It is well into April, but I’m still taking a moment to look back on March and see how things went.
Old Goals
Much like February, I really wanted to focus on getting a good amount of reading done, and continue ironing out my weekly work night schedule (some of the rare free time that I have). My March goals were:
- Monday and Tuesday 5AM work nights (Tuesday night dedicated ONLY to writing/ reading).
- Get book reviews on StoryGraph and Goodreads
- Read Age of Swords, and Age of War (books #2 and #3 of Michael J. Sullivan’s The Legends of the First Empire series)
Read on to see how I fared, or skip to the end (Princess Bride, anyone?) to see my April goals.
March Recap
The success of March’s goals was a pretty mixed bag: good, somewhat accomplished, and completely forgotten.
WORKNIGHTS – I was able to stick with this goal pretty well, working until 5AM every Monday and Tuesday night was very doable. I do need to make sure I get to sleep at a decent hour the other nights though, as I fell into the habit of being up later than I should have on those non-work nights. I’m gong to change to Monday and Wednesday nights, thinking that giving myself a break in between will help keep me from falling into a daily habit of working late. I am also going to focus on keeping Wednesday ONLY for writing or reading, I got into a big house project in March, completely forgot to do that, and my reading goal definitely suffered from it.
REVIEWS – As with February, this didn’t happen at all; it’s for a few reasons, but I’m not going to honor them as excuses. I need to get this done.
READING – I did get reading in, but wasn’t even able to read one book a month as I didn’t finish my first book until mid-April. I know that this is directly related to my not keeping Tuesday work nights only for reading or writing. I really want to keep focusing on reading because as expected I’m loving this series (Michael J. Sullivan’s The Legends of the First Empire series), but I also need to get back to my writing. I don’t like reading while I’m working on writing, so I may have to try a few different ways of keeping them separated while still getting to do both; it’s going to take some trial and error.
New Goals
Looking to the rest of April, my goals are pretty similar to March’s:
- Monday and Wednesday 5AM work nights, Wednesday dedicated ONLY to reading or writing
- Book reviews updated and posted on Goodreads and StoryGraph
- Read Age of War
- Re-timeline my story (I want to update my story outline/ timeline with what I have actually written, they’re very similar but a little off right now. Also, I’m thinking that this will get me back into working on the Story, while not letting my reading affect my writing.)
I got to March’s Recap pretty late, so there’s not much of April left to work on these new goals, but I’m glad I am refocusing and working towards a few conscious goal changes instead of just floating along with March’s goals.
If you outline your writing at all, how frequently do you find that the outline needs re-working or editing?