2022 Recap and 2023 Goals

Me at the Rock of Dunamase near Portlaoise, Ireland

With our wedding over and no change in housing, 2022 should have been a relaxing year compared to the prior two. Yet somehow, 2022 was one of my busiest years yet. I attribute most of this to an increasingly demanding day job. I love my job, but at times it is definitely exhausting. I took nearly three weeks off work this summer to travel Ireland and Scotland. While I've been to Scotland before, this trip was life-changing in that it highlighted for me just how untenable my work schedule had become. Since August I've also been dealing with an as-yet-undiagnosed stomach issue that's added another layer of fun to my life. 

This year I set a goal to read 12 non-fiction books during the year. In the end I read 13: five writing craft books (of which Sin and Syntax was my favorite), four books to research world-building for The Seaming, and three books related to work. In total I read 104 books this year (including one beta-read book). Of my total reading,  50 percent were romance, 30 percent were fantasy or science fiction, 12 percent were non-fiction, and 8 percent were thrillers. I didn't read any general lit this year that couldn't also be classified by genre (not counting one book of poetry). 

2022 Writing goals: 

1. 👎 Three zero-drafts (February, June, September). I wrote one new draft this year in September. As I learn more about writing, I'm learning what I need to know in order to write a complete draft, and have found that I can't sit and pound out a draft without knowing enough the way that I've been able to in the past. I'm not disappointed with my failure to hit this goal though, as I am really happy with the single first draft I produced. 
2. 👍 Get one draft in good enough shape to share with beta readers. I hit this goal! I shared draft 3 of The Seaming with three beta readers in June. 
3. 👎 Once a month, write a craft-book prompt away from home. I didn't do this at all during the year. However, I did two other things that I think hit the heart of this goal if not the letter. First, in April I put all my craft book prompts into a randomizer and every day for a month I wrote whatever the randomizer told me to do. Some days were misses, but other days I wrote something that I loved. Second, I've been participating in my local writing community by writing at The Shed, which gets me out of the house and writing somewhere new. 

Outlining version 5 of The Seaming

Despite failing two of my three writing goals, I actually did a lot of writing in 2022. I wrote four complete drafts of The Seaming (representing 256,250 words across the four drafts), wrote 20,000 words of short stories, three of which I submitted across twenty different magazines. I attended one writing conference where I made a ton of new writing friends, three of whom I met in person while traveling over the summer. I wrote a 27,000 word first draft of Dandelions in September (which I'd carried around in my head for a full year before feeling ready to write). With the most recent draft of The Seaming I won Nano for the first time in several years, including hitting a new personal high of 7,100 words in a day on the final day of the challenge (and nearly burned myself to the ground in the process, but we don't need to talk about that lesson here). Finally, I shared a complete novel with three beta readers, beta read several pieces for other writing friends, and participated in eleven critique group sessions (in which I shared nine pieces of my own). 

With these lessons in mind, here are my 2023 writing goals: 

1. Begin querying The Seaming. I've been working on The Seaming for just over a year, and am really hoping that with one more round of revision it'll be ready to send out. I'm anxious to have something out in the world again. It seems odd to miss the waves of rejection emails from when I queried The Wedding Crown, but I do. 
2. Write, polish, and submit 6 short stories. This year I discovered that I really enjoy writing short stories. Shorts allow me a chance to play with a concept without committing to huge swathes of time, and I find that my voice can really shine through in a shorter medium. I want to lean into the opportunities for learning and practicing that shorts offer. 
3. Draft one zero-draft. Last year I aimed for three new novel-length ideas. This year I want to try for one. 
4. Be a better participant in my writing communities. This year I beta-read one novel-length story and I loved it. I'm always hesitant to volunteer to beta read for anything longer than 10K or so, because I've failed to finish reading in the past and would rather not build a bridge at all than risk burning one. In 2023 I want to take more risks and try to read more for my friends. I'm not quantifying this goal yet as I don't know how many opportunities I'll have to read for others nor how big the projects might be, but I hope that by being more conscious of my place in my communities I'll be more willing to volunteer. 

Here's to a productive and meaningful 2023!

Hiking in Glendalough, Wicklow Mountains, Ireland