Looking Forward: Hopes for 2018

I think I’ll call 2018 ‘The Year of Getting My Shit Together’… or something like that. I don’t know, yet. My only real writing goal is to establish a sustainable writing and publishing schedule, and the start of a better work-life balance.

Why only the start? Because this year is the first year of being full-time in the writing business, and the first year of any business is a year of hard work, as the business is established. The schedule is likely to be a little crazy for at least the first six months, and probably right up until this time next year. After that, I’m hoping to be able to drop back to something more lifestyle friendly.

Other goals? To continue to build and maintain my fitness and health. To spend a bit more time with my family.

Apart from that, I have some more specific writing goals. They are, as follows:

• To publish at least fortnightly, with one short story and one chapter book coming out each month.
• To try and publish a novel every quarter.
• To begin writing work to be released twelve months ahead.
• To begin finishing what I have started in terms of series (Freeman, Aggie & Tams, The Priestess, the Prince and the Dragon, Wings, and Tag Man One for starters).

• To begin finishing some of the novels started last year, Mack ‘n’ Me and Arach being the main two that come to mind.

 

Those are the bare-bones goals. What I hope for – and what I am working towards – is a lot more. To help with these goal I have set myself two challenges – and these are to do with the next two year’s publishing schedules: The Anthology Challenge, and The Chapter-Book Collection Challenge, which I will talk about in other posts.

So far, the year is off to a very strong start, with January’s four titles up for pre-order, and a short story completed for February through to June. The trick will be to keep the momentum as the year shifts around me.