I always find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that we’ve reached the start of a new year. I’m still in that stage where I’m writing last year’s date and talking about 2020 as ‘next year’. At the same time, it’s so exciting to think that a whole year of writing, books, and words lie ahead. Of course, the start of a new year means that it’s time to start making plans for the month ahead. I’ve never really been one for New Year’s resolutions. But, what I do like to do at the start of every new year to is set myself some writing and reading goals to give myself a bit of direction. Today I thought I’d share some of my bookish goals for 2020.
Write at least a million words on 4thewords
I’ve been using the writing website 4thewords for over 2 years now, and in that time I’ve written close to 3 million words on that site alone. I use it for everything, from novels, to blog posts, and even my journal. It’s an amazing website that combines writing with a role playing game. There’s something so addictive about crushing monsters, turning in side quests, and exploring the game world while at the same time putting new words into projects I care about. It brings me back every single day, helping me build my writing habits, and make progress on my books. This year I plan on adding at least another million words to my total across everything I write. It should be a nice challenge, and hopefully achievable at the same time.
Write 2 new books
I have a backlist of books that I plan to write one day, which is as long as my arm. It used to be that I would just smash these ideas all out at once over the course of the year. There was one year where I went crazy and wrote at least 12 new books. It was amazing, spilling all that raw creativity onto the page, and watching these story ideas taking shaping. However, it’s not so great for getting editing done, and now that I’m actually publishing books I’m trying to be a lot more intentional with what I work on during the year, which mostly involves editing books I’ve already written. But I do love writing new novels, and it makes a lovely break from the editing cave. So I’m planning on writing two new books this year, probably during November, so that I get the chance to play around with some new ideas as well.
Publish at least one book
With two books already out in the world, those being my fantasy duology The Crystal Tree and The Shattering Song, I feel like this is definitely an achievable goal. I have one book, the start of a brand new series, which is already close to being done. As well as that, I do have a book set in the same universe as my duology, though not part of the same series, that I’m hoping to put some serious work into this year, so I’m pretty much convinced that one of these books will be published later in 2020.
Actually use some of my nice notebooks
I know I’m not the only person with a stash of nice notebooks. They’re one of my favourite presents to receive. And I do genuinely mean to use them all when I get them. Unfortunately, my good intentions haven’t got any further than that, and I have a stack of beautiful notebooks that are as blank as the day they were made. This year, I aim to actually use some of these books for the purpose they were designed for. They’re so pretty though, I often feel like I need to find something worthy of putting in them. Or at least improving my handwriting before I mess them up..
Read at least 52 books
In the past, I haven’t really set myself any reading goals. Which is probably why my reading habit slowly died a terrible death. But last year I did set one, and I ended up reading more than I had in a long time. So this year I’m setting myself another reading goal in the hopes of reading even more than last year. I’m starting conservatively and setting my goal at 52 books, which evens out to a nice one book a weeks, which I feel like I could probably manage. I’ll probably attempt to track this on Goodreads, but as I’m not great at updating that all the time, we’ll see how that goes, haha.
Win NaNoWriMo
I’m a bit of a NaNoWriMo junky, so of course I’m already thinking about NaNoWriMo, even though that’s all the way in November, and we’re just at the beginning of January. I may or may not already be planning which books I’m going to write for it as well, so that might suggest how important this is to me, haha. This will be my tenth NaNoWriMo, and I am fully intending to turn it into a tenth win. Can’t break the streak now!
Win both Camp NaNoWriMo sessions
As well as participating in NaNoWriMo, of course I can’t pass up the chance to participate in both sessions of Camp NaNoWriMo. I usually use these to give me a bit of motivation with my editing, rather than drafting new books in that time. They’re one of my favourite ways to give myself a motivational boost when I’m deep in the editing cave, which I appear to be in 11 months out of 12. Anything that can shake up my usual routine and inject a bit of extra excitement and fun into my writing is always welcome. So of course Camp NaNoWriMo, both sessions, are a huge part of my 202 writing plans.
These are a few of my bookish goals for this new year. But I’d love to hear from you. What are some of your goals for this year? Do you have any advice for what getting over my fear of using my nice notebooks? How many books do you aim to read this year?
Happy new year to you Imogen. It does feel exciting having a whole year ahead of you. I want to read 40 books this year and write one hundred fifty thousand words, I figure a good bit of that will be by hand. I do know the feeling of not wanting to use pretty journals, my best tip is just do it.
Happy new year Asheton! I love your goals for this year. Good luck with them!