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mistressofmuses) wrote2025-01-06 03:21 pm
Writing Goals/Calendar: January 2025
(Last night I got as far as titling this post and pulling up last month's to compare... and then I fell asleep. Then I woke up to take the dogs out, and instead of having gotten a second wind, I just went back to sleep.)
2024 wasn't great for writing, but it wasn't awful either. I ultimately did write over 120k words, but wound up with very little to actually show for that. Mostly, I think it felt... inconsistent.
January - March were basically a wasteland. (Partially understandable; I participated in NaMoPaiMo for February, and most of my free creative time went to painting the model. I also got really sick for a while.) It was also partially a case of writer's block though, a bout I'd been struggling with for a good chunk of 2023, too.
April I devoted to edits of a friend's project, which had gotten extremely far behind. I hoped (and I think was correct) that guilt over being so behind on that was contributing to the block on my own stuff.
May I finally finished a set of fics that had been lingering uncompleted since August of 2023.
After that, I'd hoped to put my energy and attention toward cataloguing my various fanfic and original ideas, gauging interest and maybe starting to outline some of them. This... took me a lot longer than I wish it had, stretching from June through September. In October I finally started on some of the outlining stuff, if still slowly.
November I finally returned to really writing, participating in the NaNo alternative "Novella November," which had a 30k word goal. I ended up scrapping my original project and pivoting to a different one, but I did manage the 30k (though split between the two projects.)
The goals I'd set were:
- Finish the rough draft of the iddy romance project I'd started working on in mid-November
- If finishing the story felt unrealistic, aim for at least 15k words
- Figure out and set my goals for 2025 for both
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getyourwordsout and inkingitout - Parallel to the writing: get more reading done, even if it meant less writing
- Maybe try to outline the holiday rom-com fic idea
And how did it go?
- Well... I did not get 15k words (not even close), much less finish the rough draft.
- I did set my 2025 goals at 75k again. I'd waffled between 75k and bumping up to 150k. I finished the year at a bit over 120k, so while I surpassed my original goal, I wasn't hitting the next with ease, either. However, when looking back to the beginning of 2024, I remembered that part of why I'd aimed for 75k (despite hitting over 150k in 2023) was that I wanted to balance my "hobby/free" time better. I want to read more, I want to stay socially connected, I want to do more outside of the house when the opportunity presents itself, and that only leaves so much writing time. I'd forgotten that was part of why I'd chosen that, but it swayed me toward doing the same for this year.
- While I didn't do as much writing as I'd hoped to, I did get more reading done than I'd expected! It even pushed me over the 20 book goal that I'd had for the year, and I finished out having finished 21 books, with two in progress.
- I also did actually start to outline the holiday rom-com! I decided I'll probably skip the "com" part, and just go for romance, with any comedic elements showing up just if they do so naturally. (I don't typically enjoy comedy? There are definitely exceptions, but I like incidentally funny things more than I like things that feel like they're trying really hard to be funny most of the time.)
My goals for January:
- Get back to working on the iddy romance. I really would like to get the first draft completed.
- Finish outlining the holiday fic. It's mostly there, but I'd like to get all the various thoughts down for it before I forget them, since it may be a while before I really sit down to write it.
- Edit the next chapter of my friend's book.
Goals for February and beyond:
This is more of a list of the things I'd like to get to fairly soon, rather than an idea of what order that will happen in, but hopefully I'll be able to turn it into a coherent plan eventually.
- outline Cyberpunk AU (since I have a cyberpunk book on my TBR, I may try reading that first to get me at least a little in the right mood for it.)
- start on the outline for the Worldhopping Fairytale Monstrosity. I think I want to try the more involved "snowflake" outlining method for it, because it is likely to get quite long, and I want to make sure I'm keeping track of everything I need to.
- outline the second (more fantasy-ish) iddy romance
- start writing the Cyberpunk AU
- figure out how to break up the Worldhopping Fairytale Monstrosity, and start on writing the first chunk of it
- write the second draft of the current iddy romance
I still want to figure out a fairly reasonable pace to kind of... "stair-step" the outlining/drafting/rewriting process for multiple things. Working on only a single project all the way from outlining it through a rewrite has been my preference for a while, but it has some drawbacks.
The biggest drawback for me is just how LONG that process can be for some things, so all through the outlining and writing process I've got nothing even nearing completion, much less anything that's shareable. (Now, if I actually start sometimes focusing on original works, it's possible that sharing them still won't enter into the picture, but if I can do some parallel work on original and fanfic stuff, that might mitigate the bummer of completing works that no one else will see.)
The other drawback is that if I start feeling really unmotivated for a project, or am struggling to get over some hurdle, I don't have anything else to pivot to. When I can't bring myself to work on The One Project, then the writing grinds to a halt completely. If I have a few different things at different levels of completion, then (ideally) I'll be able to switch to something else rather than stopping entirely.
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You know I'll be curious to hear what you think about the snowflake as you use it for a longer project haha :D Good luck with all your goals and projects!
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Yeah! I have high hopes for the snowflake method. It's seemed too involved/intimidating for some of the shorter projects I've had, but I really think it'll be useful to keep track of things for a longer project. Especially if it's something that I will plan on working on sort of on and off between other things. It seemed to work well for the projects you used it for!
Thank you!
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I think brain breaks is also a good benefit to switching between things, or at least I hope so. Sometimes you just need space from a thing.
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Writing really is such a hard hobby to balance w/other hobbies, for some reason, maybe the barrier to entry being lower, don't have to put on outside pants or be social if you don't want to, etc. Good luck in your goals this year! They sound really well thought out!
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Ugh! So true! I have a hard time finding the right amount of time and energy to devote to writing. I can do quite a bit when I make it my focus... but then I get almost nothing else done. (Like you said... not having to put on outside pants or brush my hair or deal with people is a big draw at times!) If I try to put energy toward other things, suddenly writing is always the thing that I "just don't get to."
But thank you! Hopefully the year goes well. Or at least well enough despite *vague gestures.*