Another year has gone by, and it’s time for me to look at my old goals and see what happened, as well as to make new ones. First, let’s look at the year in review.

I made five goals in total, and fully succeeded two of them, partially succeeded at two, and one took too long. The two I succeeded at were finishing writing three novels, and exercising every day in January. I’m pleased that I managed them, and finished four novels, even if one of them isn’t going to be published for some time (Embers of War, I want the trilogy done first).

The two partial completions were to finish a story that was purely selfish (every attempt turned into something I wanted to publish), and publishing an RPG supplement. The latter, I had several artists fall through, but almost have the last pieces I need. The last goal, setting aside some time to write RPG stuff every week, fell flat on its face. I chose a bad day, and trying to make it a singular block of time just didn’t work.

Honestly, 2022 was exhausting and hard for me. There were a number of family health issues that were a distraction, plus I had a book I had to complete which didn’t come easily and was longer than I expected it to be. Add to that people trying to play catch-up from the isolation of the past two years, and things were hectic because of that. I suspect there will be some of that the coming year as well, but I’m hoping it isn’t as much of a distraction.

Due to that, I’m trying to force myself to take breaks. It isn’t easy for me, I’ll admit. There’s some frantic part of my hindbrain that seems to think that if I’m not constantly working on a project for publication, I’m wasting time. Even so, I’m doing my best not to let myself risk burnout, while also trying to finish each series I have in mind.

Now, goals! I’m trying to keep my goals relatively achievable, so I’m going to make them more focused. Here are my goals for 2023.

• Write three books. This year that includes Dawn of Chaos, which is almost complete, and Talyn: Unyielding. I don’t know what the other book will be, and refuse to make any guesses at this point. Hopefully I don’t end up writing multiple super-size novels this year, as that seriously slows me down.
• Write at least the sequel of Embers of War, since I want to have the entire series done before publishing them.
• Reach my exercise goal every week (the ~150 minutes recommended weekly by the Mayo Clinic), and once it’s warm enough, riding my electric bike down the local biking trail at least three days a week without the motor. Might I say that I adore my electric bicycle? I think it quadrupled my weekly exercise after getting it this past summer.
• Put aside business money every month for research trips or conventions. I’ve realized that if I don’t specifically set money aside for it, I’ll just refuse to spend the money. I hope to visit 20booksto50k in 2023. Originally I was going to try to visit DragonCon, but their hotels fill up too fast for my tastes. I forgot to book a room the handful of days after the convention, and pretty much all of the nearby hotels were full.
• I encountered a challenge called Dungeon23, or Dungeon 2023. The basic premise is for RPGs, and the writer creates one room of a dungeon every day, switching floors every week, and at the end of the year they have a sprawling, enormous dungeon with 52 floors (or sections) and 365 rooms. However, the main goal is to do something creative every day, so I’m mixing it up. For instead, I’m going to spend a week creating a business each day in the Coppers District of Castra (Talyn’s Saga), try creating floors of Sistina’s Dungeon, and other projects, rotating on a weekly basis. It could be done to plot books one chapter at a time, build a world map, or anything else.

And that’s it, really. I don’t want to go overboard, and the last one in particular will be a lot of work. Though all of it will be a lot of work.