2014 was a big year for me. I made big steps in my writing, my professional life, social life, and love life. I’m closer to feeling like a full-fledged adult, because even though there are rumors I’m already at that stage of my life I’m not entirely convinced.
It was the year I moved out of my family’s home, played the adult, and survived knowing I could no longer rely on a safety net. It was certainly there, as I’m lucky enough to have a supportive family, but I refuse to be dependent on that and live recklessly.
It was the year I found a good, stable job that I enjoy and have relative security. It’s the year my skills and confidence improved. It’s also the year I realized how much I miss the restaurant business.
It was the year I met a significant other and fell in love.
And finally, it was the year I made the most progress with my writing. I made significant progress with Jasper. I had a short story published. I started a few more. I revisited an old webcomic project. I even took on some more freelance writing.
Moving forward, this is what I want to accomplish by the end of 2015:
- Finish Jasper. And by finish, I mean to be completely free from the editing process, and have a finished copy that may or may not be in print. I say maybe in print because while I am leaning toward going the self-publishing route, I’m open to persuasion toward traditional channels and know those will take longer.
- Start on Jasper’s Legacy. This will be the sequel to Jasper and the end of the series at this time. I don’t expect to have a final draft or a finished first draft, but I do plan to tackle it for NaNoWriMo 2015 if not earlier.
- Make progress on the webcomic script Ye Olde Grille. When I revisited this script, it was rough and ridiculous. I want to start fresh and make it better. I don’t want to impose a solid benchmark here for progress, but I want to get a good chunk of a new script on paper. My ultimate goal is to have this published for online consumption, but that’s a long way off. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll find an artist to draw it, or learn to do it myself.
- Read more. This will be a resolution every year. It always seems I have plans to read a library’s worth of books and my progress slows after February or March. One year I will break this pattern. I want it to be 2015.
- Cook more. This is partially related to writing because the more I cook, the more I develop tasty dishes and the more tempted I am to blog about them on The Bitter Baker. It’ll also help my grocery bills.
- Write more freelance. This is mostly motivated by money. I also want to find more avenues for work than Scripted.com, even if their operations have improved significantly since I posted my review.
- Blog more.
- Finish one more short story. I’ve started too many projects not to finish at least one.
So, there are my goals. It may look like a long list, but I have 365 days to tackle them.
Freelance, huh? I should look into doing a bit of freelance, though I did some blogging for an online travel magazine a couple years ago for a few months. That was free, though. Not paid.
I also started with unpaid blog posts, mostly restaurant reviews. Sadly the blog is no longer active.
I didn’t write for that blog very long. I found it took up too much of my time, and I had a lack of material.