2021 Writing Goals
I tend to list too many goals for the year—365 days seems like plenty of time—but this year, I decided to make more realistic goals. To do this, I used the Heart Breathings 2021 writing work plan workbook, which helps you to see how many days you have available to you—you can get a copy of this for free if you sign up to the Heart Breathings mailing list. From there, you can see how much you can do. So, that’s what I did, and I chose the goals above for 2021.
This year I want to kickstart the indie side of my writing career, so I will be focusing on publishing my indie books. My indie books will by my horror flash fiction collection, my urban fantasy series and my Christmas paranormal mystery book (write this year and publish next year). I also wanted to publish a serial on Wattpad, but I knew I wouldn’t have the time to fit this in, so that goal had to go, sadly.
As well as working on the indie side of my writing career, I want to move forward in my pursuit of being traditionally published. So, I plan to get my standalone novel edited and ready for submission to agents by early 2022. I will also write another standalone just in case I’m asked if I’m working on anything else.
Aside from writing fiction, I want to start sending out a monthly newsletter and build-up an email list. And I still want to learn how to write plays and screenplays, so I’m hoping to start studying this year.
2021 Reading Goals
Now, let’s move onto my reading goals. Well, my main goal is to read 30 books this year as part of my Goodreads challenge. I also need to read more urban fantasy books (indie and traditional) in preparation for writing my own urban fantasy series, so I have created a list of books to read.
I also have a fairy-tale retelling reading list—my Wattpad serial was going to be a type of fairy-tale retelling—so I was planning to read as many retellings to see what to do. Even though I won’t be working on this serial this year, I still want to read these books for future reference.
My last planned reading list is a Christmas paranormal mystery reading list. I love Christmas movies and books, so I decided to do one of my own. However, I can’t resist adding some kind of horror to it, so I will be writing a Christmas paranormal mystery. I haven’t read many books in that genre, so I want to read more of them to learn the rules.
As well as my reading lists, I also want to continue reading a screenplay and short story a month and a poem a week.
Q1 2021 Goals
To help me achieve my goals, I will also be doing quarterly goals. So, this is what I plan to do for the first quarter of 2021:
- Write, edit and submit a short story to a submission call
- Edit horror flash fiction collection
- Plan and write Urban fantasy series Book 1
- Plan Urban fantasy series Book 2
- 2nd Standalone novel – start 2nd draft
- Send out 3 newsletters
- Submit 3 Horror Tree posts
- Upload 3 stories to YouTube channel
- Listen to 2 podcasts per week
- Complete urban fantasy reading list
- Read 3 screenplays
- Read 3 short stories
- Read 1 poem a week
So, those are my goals for 2021. What are your 2021 goals? Let me know in the comments below.
Stay safe, and Happy New Year, folks!
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