I’m the type who likes to set ambitious goals. Really ambitious. I do this for two reasons: to push myself to achieve more and, clearly, I’m insane and enjoy punishing myself.

To help keep me motivated, I’ve decided to share my progress once a month. Accountability is a great motivator for me. And, stickers. I loooooveee stickers.

Okay, I’m going to dive in.

On the writing front:

My first goal is to publish 5 books. As of writing this post, one book is with the editor, and I hope to publish it in the spring. Now, I just need to write and publish 4 more in 11 months. Easy peasy. (I’m hearing maniacal laughter in my head.)

My second big goal is to outline before diving into a book. Just last week, I set aside five days to outline 2 books, and I made enough progress to start on one of the books with most of an outline. Obviously, I need to devote more time to this goal, or I’ll end up writing 30k of backstory again. Deleting that many words was a painful experience, hence the need for this goal.

On the business side of being an author:

I set out to schedule and prep my blog posts and newsletters better so I wasn’t always doing them at the last minute. So far in 2020, this has been an epic fail. I’m crafting this post (when I finish this, I plan to write a newsletter) the day before publishing. This isn’t ideal. Not by a long shot.

Also, I want to revamp my author website site this year, and I haven’t even touched a page yet. Moving on.

On the health front:

I wanted to increase my daily activity. To help me keep track, I got a fancy fitbit. And, I set it up on January 6th. Better late than never. Then, the third week of the month, I forgot to wear it for 4 days. Whoops! However, I’ve logged over 75 miles, and one day I walked more than 22,000 steps, so it hasn’t been a complete failure. Now, my fitbit is saying I need 124 more steps before the end of the hour. It’s a bossy thing…

Okay, I’m back. Where was I? Oh, yes, my left shoulder is in bad shape from hunching over a laptop for long hours, and I’ve been going to massages to help ease the constant pain. These aren’t the relaxing type of treatments. They’re the hold on to the sides of the table, wishing the 60 minutes were over kind. I’ve been staying consistent with them, but I’m just realizing I need to make my next appointment. I’ll be right back…

Whew, appointment made.

Now that I’ve framed my progress for January, I’m seeing I have much work to do, but I have made progress. I like to celebrate wins, even tiny ones.

So, I’m going for a walk to enjoy the sunshine, even if it’s only barely above freezing. After I bash out my newsletter, of course.

If you’d like to hear Clare Lydon and I discuss our 2020 goals, listen to the Lesbians Who Write episode. Click here.

How are your 2020 goals going?