FIRST UP! For just $5, join me in developing next year’s New Years Resolutions on the first Sunday of 2024! It’s the first event my new company is hosting in the new year, and I’d love for you to join me! Especially because it began as a way to reclaim one of my favorite events back from Seed&Spark to continue doing the work that matters without being hamstrung by a company that doesn’t care about its users despite overwrought public claims to the contrary 🙂
So this year obviously went differently than expected. I was laid off mid year, which obviously forced me to make a lot of changes very quickly. That being said, it was truly the best thing that could have happened to me for a lot of reasons, I’m thrilled to not be connected to that company any longer. While I’ll be facing some new, unique challenges as a result of not having a full time job at the minute, I’m excited for what’s to come.
Complete
- Save $5000.
- Polish and send out 20 literary agent queries.
- Final year count: In fact, I’ve so far sent 88, received 1 maybe, 52 outright rejections, and 23 passive rejections (nonresponsive agents after 2 months get this label). Ah, well.
- Write 2 new scripts.
- I also won NaNoWriMo for the 4th time, and wrote half of another book I’m genuinely really excited about if I can ever finish a first draft. It was a good writing year, if not specifically for scripts.
- Revise all 3 books I wrote last year.
- They weren’t FULLY revised, but I polished book 3, really polished book 1, and have a solid plan for rewriting book 2 which is more than I had at the start of the year!
- Continue to cultivate a social life that isn’t completely professional.
- I love my friends, I love seeing them and talking to them, and it’s been lovely (especially since post-layoff) to have time to spend on non-career hangouts.
- Focus on building a life I love regardless of career.
- This will always been in progress, but I really feel like I did a good job this year. I went on little day trips, made plans with friends that went beyond a meal or a coffee, went to more movies with my husband, spent time with my mom and brother, and just generally had a fulfilling year outside of my constant career anxiety.
- Secret resolution: hit 100 subscribers on my weekly romance novel newsletter
Failed
- Visit 5 National Parks. Whoops, between layoff and my mom’s hip surgery, we didn’t do a lot of traveling. Our priorities shifted for the year, alas.
- Introduce physical activity into my weekly routine. Just wait til next year. I’m sure it’ll be the first time in 15 years this will totally happen, for sure.
- Finish my list of movies and shows people have recommended to me. Um. Well, I saw like 500% more movies since I joined the AMC A-List, which helped somewhat, but I read over 430 books this year and that was really all I had time for, media-wise. But the list exists! I will get through it eventually!
- Re-integrate non-reading hobbies back into my weekly routine. Weekly routine, nope, but I did do some embroidery and played Starfield and did a bit of art/crafting, and altogether I had a good year so while this might be a technical failure of specific terms
I had a surprisingly good year, overall. There are things I want to work on next year for sure (join my workshop!!) because every year I want to do better and feel better, and it’ll be an uphill battle to ensure my finances stay solid, but I’m confident, I’m genuinely happy, and I’m so blessed to have the people in my life that I do. Life could be better, but it could be (and has been) much much worse. Bring it on, 2024.
