2023 Reflections, 2024 Resolutions, and January 2024 Goals
Hey everyone! I hope everybody had a great New Year! I stayed up til 11:30, but fell asleep just minutes shy of 2024. Oh well. There’s always next year, I guess.
Today, I’m reflecting on the past year, as well as setting goals for the year to come. 2023 was crazy for a lot of reasons, and my own life was no exception. This year, I’m hoping to add a layer of stability to my routine and get some writerly things done!
What Did I Do in 2023? In the school world, I have done a ton of coursework, heavily invested myself in the Honors College, secured an internship for the spring of 2024, made the Dean’s List (twice) and then I became a double major! God has helped me through my academic career, and I’m so thankful for all the opportunities he’s given me in the college world.
A more detailed version of what went on during my school days starts back in the spring, when I did my first semester of Honors coursework. It was a hard semester and there were times when my worldview was put to the test. But I stuck it out, and wound up with four As and one irritating B (thanks, Biology). In the summer, I started working on courses for my Classics minor, including a rigorous month-long class on medical terminology. Over the summer, I also decided to add history as another major. I am very passionate about history and especially ancient history. This fall, I did classes in British literature, technical writing, and early Russian history, which was really neat and inspiring to me. Overall, it was a good year.
In the writing world, I’ve also made a lot of headway in building a platform and putting my work out there. Perhaps the biggest accomplishment is that I finally finished the first draft of my first full-length novel, Heart of an Elf! I finished it in July and have spent the better part of the year editing it, fine-tuning it, and just stressing over minute details that will probably be deleted after it goes through official edits.
In other writing news, I published my third article with the Rebelution this year; this time, on how a popular social media trend is spiritually and mentally harmful to us women. You can read the article here. I also published my first fiction work this year! You can find my ~5K contemporary short story, Bench Seat Buddy, in Seize the Moment, an anthology celebrating God’s mercy and forigveness. You can order a copy of Seize the Moment here.
As for all my other 2023 goals… I finished my Goodreads reading challenge of 200 books, ending the year with a whopping 215 books! (Yes, a few of them were comic book collections, but hey, they’re books read.) I didn’t hit the target with my Bible reading goal or my exercise goal, but I did stay partially consistent when I was working on them.
Overall, 2023 taught me a lot, and I think it was a productive and amazing year. Looking Ahead to 2024… I made a list of yearly goals I hope to accomplish - and it got to a point where they’re now subcategorized. Here are just a few of those goals…Learn basic Latin. I’m taking Latin because it’s interesting and I need to learn it for my Classics minor. I took the first of four classes last fall, and I plan to take the next one in the summer. Become more fluent in ASL and French. I’ve been on-and-off studying French for about six years, and I’m still not very fluent in the language. As for ASL, I’ve taken a liking to it because it’s very helpful in nonverbal settings, and I also think it’s a beautiful and unique language. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to speak fluently in French by the end of 2024, but it’s worth a shot, right?Keep a gratitude/prayer journal. Last year, I had one running for a long time, but I dropped off during midterms and never went back. This year I’m starting anew and am trying to thank God for what he’s given me, as well as pray for those who need prayer. Finish Heart of a Warrior. Again, not sure if this one will happen, but I’m going to try. As much as I enjoy writing the scenes for this draft, I also want to get to Book 3.Read 200 books. I’m not moving my GR challenge this year due to the workload I have given myself in school and writing. And speaking of reading, Story Embers is doing a cool book giveaway for writers and readers alike! Enter via this link: http://tinyurl.com/mr68bb7z. Focus more on my editing business, Written Realms Editing. This will probably happen after the spring semester. I really want to focus more attention on marketing myself as an editor and getting myself some amazing clients. (If you are considering a developmental or copyeditor, you can find out about my services here!) January 2024 Goals I don’t have a lot of month-specific goals, especially since my months tend to blend within each other during the school semester, but here are my plans for January:
Work on earning all As in my classes. I have a 3.78 GPA, and I’m trying to raise it to an even 3.8.
Work as a social media manager for my internship. This spring, I’m interning with a local literacy organization by regulating their social media channels and posting relevant news to their platforms. It’s a great opportunity and I cannot wait to get started!
Continue drafting Heart of a Warrior. I don’t know if my first book is going to go through edits anytime soon, but I’m not letting that stop me from continuing work on its sequel, Heart of a Warrior. (Subscribe to my newsletter to get weekly updates on how I’m doing too!)Complete a draft of a short story. I’m working on submitting to another anthology, this time to Wild Blue Wonder Press! I don’t know if I’ll have time to complete the story this month, but we’ll see! And that's it for now. What are some of your 2024 goals? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time,
~Cate
Today, I’m reflecting on the past year, as well as setting goals for the year to come. 2023 was crazy for a lot of reasons, and my own life was no exception. This year, I’m hoping to add a layer of stability to my routine and get some writerly things done!
What Did I Do in 2023? In the school world, I have done a ton of coursework, heavily invested myself in the Honors College, secured an internship for the spring of 2024, made the Dean’s List (twice) and then I became a double major! God has helped me through my academic career, and I’m so thankful for all the opportunities he’s given me in the college world.
A more detailed version of what went on during my school days starts back in the spring, when I did my first semester of Honors coursework. It was a hard semester and there were times when my worldview was put to the test. But I stuck it out, and wound up with four As and one irritating B (thanks, Biology). In the summer, I started working on courses for my Classics minor, including a rigorous month-long class on medical terminology. Over the summer, I also decided to add history as another major. I am very passionate about history and especially ancient history. This fall, I did classes in British literature, technical writing, and early Russian history, which was really neat and inspiring to me. Overall, it was a good year.
In the writing world, I’ve also made a lot of headway in building a platform and putting my work out there. Perhaps the biggest accomplishment is that I finally finished the first draft of my first full-length novel, Heart of an Elf! I finished it in July and have spent the better part of the year editing it, fine-tuning it, and just stressing over minute details that will probably be deleted after it goes through official edits.
In other writing news, I published my third article with the Rebelution this year; this time, on how a popular social media trend is spiritually and mentally harmful to us women. You can read the article here. I also published my first fiction work this year! You can find my ~5K contemporary short story, Bench Seat Buddy, in Seize the Moment, an anthology celebrating God’s mercy and forigveness. You can order a copy of Seize the Moment here.
As for all my other 2023 goals… I finished my Goodreads reading challenge of 200 books, ending the year with a whopping 215 books! (Yes, a few of them were comic book collections, but hey, they’re books read.) I didn’t hit the target with my Bible reading goal or my exercise goal, but I did stay partially consistent when I was working on them.
Overall, 2023 taught me a lot, and I think it was a productive and amazing year. Looking Ahead to 2024… I made a list of yearly goals I hope to accomplish - and it got to a point where they’re now subcategorized. Here are just a few of those goals…Learn basic Latin. I’m taking Latin because it’s interesting and I need to learn it for my Classics minor. I took the first of four classes last fall, and I plan to take the next one in the summer. Become more fluent in ASL and French. I’ve been on-and-off studying French for about six years, and I’m still not very fluent in the language. As for ASL, I’ve taken a liking to it because it’s very helpful in nonverbal settings, and I also think it’s a beautiful and unique language. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to speak fluently in French by the end of 2024, but it’s worth a shot, right?Keep a gratitude/prayer journal. Last year, I had one running for a long time, but I dropped off during midterms and never went back. This year I’m starting anew and am trying to thank God for what he’s given me, as well as pray for those who need prayer. Finish Heart of a Warrior. Again, not sure if this one will happen, but I’m going to try. As much as I enjoy writing the scenes for this draft, I also want to get to Book 3.Read 200 books. I’m not moving my GR challenge this year due to the workload I have given myself in school and writing. And speaking of reading, Story Embers is doing a cool book giveaway for writers and readers alike! Enter via this link: http://tinyurl.com/mr68bb7z. Focus more on my editing business, Written Realms Editing. This will probably happen after the spring semester. I really want to focus more attention on marketing myself as an editor and getting myself some amazing clients. (If you are considering a developmental or copyeditor, you can find out about my services here!) January 2024 Goals I don’t have a lot of month-specific goals, especially since my months tend to blend within each other during the school semester, but here are my plans for January:
Work on earning all As in my classes. I have a 3.78 GPA, and I’m trying to raise it to an even 3.8.
Work as a social media manager for my internship. This spring, I’m interning with a local literacy organization by regulating their social media channels and posting relevant news to their platforms. It’s a great opportunity and I cannot wait to get started!
Continue drafting Heart of a Warrior. I don’t know if my first book is going to go through edits anytime soon, but I’m not letting that stop me from continuing work on its sequel, Heart of a Warrior. (Subscribe to my newsletter to get weekly updates on how I’m doing too!)Complete a draft of a short story. I’m working on submitting to another anthology, this time to Wild Blue Wonder Press! I don’t know if I’ll have time to complete the story this month, but we’ll see! And that's it for now. What are some of your 2024 goals? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time,
~Cate
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