‘Tis time to set goals for this year.
I’m famously bad at keeping my New Year’s resolutions. I’m the typical person that manages to walk/eat healthily/write for about a week before things go back to the way they were. That doesn’t mean I don’t manage to set goals for myself and follow them through. I do write/eat healthily nearly everyday; it’s just the time of the year when I started doing those things wasn’t anywhere near January. For me, the wish to change has to come from somewhere else than a new year.
That is why these are all goal that have been over due for a time. Some I’ve already started even. I just want to put them all down to hold myself accountable, and maybe commiserate a bit with some of you that struggle with the same things.

1. Read more from ownvoices authors
Last year I wasn’t as mindful as I could have been when it came to reading from marginalized voices. By the end of the year, I picked up many writers of color and found amazing books as a result. So yeah, this year I’ll definitely make the effort to seek out ownvoices authors in the genres that I love.
2. Read less books by US authors
Honestly I think the discussion of diversity in the book community kind of falls short regarding non-English books (I mean this a whole, not individual bloggers btw). I want to change that when it comes to my own reading. I often just refrain from picking books just because they’re translated, but it’s dumb because right now the translation is the only way I could access those stories. And I can read in Spanish soo… Yeah, this will be the year of me reading less American authors.
3. Take my time while reading
I don’t want to rush through books like I did last year. If a book took me more than five or four day to finish, I would start getting really frustrated. It wasn’t even the book’s fault! So I just want to read when I want, and I know that I’ll come across books I won’t be able to put down. With the others, I just want to be okay taking my time.
4. Finish the series I start
I have a shelf on Goodreads specifically for the series I want to finish… and, oh boy, they’re a lot.
5. Get more into poetry
I want to read a lot more poetry this year. I read some contemporary this year and really enjoyed it! I do have to say, the simplistic-Kaur style is kind of not for me, but I am interested into the awesome stuff that is being published. I also want to read more classical stuff. I have a collected edition of Yeats’ poetry and I’ve loved what I have read from it so far. I don’t know… I just want to get lost in words this year.

1. Not stop
I still think it’s a miracle that I’ve written nearly everyday for the last two years. I’m so bad at, like, keeping up habits that I just thought this writing thing would fizzle out. Seven books later, my worst year is that it could still happen. So yeah, let’s hope it won’t.
2. Get myself a critique partner
I feel ready to have someone actually read my books. It’s hard to think of my stories objectively, so having a person who could read over them and actually tell me what works hahah it would be a lifesaver. Also I’m terrified because no one has gone near my books yet.
3. Tighten my prose
While writing, this is probably the aspect I neglect the most. Although my last novel has given me a lot of room to experiment, sometime I feel like I’m writing on auto-pilot, just getting through character beats and plot points. When I first started writing, words were amazing on themselves, I was as in love with them as with the story. I hope I can return to that.
4. Write what scares me
This is kind of one of those goal I’m technically already doing. Writing my current novel has been such a challenge. I feel like I’m learning to write all over again because it is so different from everything I’ve written before. Structurally, character-wise, plot-wise, I feel lost and can’t stop second guessing myself. But I want to keep doing it, because it’s going to make a better writer. So yeah, break out of my comfort zone.
5. Get into more poetry
This one ties in with 3 & 4. I’ve made some terrible attempts at poetry before, but they were fun. Again, I want fall in love with words once more, and what is poetry but words at their most exposed. And whenever I’ve tried to write it, I feel like I don’t know enough about poetry (so that’s another reason why I want to read more). Like I’m just not smart enough for it.
Fuck that, I’m going to try regardless.