Happy New Year’s Eve! It’s the evening before the beginning of 2025. How was your 2024? Did you achieve some or all of your goals? If not, that’s okay. I started some things just to see if I could do them, without the aim of becoming an expert. I started things to see if they’d actually have some sort of effect on my life. Planning is not my strong suit, but I’ve put my nose to the grindstone this year to try to get things done. I’ve tried to at least plan my grocery trips to get the things I’ll need for a couple weeks’ worth of dinners. There are very few instances of running out for an important ingredient before I can start preparing the meal. Planning specific meals on specific days doesn’t always go the way I planned – except for Tuesday night Pizza Night. That’s a mainstay of our week, no matter what else may be on the menu.
I also made plans and executed them to take my debut novel further than it’s ever been. Keep a lookout for it in Q1 of 2025! I’ve tried to dive into the outline and first draft of the next book, and I’m still pushing myself on that. There may be a third book in the works that wants to take over.
What other plans do I have for 2025? Of course carrying on with meal planning and writing, but there are some other plans I’ve made, too. I don’t like the word “resolution.” It always seems like something that has to be done or else the day or week or other time constraint is a failure. The “fresh start” course I took with one of my writing groups before the dawn of 2024 was amazing for my motivation. It went very in-depth about planning out goals for the year, breaking them up into manageable chunks all the way down to daily tasks. Some plans that will change what you all are seeing here:
– A goal of blogging once a week. New blogs will be released every Tuesday. I’ll have some special blogs for holidays or other occasions, too, to celebrate things big and small. Success! My schedule forced me to move blog releases to Wednesday, and on the special holidays, but it gets done. Also, I’m working smarter, not harder. While a blog pops up every Wednesday, the blog that shows up in the middle of the month was likely written at the beginning of the month. I brainstorm ideas, write them, and then schedule a release date. It relieves the stress of doing it every week, and frees me up for other things, like finishing my novel and moving on to a new one.
– A renewed dedication to my short story writing. You all may have noticed I’d started some paranormal short stories on Kindle Vella. I’ll be continuing with these, and I’ll be posting when new episodes are released. I worked on this for quite a while. Until Kindle decided to change things. Short-short stories like the ones I was publishing, were no longer being monetized. My stories were an average of six episodes, sometimes a little more. Unfortunately, Kindle wasn’t monetizing anything past the first ten episodes rather than the first three. They had their reasons, but it was no longer worth my time.
Some plans will allow me to reach for my dreams more than ever before:
– A renewed dedication to my novel. When it’s not my full time job, it’s not something that gets prioritized. This class has shown me how to make sure my writing gets the attention it deserves while also being able to accomplish the many other things I need to accomplish. The renewed dedication has paid off. While some of the goalpost deadlines had to be moved for various reasons, my debut novel will be ready for publication in early 2025.
What are some of your goal – not resolutions – for 2025?
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