I CANNOT believe that it’s 2020…

Time literally sprints past me without a thought, leaving me stunned and dizzy. So much happened in 2019. Some things I want to remember, like graduating form high school. And, uh, there are some things I don’t want to remember…

Going into a new year is always thrilling for me. New plans, new possibilities, new goals.

Speaking of goals, let’s take a look to see how I did on my goals for this year…

My 2019 goals…

• Eat healthier. I think I did better in this area, but there’s still room for improvement.
• Exercise more. Definitely can check this one off! I’ve been working out about 5 days a week, and I’m loving it.
• Read more books. Yes, siree! I raised my Goodreads goal to 40 and went way past!
• Redesign this blog. Check.
• Begin my monthly newsletter. This one took a while to start, but yes, I started my monthly newsletter.
• Begin some sort of photography business??? This one didn’t happen. I just found that with the combination of writing and learning horse training, I didn’t have time for this venture. I’m not sure if I still want to do this or not: I’m more passionate about writing and horses right now.
• Finish Danni’s Dilemma. Did not do this. I think I would have…but long story short, my laptop was stolen during the summer with the document on it. No, I did not save my work to the right place. My fault. I may try to rewrite this one some day…
• Keep track of all words written. Ugh, I wish I’d kept up with this one! I started for a few months, then dropped off. 
• Practice guitar and ukulele more. I did pretty well with this, but more so earlier in the year. 
• Get more in-tune with God, strive to be more Christ-like, and put more of my focus on Him. I feel like I’m being more active in spending more time with God (Bible time and prayer), and I feel like He’s changing me for the better because of it. But, there’s ALWAYS room for improvement in this area, so I’m just gonna keep a-going. 🙂

My goals for 2020…

• Pursue learning about the writing craft more.
• Finish the first draft, and completely edit Embers (including professional edit). Yeah…that’s a lot.
• Write the outline for the sequel to Embers. And at least start writing it. Yes! There is a sequel! 😀
• Start writing the first draft of Skyrider. So excited for this one!
• Finish Pinoko (sci-fi retelling of Pinocchio) as an email list incentive for subscribers 
• Write some flash fiction and/or short stories to submit to places (like Havok Magazine)
• Write and submit some articles to websites and blogs
• Make a publishing/marketing timeline for 2021. God-willing, I plan on publishing Embers next year. 🙂
• Start using Facebook maybe? We’ll see about this one…
• Keep learning how to prioritize and manage my time better. This is something I can struggle with, and I’m improving, but I’m trying to do this better.
• Run a giveaway on this blog and/or Instagram. Got any book suggestions you’d want me to give away?

This is not all of them (more goals will hit me later). But it’s quite a full list, so let’s just leave it at that, okay? 😉

The Writer to Author blog series

By the way, tomorrow starts the first day of the Writer to Author blog series, a series about treating writing like a business and building your platform BEFORE you get a book published. This series is only accessible with a special password for email subscribers (NOT WordPress followers, unfortunately), so if you’re not on the list THEN CLICK HERE TO JOIN AND GET THE PASSWORD! 

I hope you all have a blessed 2020! I’m so excited about this new year! Thank you all for your support on this blog, I can’t wait to see how this community grows in 2020! 😀 <3

What are you most excited about going into 2020? What are some of your goals this year?