I’m writing this a few days early because I’m going to a music festival over New Years. If you’ve read my Reflections on 2017 you’ll know that I’ve had a pretty productive year.

There were some ups and downs, especially this last week around Christmas. It’s always a weird time when people go away, have family commitments and there’s sort of nothing to do. It sounds relaxing but I find it hard.

My family lunch was good, my grandmother was mostly inoffensive. I was given a hammock and stand which I’m taking to the festival – it’s books in the hammock in the morning and music in the afternoon.

What are my goals for this year then, I hear you asking. Well, here they are:

1. Win NaNoWriMo 2018
2. Enter 5 writing competitions
3. Redraft ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ and publish it online (from 2017)
4. ‘Fleur & Alexandra are Out of This World’ Melbourne Fringe Festival Show
5. Edit ‘The Discovery of the Franklin’
6. Submit ‘My Mothers Secret’ and ‘We Can’t Have Nice Things’ to publishers
7. Perform with the new band regularly
8. Two blogs per month

The big one in terms of time commitment is the Fringe Show. The show I did last year was a six-months-long intense project. We’ve already started work on the new show; we have a plot and we’re ready to start drafting the script. We’re already way ahead of where we were last time.

I’m also considering entering a self-published box set with a contemporary romance story of ~25k words. I think I could use the project I did for NaNoWriMo in 2017 for this, so that will be another job to put on the list if I commit to it.

I’m thinking of taking some evening acting classes. I’m a pretty confident performer and there is always room for learning and improvement.

On top of these goals I will do my best to make time for exercise, good eating, friends , live music and all that other normal stuff.

My blog activity over the last year has been a bit slack. I’m going to aim for two posts per month, but I also want to have good content. If I don’t have anything good to post, I won’t put anything up, but with all the projects I’m working on, I’m sure I’ll have material.

As always, 2017 had it’s highs and lows. It’s time to close that door, learn what I can and move into the next phase. I hope next year I’ll be in a more stable place and that stability enables me to create more consistently.

All the best for the new year. Bring it on 2018!!