January Recap

I blinked and January is now over. It was a decently good month, no doubt. I started my new job during the second week of the month and I’m enjoying it, but man am I exhausted. I took it for granted how nice it was to have all day to write and focus on my own thing. I also miss being able to go to a bar or a coffee shop during the week day to do a bit of writing. I have a goal to do a day like that once a quarter, if not twice a quarter.

Usually at the end of a quarter (like in December), I sit down to plan out my quarter through the HB90 Method. This past round, when they did it, I was waiting to hear the call on whether or not I would get the job, and I didn’t want to plan out a whole quarter and find out my plans were going to change.So I did a half-assed version for this quarter and this last time around, I realized that I’ve done this method enough that I have a good idea of what my goals are every time around without having to watch all the videos. Which means, without even writing those goals down, I have a good idea of what I need.

Goal One

Write 100,000 words between my romance pen name book and my next work in progress, The Girl in the Hay Bale.In January, I’ve written a little 33,000 words, so I am at least on target for the 100,000 words. As I adapt to my new job, I’m hoping that I can push out 40,000 words at least, in February. I’m almost done with the romance book, so I’m hoping that by this time this weekend, I can jump in head first to TGITHB and get started on that. I have a big project that I’m going to be starting in Q2, so I’d really like to have a draft of this book done before then, just to have it done and ready to review.

Goal Two:

Grow social media and focus on building up my audience (i.e. my newsletter). Instagram goals: 800/900/1,000I’m almost to 750, so I really want to push to get to that by the end of February. I only need four or five followers on that.

Newsletter: Add a subscriber or two. It’s like I’ve been stuck in the same subscriber count for a long time now.

Goal Three:

Focus on taking care of myself, aiming for a daily score of 75 or more. I need to actually remember to score my day every single day. Until I get into that habit, I can’t accurately figure out what my daily score is. With a new month starting, it’s always a good reminder that there can always be a fresh start. So far, I’m feeling good about the beginning of the year. It might not be the perfect start, but so far, it’s been treating me well.