January Goals Recap

General goals: 20/36 – WON BY TWO
Creative goals: 6.5/13 – WON WITH NO MARGIN

I barely scraped past the mark this month, but this is also more goals than I’ve ever set before – ten more than my usual average of 26. Because I was on winter break for most of this month, I wanted to be as productive as possible on my creative projects, since I expected to have more time for them. I also started a new job with a wildly unpredictable schedule, so my designated writing time was a lot more scattered. Ironically, I might be more productive during the semester when I know I have an hour each morning to write before classes. I’ve posted the rest of my goals to my studyblr, which is also where I’ll be updating on a day-to-day basis for the new semester! If you’re curious at all about how this fantasy writer is also a chemical engineering student, you can go check that out.

Now the question is, What have I learned from my over ambitious goal-setting in January? Nothing. My February list has 34 goals. Wish me luck!

1. Get my computer fixed – My computer had the problem of dying almost immediately every time I took it off the charging cord, so I bought a replacement battery for it and now it only dies after about 3-4 hours. Still not great, wouldn’t work if I were running around campus, but just fine for moving from my card-table desk to the kitchen table for a change of scenery. Hopefully I won’t have to buy a new one for another year!
   
2. Edit 15k words of Storge – I returned to re-writing in the last two weeks of the month, finishing 3216 words. This let me finish chapter 3, which was the difficult one I put on hold after my grandfather passed away in December. I’m glad to be past it, and happy with how it turned out in the end. I also spent a lot (a lot) of time doing line-edits, starting from the beginning of the book! Using the free version of ProWritingAid for this, which only lets me do 500 words at a time, and I finished ~4600 words this way.
   
3. Beta read for Jana – @siarven‘s Dreams Shadow is fantastic! I really enjoyed reading it and I highly recommend checking out all of Jana’s work.
   
4. Write 5 chapters of Lost and Found Again – I didn’t even touch this story because the muse had other ideas. See below for the other fanfic I did work on!
   
5. Fill in holes on brain dump sticky board for Laoche/figure out end of series– We’re getting there! My best friend helped me figure out several plot holes and the overall structure for the trilogy. Now I need to flesh it out into a proper outline, but I have an important starting place now!
   
6. Schedule writing time so I have a routine for it – My “on call” job meant that planning out a schedule in advance was impossible, but I have a routine scheduled for February. Still doesn’t count as a check-off though.
   
7. Rope my sister into doing photo shoot with books and stuff so I have photos to use for writing IG – She’s been busy with school and this is low priority, but I took my own photos periodically. No check-off for that either.
   
8. Schedule all of January’s posts for website and make Canva posts in advance – all 5 of them went up on time! I’m really proud of some of these! Here’s some links so you can go back to any you might have missed: 2020 Year in Review + 2021 plans, How I Develop Characters, Character Voice in The Chronicles of Prydain, Storge’s First Scene, and an Interview with Katie Koontz on her story Groundhog Day and one of her OC’s Bolte
   
9. Turn IG into free professional account and post 2 times a week  – I don’t understand IG at all but this has been a good WIP of it’s own!
   
10. Read 1 HG wells story from book I got over vacation – These aren’t even that long I just got distracted
11. Read Oathbringer – this is a *really* long book so I didn’t finish it but I made good progress
12. Read Mort – I’m halfway through! If I bothered to focus on any one book I might have actually marked off one of these goals.
    
13. Draw 15 things – I did a lot of character studies this month, trying to figure out the designs for my Laoche cast. This goal is a constant to keep myself working on this skill whenever it’s not Inktober, similar to how my monthly word count goals keep me writing whenever it’s not NaNoWriMo!

Other things I did that weren’t on the list

Normally if something grabs my attention in the first day or two of the month, I’ll change my list to include time for it later. These two did not fit that category, but I spent enough time on them that I wanted to give them an honorable mention.

• Four Hours for Bridge Four – I started a new Stormlight Archive fanfic! It’ll be a short work and I’m really excited about this one, since it’s a collection of six one-shots based off the verses a sea shanty I rewrote to be a work song for the Bridge Four characters. I’ve drafted over 4.5k words of this already and hope to finish posting it in February. I reread half of Way of Kings doing “research” for this fic.
• I also did a read-aloud for my younger siblings of The Book of Three – the first book in The Chronicles of Prydain. It’s a reread for me so it doesn’t count towards any goals, but it was really fun to revisit these characters, do all the voices, (almost lose my voice), and watch their reactions to hearing the story for the first time.

That’s all for today! Are you enjoying these goals updates or would you rather see me do something else? What sort of projects have grabbed your attention and demanded all your time? Tell me about your writing goals in the comments!

If you feel so generously inclined, you can support my writing by leaving me a tip on my Kofi or donating using the secure box below. Until next time, thanks for reading and happy writing!