In my 2024 Recap post (read it here) I set three goals for all of 2025 and, as seems to be my pattern, I stuck to the idea of them more than sticking strictly to them.
Old Goals
The goals I set for 2025 were:
- Writing – complete one scene a week
- Writing time – schedule two work nights for focused writing
- Reading – excepting Beta reads and the like, as well as books read with the kids, hold off reading until the first draft of my Work In Progress (WIP) story is finished
If you want to skip to my new goals for this year, scroll down to the New Goals header. If you want to know how my progress went in 2025, read on!
2025 Recap
Thinking back on 2025 gave an interesting look at my how my schedule and my productivity are, unsurprisingly, tied. And I ended the year having to admit to myself that I haven’t been making my writing a priority – something that isn’t bad, but is still disappointing.
WRITING
My goal was to complete one scene each week. I did that for a short stretch, but didn’t keep it going. It worked well when I had more than one writing session per week or when a scene was shorter, but when I was only writing one day a week or just couldn’t figure out a scene, it didn’t work.
I am at a point in my WIP where threads are starting to tie up, so many of the scenes are coming together smoothly or, at the very least, I know well where they are heading. And it’s encouraging because I feel I can sort of see the end is finally coming into view … but only if I actually get the writing done.
I’d love to complete my story’s first draft this year but, as with my 2025 goals, I don’t want to set that as a goal and then feel more disheartened when I don’t complete it. I still like the goal of completing one scene a week though, especially because it does still feel attainable and I am getting to that point where the story is starting to roll.
WRITING TIME
My goal was to schedule two nights each week for focused writing, and I definitely didn’t. I have a rather irregular schedule to begin with, and in 2025 I committed much of the my available time into a lot of other tasks, like running and home projects, rather than into writing. I’m OK with this since many of the things I prioritized either needed to happen or were at a similar level of importance as my writing, but I am also disappointed with it since I didn’t get more writing done.
I am sure there will always be things like this that I will need to prioritize time to, but I want to work on getting those things done during time that I can’t use for writing (ex: work on them during the day amidst life happening), so I can keep the more focused time for writing. To make this happen, I want to lean into planners in 2026, both with my everyday scheduling planner and a new writing planner.
I had a loose writing planer in 2025, but quickly fell out of keeping up with it. For 2026, I want to put together one that is more specific, keep it somewhere that I can readily see it, and I want to use a writing tracker as part of it. Word count is annoying to track because I handwrite my draft, but I could track scenes with something like [HeartBreathing’s] kanban board.
I still like the goal of scheduling two work nights a week for focused writing. A few years back scheduling my work nights was very effective, so I know that it can help me schedule in more time for writing. Also, when I was running more this past year, I ran almost every day for a full month, so I know that I can consistently stick with some daily task that isn’t actually necessary to our daily life. I just need to actually do it. All the planning in the world can only work if there is follow through.
READING
My goal was to hold off reading except reading with the kids and Beta or ARC reads. Aside from a few titles, I did stick with this goal but, because I continued offering to Beta or ARC read, I also read way more than nothing. And it’s not the reading that tends to take time away from my writing, it’s the book reviews that I write up afterwards.
I write reviews for everything I read Middle Grade and up, and writing them always takes more time than I think it does. Then, add on creating the imagery and formatting the blog post and, before I know it, I’ve dedicated all my scheduled writing time for a few weeks into writing one book review and publishing it to this blog.
I read 8 titles in 2025, but read a total of 12 books. How’s that? I read some books multiple times. I did 2 Beta reads and 3 ARC reads, the titles of these overlapped so that when I count each individual read through of a book as one book read, my total comes up to 12 books.
Click through the following links to read the reviews of my 2025 reads.
- V. K. Dixon’s Fire & Night (Warriors & Mages #1)
- Alysha Everwood’s Bound at the Root (Sevenfold Series #1)
- John Steinbeck’s The Moon is Down
- J. A. Andrews’s A Threat of Shadows (The Keeper Chronicles #1)
- Scott Chantler’s Wayward Travelers (Squire & Knight #2)
- Marjorie Liu’s Wingbearer (Wingbearer Saga #1)
- Marjorie Liu’s Wingborn (Wingbearer Saga #2)
While it did work at one point, I know it’s currently pointless for me to set a goal of reading absolutely nothing until I finish the first draft of my WIP, because I will inevitably read something whether it be a Beta, a book with the kids, or something that just happens to fall open in my hands. Also, in 2025, I started trying to pick up a book every time I caught myself doomscrolling on the internet; I was able to get into a bit of a habit with it and would much rather lean into that habit, and not lose hours of my life to mindless scrolling, than toss it aside.
I also know it is impractical for me to hold off Beta and ARC reads, because it is one of the ways I can support other writers, especially independent authors. And if it’s a writer friend or a favorite author, I’m most likely going to offer to read for them.
Limiting my reading to either with the kids or just during those times I start to doomscroll, might work well. And, aside from Betas and ARCs, I’d like to keep my doomscroll reading to nonfiction since I still feel that it helps me maintain my own voice as a writer rather than slipping into the voice of what I’m reading at the moment.
New Goals
Looking forward to 2026, I’m going to be working on the following goals:
- Writing – complete at least one scene a week
- Writing Time – Increase focused writing time
- Use a daily planner to schedule nonwriting tasks during the day and 3 work nights each week (2 focused only on writing, 1 used for writing and completing remaining nonwriting tasks)
- Use a writing planner with kanban board to plan and track writing progress
- Reading – hold off most reading until first draft of WIP is done. Exceptions are: books read with the kids and reading that replaces doomscrolling (keep doomscroll reading to Betas, ARCs, or nonfiction)
As with my 2025 goals, I feel like these goals can shift as my schedule shifts, I just need to keep on them and shift them when they need to be shifted rather than trying to stick with them when they don’t work.