Looking Ahead to 2025

As you may know, I’m a great believer in setting goals to work towards at the start of every new year. If I didn’t, I’d spend my days in a haze of reading and playing PC games, and although that’s great in general and good enough for many people, in the long run it makes me feel like I haven’t done anything with my life. We have a limited amount of time available to us, and I don’t want to look back on life one day and regret the things I haven’t done.

Janus, Roman god of doorways | Adolphe Giraldon, Wikimedia Commons

And on that semi-morbid note, let’s see how I faired with my 2024 goals.

2024 Primary GoalsPublish Becoming Keeper

Yes! My Amari origin story, Becoming Keeper, was released in March 2024 in both e-book and paperback. It’s had some good reviews from people I’m not even remotely related to (lol) and I’m hoping that readers of the Mythical Menagerie series will enjoy this little prequel as much as I did writing it.

Write and edit 3 instalments for Mythical Menagerie Book 3

Sort of. The year slipped by in a blink while I was busy writing and editing Part 1 of Book 3, and in November I talked myself into taking part in NaNoWriMo again (which, as usual, I didn’t win). I did, however, manage to first draft the entire Part 2 and half of Part 3 in that month, which opened my eyes to how much I can get done in a short time if I put my mind to it (and not go on holiday or get sick in that same month, sigh).

Complete the Mythical Menagerie story bible to date

Yes! I started off doing this by hand, but in the end I cheated and dumped my books into ChatGPT and asked it to create a story bible for me. This has been very handy in an unexpected way, because now Chat knows my entire story and is very helpful with brainstorming ideas and providing descriptions in Ambrose’s voice (or at least, close enough so that I can easily edit what it suggests).

(PS: If you want to know how I use AI as an author, you can read more here .)

Write a monthly flash fiction piece

Yes! Surprisingly, I still manage to come up with a story idea every month and my newsletter subscribers seem to still enjoy them, which gives me endless amounts of creative satisfaction.

Publish Book 3 in the Reverie Flash Fiction series

Yes! A Song of Reverie was released in November 2024 and is available in e-book, paperback and hardcover from all the usual online retailers. It hasn’t sold a lot of copies as yet, but maybe in the new year I’ll figure out how to market flash fiction – which is an underrated art form, if you ask me.

Monetary goal from writing income

Not even a little bit! But I realise now that how much money I make with my books is out of my control and I can’t set that kind of goal and hope for success. I dipped my toe into Facebook marketing for the first time at the end of this year and did see some money come in from that (although I made a loss with advertising and still need to figure out how to make it profitable).

2024 Secondary GoalsGrow my email, Facebook and Instagram following

Yes, but meh. My total active email subscribers went up from 244 to 265, Facebook followers went up from 149 to 153, and Instagram followers went down from 307 to 301. I realise that once again, the numbers are out of my control and I should reconsider how I phrase this goal.

Grow my beta reader list

No. While I’m still currently only working on the Mythical Menagerie series, my beta readers need to be people who’ve read the first 2 books, so new betas will be hard to find at this point. I’ll revisit this goal once I start a new series.

Read John Truby’s Anatomy of Genre

Yes! And what a disappointment it was.

Complete the Maggie Stiefvater writing course

No. Maybe I’ll get round to it this year, but I have other things to focus on first.

Complete the UK 2023 blog posts on my travel blog

No, damnit. This will be a goal for next year again, with the increased pressure of adding a new set of vacation posts to it as well, lol.

Publish an audiobook

No. But I did complete a LinkedIn training course on the basics of audiobook creation, and I have more of an idea of what’s involved in making an audiobook now.

So it seems like I did pretty well with my primary writerly goals in 2024, and I’m well pleased with what I managed to achieve this year. My secondary goals fell by the wayside a bit, but it doesn’t bother me too much. They’re stretch goals, a bonus if I achieve them, and as such I still count 2024 a huge success.

So what’s in store for me in 2025? Well, as I said earlier, NaNoWriMo showed me how much I can get done if I make more time for doing it, so this year will be all about increasing my writing productivity. Let’s face it, all the social media and admin that fills up my free time under the guise of “marketing” isn’t really getting me anywhere, and the best thing I can do is to knuckle down and get more books out. I really want start writing other things, but I’m committed to completing the Mythical Menagerie series first, so that will be my primary focus this year.

2025 Primary GoalsDouble down on writing time (and use my available time better)Publish Mythical Menagerie Book 3Write a monthly flash fiction pieceEstablish a Ream subscription serviceSetup direct sales on my author websiteRelease an audiobook2025 Secondary GoalsWrite regular posts on my travel blog:Complete the UK 2023 seriesComplete the SA Roadtrip 2024 seriesImprove my social media presence with regular posting

And that’s it! As always, I’m ready to make the most of the year ahead and I can’t wait to get writing. I hope you’ll join me on my journey into 2025 and beyond.

Do you set goals or make New Year’s Resolutions? How did you do in 2024? And what do you have planned for 2025? Let me know in the comments below.