contact with you all, and for you to keep tabs on what I’m doing with my time. (As boring as my life may be sometimes!)
I’d like to find another video to make in my schedule that’s a little more flexible, just to let me be a little more candid and whatnot in a video setting. I don’t know what I’d talk about–I don’t know that I’d necessarily have to talk about the same thing every week–but it seems unfortunate that I don’t have more of a chance to really reach out to my audience (such that it is) and talk to y’all more. So maybe I can just have a day where I talk to y’all about whatever’s happening in my world. It’s in theory part of what the Friday blog post is meant to be, though it’s not always been that. I do like sharing pieces of my writing with you, and with me trying to be more intentional about writing, that’s helping me make sure that I have content for you. (4thewords helps a lot with this; thanks awesome website for being awesome) So we’ll see what I can come up with for 2017.
All in all, what I really want is for 2017 to be a better year than 2016. In so many ways, 2016 has been a huge trash fire. If I make the commitment now to be better, I can at least do my very best to ensure that we’ll be in a better place when the next year comes around.
I’m going to try and make you proud, my lovely literary luminaries. I hope I come close to succeeding.
I am not lost... 