2025.

Happy New Year! 

Can you believe it’s been a year since I started this blog? I sure can’t. When I made the goal last year of writing and posting regularly, I wasn’t entirely sure I could do it. I thought that maybe it would be something that I would start and be fairly consistent at for a while, but then get out of the habit. 

Granted, I didn’t post a whole lot the last part of 2024, but there were a lot of outside factors to that. Plus, it never felt like I was giving up on the blog—only pausing through the holidays. 

Now that it’s 2025, I want to talk about my writing goals for this year, but before we get into that… I think it’s important (especially for myself) to list out my 2024 accomplishments. I had a good feeling about 2024, and while I didn’t get quite as far as I wanted, I still made a ton of progress, and it’s an important reminder. The publishing industry isn’t a sprint—it’s a marathon.

In 2024, I…

• Finished the 1st draft of my second novel
• Won 1st place in a short story contest
• Attended 2 writing conferences
• Had 3 literary agents request more pages of Veritas
• Wrote 33 blog posts (34 if you count this one)
• Queried 47 literary agents
• Joined a writing critique group
• Fixed pacing issues at the beginning of Veritas
• Got an agent like on a Twitter pitch contest

Wow. 

That’s not nothing.

Even though I didn’t hit some of my big goals (like getting an agent), I am a lot further along in the journey than I was at this time last year. All of those tasks took work and didn’t just happen. It’s easy to feel discouraged, as you all know if you have read any of my posts, but this is progress. Perseverance. Dedication. I am taking the necessary steps to achieve my dreams. 

So now that we’ve looked into the past, let’s charge forward into the future. Here are my 2025 writing goals:

Goal #1: I will continue querying Veritas and hopefully secure an agent.

After revising the opening chapters and fixing the pacing, I really feel like Veritas is much stronger than it was a year ago when I first began querying it again. Constantly revising is a little frustrating, but rewarding, because I know that I’m shaping this story into the best version of itself. Even though I didn’t find an agent last year, I’m hopeful that my continued persistence will pay off. Even if it’s not quite in the ways I expect. 

Goal #2: I will revise my fantasy WIP (work in progress) and produce a readable draft.

I have been itching to get back to this story, and I’m ready to start revising. While the first draft has been sitting in my documents, the story has been continuing to percolate in my head, and I’m excited to see how the second draft comes together.

Goal #3: I will continue writing blog posts and documenting my writing journey.

I’ve really enjoyed sharing the ups and downs of my writing journey with you this past year. There have been some really cool moments—and also more than a few disappointments. I have always been a fan of journaling, especially because it’s so interesting to look back, re-read entries and see just how those moments shaped future events. 

Goal #4: I will set aside consistent, dedicated writing time. 

For January, I’ve already blocked out this time on my calendar. Not only is January a good month to start new habits, but in the past, it’s also been a quiet month. I’ve found that I do much better with a consistent schedule, so I’m hopeful that by blocking out specific time in my day, I’ll be able to create a more sustainable writing habit. Spoiler alert: I’m blocking out time in my evenings, because as much as I want to be able to get up at 5:00 a.m., we all know that’s not happening.

Goal #5: I will post more regularly on my author-specific social media accounts.

Something I need to work on is creating author-specific social media accounts that way I’m not clogging up my personal accounts with just blog posts. Lately, I’ve felt like I have conditioned my friends to expect a blog post every time I update my social media, and sometimes I just want to share cute pictures of my dog! So I’d like to migrate some of those posts over to new accounts. This would also open up readership so that I can reach people who don’t know me. (Does this mean I have to start making TikToks or other short form videos for Instagram? Maybe. We’ll see.)