New Year, Blank Slate

‘Tis the season for setting goals and planning a whole year out in advance. That never turns out well, so this year my goals are much more simple:

Commit to nothing.

Let me explain.

I am awful with deadlines and even more awful at willing myself to work on something I’m not in the mood to work on. My job description at work has shifted some over the last six months and I have an industry test I’ve been procrastinating at. It needs to get done. I can’t have an exciting writing project and tedious study material in my head at the same time. The studying will never happen.

It’s also hard to pinpoint where I want to be as the year speeds along, so this year I’m setting quarterly goals because they’re more vague and easier to hit.

First Quarter (Jan/Feb/Mar)

Since work will be using most of my mental bandwidth, I want to get a good backlog of blog posts written, more of my worlds populated into WorldAnvil, get a little more comfortable with social media, and maybe start working on < Top Secret Project >.

Second Quarter (Apr/May/Jun)

There’s a writing challenge I try to participate in during April, so I want to hit the ground running in the second quarter. I’ll make Calliope Summer my focus but as long as I have a completed draft done this year, I’m flexible.

< Top Secret Project > may launch this quarter; it may not.

Third Quarter (Jul/Aug/Sep)

July also has a writing challenge, so I’m hoping by the third quarter that I can focus on drafting my trilogy “Portal Report”.

I’m going to tentatively slap < Author Services Re-Launch > in for this quarter, but I’m not promising anything…

Fourth Quarter (Oct/Nov/Dec)

Depending on how the rest of the year went, I may still be writing Calliope Summer and “Portal Report”. Regardless, I want have WorldAnvil built out and full of awesome trivia, images, maps, histories, timelines, and teasers for future stories set in the Flamesend world.

Competitive Edge

I’m not naturally competitive but this year I do have a number goal I’m striving for.

I’d like to beat last year’s days/percent of year written.

2022 - 103 actual days written @ 28.3% of the year
2023 (goal) - 128 days written @ 35% of the year