Friday, January 26, 2018

Update Day: So Far So Good

It's the last Friday of the month, which means it's time to update everyone on my goals as part of the Got Goals? Bloghop. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, JEN Garrett and I host a monthly bloghop where we set crazy or just crazy important goals, and then post regular updates on our progress on the last Friday of every month. You're welcome to join. Just click here and follow the instructions.


I have to say, for someone who didn't set any official goals for the month, I actually did great. Despite the fact that there were some bad stuff that happened to rock the boat, I still managed to float enough to get some of my goals done, including some of the big year-goals I set for 2018.

To list my progress:

Five-Year Goal: Making a Living Off My Writing

The major headline is that I had a record month in January, making more than $200 more than I did in December. 

I didn't quite make it to the number I'd hoped for, as things just fell quiet towards the middle of the month. But that was also good in its own way, as I could then devote more time to Book 3, which I really do need to publish if I'm to achieve my goal of making more money from my own writing. 

Writing and Publishing Goals

Although it was impossible for me to spend time on my work on some days, I did manage to catch up on the days where I could work on my own stuff to the point where I spent an average of 38 minutes every day on it. 

This means that I got through 20 chapters (out of 85) of my revision to Book 3 and I managed to write a poem as well. 

Marketing Goals

The major bit of news here is that I figured out my content strategy, both for my blog and for my YouTube Channel. I'll write more about this on Monday, since I don't want to make this post too long, but suffice it to say, I basically have an entire year's content (and back-up content) planned out for both. 

I'm hoping that not having to sit down and figure out what I need to write about will help me make more efficient use of my time, and to be more active overall. 

Life Goals

I can't really say I achieved anything here, but I can officially say that I'm actively working on my health now. 

The major change I made is to get more serious about my water consumption. It's seriously hot here at the moment, and even the slightest dehydration can have bad effects not only on my health, but on my writing as well. 

For example, if I get a headache because I'm thirsty, it doesn't take much for that to turn into a migraine that puts me out of commission for at least a day or two. 

The nice side-effect is that drinking more water has made me less hungry, which means I've been able to improve my food choices and portions. It's also given me a bit more energy, which means it became an almost natural progression for me to start exercising. 

Which is important when you'd otherwise spend your whole life in a chair, y'all. 

Finally, I did manage to read for an average of 15 minutes every day. (I would have liked to spend that time every day in a literal sense, but on some days that was simply impossible.)

What Do I Want to Achieve in February? 

To keep things simple, I'm going to pick five goals that are important to me, so I can prioritize them over the other things I want to do. 

1) I want to finish this revision round of Book 3 by month end, if I can. 
2) I want to make a final decision with regards to whether I'm going to use my old system of CPs for each round of edits after this point, or hire an editor. 
3) I want to post regular updates to my blog and vlog, and also update the content that goes to my other networks. (The two are related.) 
4) Maintain and further improve the healthy habits I've started to establish in January. 
5) Read for an average of 15 minutes per day. 

How did January go for you guys? Any progress on your goals? 

25 comments:

  1. hmmm...maybe I should set goals

    nah...I just like to write

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  2. Wow, you've got your content planned out for a year - very impressive! Drinking enough water is so important, especially when it's hot out.

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    1. It's actually remarkably easy to do once you've wrapped your head around what you're trying to achieve.

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  3. Eighty-five chapters? I think my longest book had eighteen.
    Drinking water has so many benefits - keep it up.

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    1. Hehehe I did mention that Book 3 is a monster book, didn't I? It's almost 250k words long. :-D

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  4. Good luck with your goals! I need to do better about drinking water (or really anything). I tend to forget about it. Then, I'll get headaches.

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    1. I'm the same. So when I decided to make drinking water a goal, I actually downloaded an app onto my phone that reminds me and also keeps track of how much I drank in a day.

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  5. Looks like you nailed the first month of the year! An average of 38 minutes a day of creation time is an AMAZING achievement (Will you be posting the poem at all?)

    Great job with the healthy lifestyle choices. Sometimes those are the hardest goals to maintain because you can't ever check them off the list as "done". They are an ongoing commitment and it can be difficult to stay motivated.

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    1. I am planning to post my poems, but it'll be on my Patreon for my patrons. :-D

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    2. I also agree with you about the health goals. That said, I can measure my progress. So I can call something "done" if the goal was "exercise today," for example.

      Or, in my case of drinking water: "Drink 3 liters today."

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  6. Excellent work and good luck in February! I've faltered a little with my health goals in the past few months, but I hope to get back into the swing of things.

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    1. Same here. I'm finding it definitely helps to start small and then do more as I'm easing into it. (Like how drinking water now basically got me into exercising every day.)

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  7. Those are some mega goals. Even accomplishing some of that is worth a pat on the back:)

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  8. Congrats! You made lots of progress on your goals. Way to go with your January sales. Wow!

    Sounds like 2018 is off to a great start. :)
    ~Jess

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    1. Sadly, 99.9% of my income wasn't from sales, but from editing and formatting. (I.e. using my skills as a publishing writer, as opposed to actually writing, which is why that goal of earning from my writing is so important to me.)

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  9. Grammarly makes for a pretty good editor. If you throw your stuff in there and you're scoring over 95%, I don't know that hiring an editor would be a worthy investment. Just my thoughts.

    (The last 5000-word short story I sent to my editor, she said she felt bad having charged me (pre-pay) when she only found one error. That's because the program and caught everything else.)

    Way to go on those healthy habits!
    Fifteen minutes a day of reading sounds like a cool goal.

    Keep rocking.
    I'm glad you're here. :)

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    1. Hahahaha I should have specified. I was talking about a structural/content editor.

      It'd be weird if I couldn't do my own copy-edits, given that I hire myself out for that service.

      Story-related stuff, though... It's good to have other sets of eyes on it, and no software's going to help with that.

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  10. Hi Misha - well done: it sounds like things are settling down and you've planned things out ... that's good news. Good luck and oh yes ... lots of water - I do that too. Cheers Hilary

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    1. Thanks Hilary! It is nice to at least feel a bit more settled.

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  11. Yay for exceeding December, and for working on your health! Good luck with your goals. :-)

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  12. I always resolve to read more and end up reading Yahoo news articles instead; I should stop doing that and read more books, especially because the Yahoo news articles (and the bigoted comments posted under them) are depressing most of the time.
    And good for you for having clear plans about what you want to do, making more money off your writing, and getting more writing done. That's awesome!

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    1. I also find the news articles and comments super depressing, so I tend to try to read the articles in small, bite-sized chunks.

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