January is the start of a new year, and that means new goals! I’m really looking forward to this year and how much I’m going to get done. This is going to be the year I query literary agents, and the year I self-publish Coup d’État.

Starting off, I made this cute graphic to summarize my goals for the year. Let’s break them down.

Writing

• Query Serenity: This I’ll be doing in February or March, after I finish reading Ascendant and Fourth Wing since they’re my comps for my query letter.
• Edit Coup d’État: My goal is to have this done by March. Stretch goal: by February.
• Edit Sandalwood: This will be the final edits for Sandalwood before I pass it on to beta readers. I’m hoping to do most of this in April during Spring Camp NaNoWriMo.
• Write 120k words: To get 120k words this year, I’ll need 30k each quarter, or 10k each month. It doesn’t matter what project(s) these words go into.

Reading

• Read 12 book: This is my overall goal. All other reading goals align with this one.
• Complete The Writing Cartel’s 2024 Storygraph Reading Challenge:
  • January: Read a book you wish you could reread for the first time 
  • February: Read a book by a Black author
  • March: Read a book that was adapted into a Barbie movie
  • April: Read a book with a title based on a song
  • May: Read a book that contains your favorite animal
  • June: Read a queer book
  • July: Read a book written by a Cartel member
  • August: Read a book with a romance in it
  • September: Read a YA book
  • October: Read a book with a dark story/theme
  • November: Read the first book in a series
  • December: Read a holiday book
• Finish reading Ascendant: I’m 71% through this one, so I’ll be done in a few days.
• Read Fourth Wing: This is my other comp title, so I’m excited to get through it.

Social Media

• Reply to 3 Tweets every day: This is for engagement purposes. I need to get back into the Twitter writerverse.
• Write a Tweet every day: This is to keep my account active and have somewhere to put my writing progress.
• Write a blog post every week: I’ll be posting on Sundays.

Life

• Clean every weekday: I’ve really let things go and need to get back into a habit of cleaning, even if it’s small things.
• Do Finch every day: Finch helped me a lot with accountability as well as self-awareness the last couple years. Plus it’s cute.
• Go for a walk every day: I’m getting older and need to exercise more for my health.

2024 is going to be a busy, but productive, year. Every quarter, I’ll break down my goals and what I’ve done for the sake of accountability.