Good Morning, 2020! (feat. my super awesome mega goals for the new year!)

good morning, cyberspace!

Last week we talked about all of the things that happened in 2019. This week, seeing as though it’s the bright, shiny new start to a brand new year (and also a brand new DECADE, but let’s just ignore that horrible thought for a moment), we’re going to be talking all about my super awesome mega plans for 2020! And, though I don’t want to give away too many spoilers for what’s to unfold in this post, I will say that some of these plans may or may not include taking the next step in my publishing journey. So. There’s that.

*eternal screaming*

Let’s dive right in, shall we?

(also I would like to briefly mention that Yours Truly decided to wake up with a COLD on the first day of the New Year, so I’m not exactly sure how well that bodes for this new decade of the roaring twenties. [and also I’ve technically been sick all year. it’s great.])

WRITING

First thing’s first–and, as I’m sure we can all agree–most importantly of all, we have my writing goals for 2020! In the past I’ve always stacked WAAAAAAY too many things onto my writerly plate, which–if you review last week’s post–you can see never seems to go too well. (although I did complete the majority of writing goals, so!!!! perhaps I am not a super mega failure at life, after all. *pats self on back nicely*) But this year I’m going to try and actually make my goals somewhat achievable, so hopefully when I look back at this list in December, I will be able to check each and every one of these things off with a big fat SUCCESS.

This, of course, remains to be seen. Let us sally onwards.

GOAL NUMBER ONE . . . FINISH THE FIRST DRAFT OF SK

Goodness, I would be SO happy if this were to happen this year!!! I haven’t finished a first draft since everlost (which was in 2017 for all those wondering), so I’m kinda starting to wonder if that was just a glitch in the system and I’m physically incapable of finishing books. SO. Finishing the first draft of SK is like my ULTIMATE ultimate goal for 2020. Anything extra is just icing on the cake.

GOAL NUMBER TWO . . . RE-OUTLINE AND BEGIN DRAFTING THE GIRL AND THE GOBLIN KING

Okay, so I lied. Finishing the first draft of SK is definitely my first major goal for the year, but after that . . . I’d really like to start drafting The Girl and The Goblin King again. I have some zero draft material to play with from 2018’s NaNoWriMo, but I’ve finally come to the conclusion that 2018 was NOT the year to start drafting that book, which means I definitely need to go back to the drawing board and re-plot a few things. If I don’t get any of this story written this year, that’s perfectly fine, but I’d still like to at least have a halfway decent outline drawn up by the end of the year.

GOAL NUMBER THREE . . . BEGIN QUERYING EVERLOST

And this, my friends, is when we start screaming for the rest of eternity. If I can finish the first draft of SK and tinker with the plot of The Girl and The Goblin King to an extent I’m pleased with, then my reward for all of that is querying everlost.

Now, there are definitely some things which need to be done BEFORE I can send this manuscript out–such as beta reader rounds and reading the entire thing through myself–but as far as the structure of the plot goes . . . I feel like this story is pretty sound. So I’m really super excited to potentially get this story off the ground this year. I mean, I know the publishing industry is long and unending and I’ll probably die before this book hits the shelves, but maybe this will be the year when I finally take that first step into the great unknown!

(or maybe this will be the year where I foolishly jump off the cliff of my dreams and die, but psh. we’ll remain optimistic until further notice.)

THE PLAN

Unlike year’s past, when I just threw my wishes out into the blogosphere and hoped the gnome kings would bless me with productivity, this year I’m actually taking matters into my own hands. For I–the great and powerful Kenzie–have made a plan.

A plan which we will fondly refer to as the Four Month Fandangle Fantastic.

(^^ chances are this will never again be written on this blog, so go ahead and take a good long gander at those words while you can.)

Basically, I have chopped the coming year up into three blocks of four months: block one will be solely dedicated to writing and completing the first draft of SK. Block two will be for outlining and rewriting the first draft of The Girl and The Goblin King. And block three will–you guessed it–go towards querying my smol trash gremlin, everlost.

*inhales deeply* I know. It sounds like a lot. BUT. I know from personal experience that if I DON’T put these goals in place–no matter how inflated they may seem in the moment–I won’t be getting anything done productively this year. Blocking my life out minute by minute never goes well, but maybe having monthly goals will come a little more naturally for me? We’ll have to see.

(I’ve also decided that life will never slow down to the normal consistency that I had before starting my job, so I’m calmly preparing myself for many late nights, early mornings, and messy drafts. This year is gonna be FUN, folks.)

READING

So I have a post coming out someday soon which will further detail some of my reading plans for this year, but currently I have a very smol, hopefully achievable goal:

In 2020, I would like to read 20 books.

This boils down to the fact that in 2019, I read a grand total of 19 books, which was not planned at ALL, and which I have now taken upon myself to continue forth with forever onwards.

Whether or not I’ll actually hit twenty books this year remains to be seen–seeing as though that was my goal for last year, and I . . . totally failed it . . . but y’know. It’ll be what it is.

CREATIVITY IN OTHER OUTLETS

Aside from writing all of the things and reading all of the things and having all of the panic attacks because I do absolutely none of it, another thing I’d really love to do this year is just . . . slow down? Which seems completely contradictory to everything I’ve just said I want to do above, but allow me to explain.

2019 went by wickedly fast. I feel like just yesterday I was sitting here, tapping away at this laptop and talking about all of the wonderful things I wanted to do in the year to come, and now it’s over. Did I do the things I wanted to do? Yes and no. (you can read about my failures and successes here) But I want 2020 to be the year I finally slow down and enjoy the little moments–whatever those little moments may be.

Life is messy. Writing is messy. My room is messy. Creativity is messy. And this year I want to embrace the mess. I want to release perfectionism and cling to the fact that no matter what happens, God is in control of my life and it’s going to be okay. I want to create wildly, live loudly, and search for the little adventures in everyday life. I want to say yes to the things that scare me, no to the things I have no interest in, and overall just enjoy the days I’ve been given.

And as far as this blog goes, I’ll be perfectly honest, folks–I really have no direction for posts at the moment. I’ve had countless moments where I just don’t know what to write, and quite frankly, sometimes I feel like I’m running out of content. Sometimes I think to myself . . . do I still want to do this? And of course the answer to that is a yes, but sometimes it’s difficult to draft a blog post when you have no idea what to write about. So for right now, I’m going to shoot for a weekly post as usual (or, what WAS usual at one time. XD), but as to what those posts are going to be. . .? I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.

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TALK TO ME, PEASANTS!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, FOLKS!!! I can’t believe it’s already 2020. I’m simultaneously excited and terrified, and I cannot WAIT to see what this new year holds!!!

But now that I’m “officially back” hopefully, I want to hear about all of the beautiful adventures you guys have been on while I’ve been gone! What were your happiest achievements of 2019? Any goals (however lofty they may seem) for the new year? What’s one writing or bookish thing you’d like to do in 2020? And, obviously, most importantly of all. . .

ARE YOU LISTENING TO AN UNHEALTHY AMOUNT OF 20’S MUSIC????

Because clearly this is the only way to celebrate the birth of the new 20’s, amiright? XD (says the girl who has not listened to a single 20’s song. . .)

As always, let’s talk about ALL OF THE THINGS! down in the comments below. And until next time. . .

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P.S. Thank you so so so SO much to all you lovely people who have been commenting on my posts! I swear I’m reading them all, and I cannot possibly thank you for each and every note of encouragement and support and love you guys have been posting. I’m starting to (slowly but surely) go through and respond to them all, so thank you so much for your patience in that regard and just your overall wonderfulness. You guys are the reason I’m still blogging. <333

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