Happy New Year, readers!
2024 ended on a pretty high note for me, as described in greater detail here, and I'm raring to go now that we've entered 2025.
Like a lot of bloggers out there, I'm kicking off this new year with a post going into my goals for the coming months but, unlike years past, I'm aiming to keep things on the simpler side (and I really do mean it this time).
This year, I'm striving to continue the growth I made in 2024 both creatively and as a human. So let's get into my 2025 goals!
A Tided Love
My writing pulls me into two spheres. There's the blogging end of things and the fiction side, and the latter was pretty neglected last year.
To sum it up in a few words, my progress on the fiction side of my writing was one step forward, two steps back. There was headway, but often through detours.
One of my greatest blessings in 2024 was connecting with a new writing group, and their feedback on A Tided Love was incredibly helpful, and I feel like I've grown so much as a writer through workshopping each other's pieces. Their comments on A Tided Love prompted me to rework the plot and eventually rewrite the story altogether. Granted, I hadn't gotten too far into it at that time, but most of what I had written ended up being scrapped--which was by far the right move.
The new trajectory for the story feels so much more solid, and I'm feeling more confident in the pages I've rewritten. At the time of drafting this post, I'm broaching new territory, as the next chapter is the first of this new outline that wasn't in the original, and that's really exciting! But for a while, I was navigating the frustration and mild sense of defeat that comes with having to start your WIP anew.
And while A Tided Love was meant to be the central focus of my writing last year, that didn't exactly pan out. In March, I started a new job working at an escape room, and it's been the best job I've ever had. Part of that has to do with my coworkers, who are all so incredibly supportive of my writing endeavors--so much so that three of them convinced me to let them read Bound to the Heart; overall, it was a positive experience, though it did end up shifting my focus from A Tided Love for a while so I could polish up Bound to the Heart as much as I could in a weekend after having not looked at it for over a year.
I'm sure Bound to the Heart will surface again at some point this year, but A Tided Love is going to be the main objective. This year, I'd love to have the first draft nearly finished, but I'll be happy with 75% because life can be unpredictable.
The Blog
Keeping up with blog posts wasn't too much of a struggle in 2024. In fact, I'd say that's where a lot of my writing time was spent.
I did take a semi-hiatus over the summer, shifting to a biweekly schedule to account for extended hours of operation at the escape room and not yet knowing how that would impact my writing habits. It's obviously too soon to tell at the time of writing this post, but I feel more adjusted to the new routine and know what to expect this summer, so I don't plan on taking that break again this year.
Coming Out Of My Social Media Shell
I've long called myself an internet introvert. I can be outgoing in the right setting, but social media is something I've shied away from in the past. Longtime readers of the blog have likely seen my quips about my fifth grade class's D.A.R.E. officer making us fearful of the at-the-time-newly-emerging online landscape, and while those concerns are definitely valid even today, things have changed culturally.
Social media is a valuable tool for writers, both in terms of marketing and making genuine writing friends. This year, I want get more comfortable with using it. I'm hoping come out of my shell and engage more than I did in 2024, even if it's only in small doses.
Reading For Quality, Not Quantity
One thing I mentioned in my 2024 wrap-up post was that I'd been struggling to read consistently or for long stretches of time, for various reasons. Last January, I'd set a goal of reading fifteen books, which I didn't hit. But what I did read, I enjoyed.
This time around, I'm taking on another reading goal with a different approach: reading for quality, not quantity. I'm not assigning myself a number of books to finish by the end of 2025. Instead, I'm just wanting to build a more consistent reading habit again and focus on finding books that I enjoy, allowing myself to take my time savoring them.
Understanding My ADHD (And Learning How To Work With It Rather Than Against It)
Towards the end of 2024, I was officially diagnosed with ADHD (specifically inattentive ADHD). I'd suspected I had ADHD for a while but didn't pursue a diagnosis until last year. I assumed I was just reading too far into things, and we all know that self-diagnosing always leads to trouble; you Google symptoms thinking you've got strep and Web MD convinces you that you'll die from an ultra-rare disease by the end of the week. Plus it wasn't anything that had been brought up by any of my teachers in school so I wasn't tested for it as a kid.
It's worth mentioning that they did miss my (albeit slight) scoliosis when they did that test in middle school where the school nurse ran her fingers along our spines, so it doesn't exactly surprise me that indications of my possibly having ADHD were missed, too.
Like I always say, I am not a medical professional so take this with a grain of salt. I am, however, someone who's dealt with long Covid and its lingering symptoms for quite some time now. And one thing that seems to be apparent with Covid is the way it feeds off the conditions you've already got. So something that was previously underlying can be worsened and brought to the surface.
Knowing how Covid whacked my nervous system, it makes sense that it would heighten any previously masked ADHD symptoms and bring them to the forefront. After noticing I was more fidgety than usual more often and struggling to focus on anything--including writing and reading--I started the process to be assessed formally.
Having that diagnosis has recontextualized a lot of past experiences in a way that spurred some heavy feelings, but raised as many questions as it did answers; namely, what now?
I've already been exploring different tools and tricks for managing my ADHD so I can get back in a steadier groove again. That said, if you've got any tips to share, please leave them in the comments of this post. They'd be greatly appreciated!
My 2025 goals may not sound intense, but that's not always the point of New Year's resolutions. Sometimes, it's more important to be reasonable and comfortable than impressive and monumental.
I'll be revisiting this list toward the end of June to see how I'm doing, so make sure to stick around!
What are your goals for 2025? Share them in the comments!
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