It’s that time of year again. The time where I hold myself accountable by telling the world exactly how far along I am with my 2020 Resolutions.
Last year, for 2019, I was amazing enough to complete every single one of my resolutions. I think I was also more than halfway done with them when I did my mid-year post about them. But, to be fair, 2019 didn’t have the coronavirus to deal with. Or any of the other stuff that I’ve been dealing with this year.
Am I making excuses? Maybe. Are these excuses valid? I think so. But anyway, enough excuses and I’ll get to actually talking about my resolutions and how they’re going.
My first resolution this year was to finish writing the novel I started for NaNoWriMo 2019. And, I’m so happy to say, I actually accomplished this! Sure, it took me much longer than I’d expected, but it was a much more emotional journey than I’d expected. But I finished it, and that’s what counts. So that’s one resolution I can mark as DONE.
My second was to undertake the revision or re-revision of another of my novels. I’m actually happy to say that that is currently underway. I’ve taken the month of July to dedicate to my young adult fantasy novel. I’ve revised it once before, but this time, it’s undergoing a really intense, move-everything-around-and-add-more-plots type of revision. Is it hard? Kind of. Is it fun? Kind of. Is it going to be ultimately rewarding? Gosh, I really hope so. But it’s just going to be amazing to be able to see what it turns into, I think. So far, it’s going in a direction that I really like, and as long as it keeps going that way, I think I’ll be fine.
Resolutions three and four are actually also based on resolution two. I can’t really enter this novel into a pitch contest, or start querying agents, when it’s still not done. I really hope these happen later this year, but I’m also trying to convince myself that it was great to have them on my resolutions to start with, and it would be OK if they end up waiting to next year. Basically, I’m trying to be more patient than my end-of-2019 self was.
My fifth resolution, though, can also be marked as DONE. I did end up writing the outline for another novel I had in mind, and I’m very excited about it! It ended up being a middle-grade fantasy, and the outline is prepared and ready to go!
My sixth resolution was to use that outline from resolution five and start writing the novel from it. Obviously, this hasn’t happened yet. I think I’m going to go to this once I’m done with the revision for my current book. I like working on one project at a time, even if I do end up doing different steps of them at different times. It’s nice to step away from projects sometimes, and I’m saving this for when the revision is done. It’ll be my reward! Besides a huge ice cream sundae, of course. It might also end up my NaNoWriMo project, but we’ll see how the end of the year is going.
And now, on to my seventh and last resolution (wow, I was definitely ambitious in early 2020!). This resolution was to read 10 more books from the 300 list. Currently, I’ve only read four, so I’m a bit behind, but I just borrowed number five from the library, so that’ll change soon. The books I’ve read so far are The Grapes of Wrath, Life of Pi, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Slaughterhouse-Five. Gonna add to this list by the end of the year!
So, all 2020 craziness considered, I think I’m doing pretty well! I’ll have a bit of work to do to catch up on this list, but with a little work, I don’t see why I can’t accomplish at least most of my resolutions. We’ll see how the rest of the year goes, of course, but right now, I’m confident that I’ll be able to at least knock out five of my seven.
How are your own resolutions going? Have you changed them at all? How do you keep yourself working on them throughout the year? Let me know in the comments!
Steph's Story Space 