Hey all, Sam here.
All right, so I had definitely planned and intended to have this post up in the first few days of the new year. However, due to having to swap from overnight shift to just regular night shift, I have been exhausted and struggling to readjust my sleep schedule…which meant that I let the blog go while I focused on other things. It’s not a great excuse, but it is the real reasoning.
Anyway, each year I try and set out my initial goals for the year, and then I try if I can to work towards those goals each month. You’ll notice that my headings in this post match the headings in each and every monthly recap I do. That’s to keep things consistent and help me match up with how my progress is going in each area I make a goal.
Those four categories that I focus on are: reading, writing, blogging, and trips/conventions. I’m sure I could include other areas and set other goals, but honestly, these are the ones that I focus on. Sure, I could throw TV/Movies or Video Games/Board Games up there, but I don’t exactly make goals for how much of those things to do; I just do them.
Reading
I usually set my goal each year at 100 books. This is something that is actually usually fairly achievable for me. In my best years I’m hitting 100 books before I reach the halfway point in the year, so sometimes I have to increase my goal partway through the year, but that is fine.
If you break down 100 books over the course of 12 months, it averages to 8 books a month, which isn’t bad at all, especially when I’m in a reading groove. Sadly that hasn’t been the case a lot of the time, especially the past couple of years. Yes, I’m still reading over 100 books a year, but it isn’t as voracious as it was before. I might only read two or three days a week instead of basically every day.
Writing
This is the area where I’d really like my focus to be in 2026. I have been absolutely terrible at sticking to my writing goals for the past couple of years, and I have some WIPs that I’d really like to finish. On top of that, I’d like to work through some more writing craft books and talk about them in Weekend Writer posts here on the blog.
First is the D&D romance novel that I’m working on, the one based on my real-life relationship with my husband. Originally I was calling the book “Roll for Romance,” but due to a couple of books and book series coming out with that title, I felt it was appropriate to change my title. And I do have a new title, but I’m not sharing it quite yet (aside from David; he obviously knows because I wanted his opinion on it). Anyway, I have roughly 25,000 words written for this story, and I think it might end up being around 100,000…so obviously I have a decent amount still to write. I’m hoping to finish the rough draft this year.
Next up on my project list is a novella that might end up being a novel. The working title has been “When Dark Meets Light” since the beginning, but that might change by the time I finish the project. Originally started as a short story/novella about one of my D&D character’s background, this has now started to grow into a full-fledged story of its own. Currently it is about 35,000 words in length, and I’m thinking it’ll probably end up being around 60,000-70,000.
Finally, just over a decade ago, I self-published a book called “Project Death: Resurrection.” It’s a novel that has lived in my head since high school, and I’m still very attached to it. Anyway, while that self-pubbed version was pulled down years ago, I still think about the story. In 2023 I had fully intended to give it a polish and edit, and release a 10th anniversary edition, alongside my friend Signy Cullen who had planned to do the same with her book “Farther Side of Away.” She got her anniversary edition out, but I did not.
I have thought for years about how to improve the book, especially as I’ve learned more about the craft of writing, and I think a good edit/polish could take it from an 88,000 word novel into something closer to a 100,000 word novel while drastically improving the plot, characters, and pacing. So I’d like to get through at least one editing pass with the book. I am keeping my goal at only one editing pass, because my main priority is writing my other two projects.
Ideally though, I’d love to finish the rewrite for “Project Death: Resurrection” and then get back into the sequel, which I had almost the entire rough draft finished (only needed to write three more chapters). I had the Project Death series planned at four books, so it would be nice to finally get around to finishing those.
Blogging
I have had this blog for ten whole years. Literally a decade ago, I started this blog while on bereavement leave at work. My grandma had just died at one month shy of 90 years old, and I needed something productive to do so I didn’t just lay in my bed for several days. So I decided to try talking online about books.
The picture above is my monthly views on the blog from the beginning until the end of 2025. Obviously there have been some periods that were less active than others, but I’m hoping to keep building on my progress. I want to try and post more regularly, and hopefully bring back blog series like Weekend Writer, Manga Monday, and Tabletop Tuesday. I don’t expect any of those series to post up weekly, but I do miss doing them.
So my goal is at least one Weekend Writer, Manga Monday, and Tabletop Tuesday post each month, plus more regular book reviews.
Trips/Conventions
The final section where I like to make goals and plans is for trips and/or conventions. We actually have hopes for many trips this year, so we’ll see if we’re actually able to pull all of this off.
We have a trip back to Ohio in May, Gen Con in July/Aug, hopefully a repeat of our honeymoon in the fall because this year is our five year anniversary, plus a few conventions planned so we can help our friends at Mousai Crafts and Senpai’s Treasure Trove with their tables/booths. So it’s going to be an eventful year.
Right now we’re mostly in the planning stages for our trips…aside from Ohio in May; we booked our stay back in November once my mom knew what dates we wanted to go with.
Everything else will probably be discussed in future monthly recaps, in the trips/conventions section.
All right, well that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
Free State of Geek 