Hey all, Sam here.
Okay, so I guess today is going to be sort of a shorter post compared to my last ones. But I think it’s important to take some time to at least have a rough plan or idea for the year ahead, so I’m going to do that now.
Reading
For reading, I have my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal set at 100 books. I’ve already finished 7 books, so I’m feeling pretty good with having my goal at 100. Of course, if things go well and my desire to read comes back full force, then I fully expect that I’ll need to increase the goal at some point.
To help with my reading goal, I also plan to participate in the April, August, and October sessions of Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, as well as hosting Middle Grade March reading challenge and my Jolabokaflod Readathon again in December. So if anyone wants to join me in reading a bunch of Middle Grade books in March or reading whatever they want while curled up in a comfy reading position and drinking your favorite hot beverage on Dec 24th, I’d be glad for the reading company.
Writing
First, when it comes to writing, let’s talk about Blogging. I definitely plan to stick to my minimum schedule of Manga Monday, a book review, and Weekend Writer post each week…so three posts each week is my blogging goal. I was doing a fantastic job a few years ago, when I was scheduling 7-10 posts each week, but I feel like stretching for that sort of goal would be putting too much pressure on me right now, so three posts a week is definitely doable. But, obviously, I’m on like an 11 day blogging streak at the moment, so it would be fun to see how far I can take that.
The other side of writing is my creative writing. I’ve picked up a story I started a few years back, a story I had finished two chapters for, but had a rough outline for four books, plus had a really nice world map drawn up and such. That book is called Tale of Blood and Mourning and it is my current project on 4thewords. I currently have my goal at writing 500 words a day, with an overall goal of 50,000 words by April 15th, 2023. But who knows, if I get in the groove then I might be able to write even more than that. Before I started on 4thewords a couple days ago, my word count was at 6382. This is definitely meant to be a good fantasy novel, so overall, after editing rounds and all that, I’d like to be in the 100,000-150,000 word range. If I can keep myself writing every day and stay motivated, I honestly think I could finish this project this year.
Not that it means anything. My hope and plan is to have at least two of the books written, with the third in a decent place, before I begin publishing them. I really want to be able to write, edit, and publish my Courts and Guilds series. I loved the idea when I came up with it a few years ago, and honestly the two chapters I had written still hold up as really solid writing, so I’m excited to see if I can keep going and finish the story.
But I also have this sort of urban fantasy type story that I started for NaNoWriMo last year. I only wrote a few hundred words, because I was in a slump and I was super busy in my life and all that, but I like the idea and kind of want to work on it some more too. The thing is, though, I have pretty much nothing planned for it. I am completely writing by the seat of my pants. So I think I want to try and brainstorm and plot out the characters and the story and figure out all of those details…..because this book doesn’t even have a working title or anything yet. I literally have it saved as “NaNoWriMo 2022.”
Oh, speaking of writing goals, I plan to participate in the April and July sessions of Camp NaNoWriMo as well as NaNoWriMo in November. Hopefully between using 4thewords and doing NaNo, I can actually make some great progress on my writing projects.
Gaming
I plan on playing more board games and video games…and hopefully more D&D. Seriously, I haven’t really played D&D in like four months, and I really miss it. It feels like I’m missing something huge in my life.
My husband and I will obviously be going to Gen Con in Indianapolis again in August. We look forward to that every year.
I don’t know what video games I want to focus on, but it probably will be things like Stardew Valley, Potion Permit, Cozy Grove, and then games like Pokemon Shield and Pokemon Scarlet. I enjoy playing the Pokemon games, but I admit that I have not actually ever completed one. I usually get about halfway finished and then kind of forget about it.
Umm…I do think that’s about it for my goals for this year. Do you have any goals you’ve set for yourself in 2023? I’d love to hear all about them!
Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
Free State of Geek 