Goals/Resolutions for 2018

This is probably going to be pretty rambly, so... prepare yourselves? IDK. Work with me here. Anyway, I tend to make beginning of the year bookish resolutions, but this year I decided to make goals across the board. I plan to make a video sharing these as well, but I wanted to do a blog post explaining first, since I can't film for about another week.

So, a bit of explanation here: One major struggle that I've had this year is that I've accumulated a huge pile of hobbies and interests and things I want to do, and it's gotten big enough that I'm finding it difficult to split my focus on a regular basis. I'm finding myself working on one or two at a time, letting the others fall by the wayside, and I hate doing that. So, I wanted to make some year-long goals that I can work toward. Instead of making tons and tons, I've decided to make a single goal for each hobby. Something to reach for that is attainable, but still a little challenging. That way, I'm not pushing myself too hard in any one hobby.

Without any further ado, let's jump into the list.

READING

I figured this was the best one to start with, given that it's the hobby where I give myself yearly goals every year. Usually, I give myself a challenge to read 50 books and to read 7 books with 500+ pages. And I'm not giving myself either of those this year, even though they're in the back of my mind because I do legitimately want to accomplish those this year. Instead, I've given myself a single goal to work toward year-long.

GET MY TBR DOWN TO 30% OF MY LIBRARY

My 2016 goal was to get my TBR down from 45ish% to 35%, and I accomplished that. My goal for 2017 was to get it from 35% to 30%. And now, at the beginning of 2018, it's sitting at.... 39%. Yeah, I kinda screwed that up. BUT I believe in myself, and given that it's my singular reading goal for 2018, I think I've got this. 

I'm also doing a challenge based off of booksandlala's closet unhaul series, where I watch old hauls and have to read the books from them that are still on my TBR shelf. Technically, that's not a "goal" for the year, because either I read the books or I don't-- either way, books are probably getting unhauled. BUT, it does help me to accomplish this goal. So, win win. The first video in that series is embedded below!

YOUTUBE

One major change in 2017 is that I've started a second YouTube channel! My obsession with KPop that developed throughout the year led to the creation of a KPop-centric YouTube channel and many, many KPop videos. One of which got 100K+ views. Which is mind-blowing. My goal for the year is a pretty simple one..

MAKE 100 VIDEOS

Yes, that's 2 videos a week. Approximately.  Which sounds like a lot, and it is. But I love making videos, and that's only 1 video a week for each channel, and I've been doing 2 per channel for the past couple weeks with very little difficulty. This challenge allows me to split it up however I want, so if I'm at a point where I'm working on a particularly time-intensive KPop video, I could easily make up for that by having 2 bookish video in a week, which isn't difficult at all. Really, all this challenge forces me to do is to be consistent with each of the channels, since I'll probably get burnt out if I make 100 bookish videos or 100 KPop videos. 

WRITING

At the beginning of 2017, I was sitting on a freshly-written 96K word first draft of Flirting With Fame, my NaNo project. I worked on character development and outlining sporadically throughout the year, and then in October, I started a new fanfic project, which I worked on during NaNo. And then, right at the end of the year, I finished character development and outlining and prepared to start a second draft of Flirting With Fame. So... two projects. Both of which I like. Only one goal makes sense...

FINISH A FULL DRAFT OF EITHER FLIRTING WITH FAME OR MY FANFIC

Across the board, I really just want to finish A draft this year, regardless of the project, but I've decided that I want to restrict it to these two projects because I really shouldn't jump into another one until I've finished a draft of each. In reality, I would like to finish a draft of both of these, since I really love both of them, but I'm not going to give myself that huge of a challenge for the year. So, one draft. Of one of them. I think I'm going to begin with Flirting With Fame, but IDK for sure. I've been working on it, but not consistently. So, we'll see where that goes. I might need to set up some sort of writing schedule for myself but IDK for sure. 

KOREAN

Another new thing that happened this year is that I started learning Korean. TL;DR: I've been wanting to learn a second language for a long time, and I was working on Spanish because I took Spanish in high school and college and was pretty good at it. But, when I started getting into KPop, I switched to Korean instead and have been learning Korean on and off since May. Given that it's a language, it's hard to have a definitive goal, but the one I've decided on is...

BE ABLE TO HOLD A BASIC CONVERSATION/ READ BASIC POSTS

I feel like I've simultaneously learned a lot and almost nothing at all with my Korean learning. It's incredibly frustrating. That said, I am able to understand some very basic phrases that I see popping up on posts, which I always love. But, I want to improve upon this. I'm less concerned about the conversing than with reading. Long-run, obviously I'd like to be fluent enough to be able to both speak and read the language, but obviously reading is going to be the easier one because conjugating is possibly the hardest thing about speaking a language. Anyway, my goal obviously isn't to be fluent by the end of the year, but I want to have a basic reading knowledge of the language by the end of the year. Maybe not to understand all of the conjugations or to be able to speak fluently, but I want to be able to understand enough that I don't have to tap the translate button on all of the things my favorite idols post.

MAIN BLOG

It's hard for me to come up with a goal for my blog, since I mostly just post whatever I want on here, but I decided to give myself a pretty simple one...

DO A LARGE-SCALE RANKING

A couple years ago, I did a ranking of all of the designers who'd ever been on Project Runway. It was a huge series, and it took forever. And I loved doing it. And I want to do another one. I mentioned this several times throughout 2017, but have yet to do one, so I think I need to finally do it in 2018. I've been planning on ranking my favorite RuPaul's Drag Race queens for at least a year at this point, so I think that once we get season 10, I'm going to do that. But IDK. I gotta do some sort of a big ranking. 

SPECIALIS REVELIO

This is my Harry Potter analysis blog, linked at the top of this blog, where I analyze the series chapter by chapter. I started it in 2016 and have been severely, severely slacking on it, and I want to get back to working on it. I don't want it to be my priority throughout the year, but I do want to work on it. So, I'm giving myself a pretty simple goal...

FINISH ANALYZING SORCERER'S STONE

I honestly don't remember how many chapters I've analyzed and how many I have left, but I think that if I do one per month, I can finish by the end of the year. So this isn't a big challenge that I'm giving myself. I just want to work on this blog in some form or fashion and not totally neglect it.

And, I think for now... that's it. 6 hobbies. 6 goals. Hopefully all of them are achievable. There are other things I want to do throughout the year that I'm not making as specific goals (some TV shows/movies I want to watch, some other reading goals, etc), but these are the only firmly in-place goals. They seem pretty manageable, so here's to hoping that I can complete all 6 of them in 2018.

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My NaNoWriMo Prep & Planning: 2016

NaNoWriMo is finally upon us, and I am SO. EXCITED.

I've gone all out with my planning this year- planning specific writing times each day, making goals, planning rewards, making playlists, and creating writing triggers. And, since I've been doing so much planning, I figured I'd go ahead and share some of my plans with y'all. I don't know how useful this will be, given that I haven't even started NaNoWriMo yet, let alone won. But, here it is anyway.

I guess the best way to start is by talking a bit about my history with NaNoWriMo and my current project. So, my first year of doing NaNoWriMo was 2 years ago in 2014. That year, I worked on a novel that I've been working on for several years and I got 23,000 words before eventually giving up. I then attempted to do Camp NaNoWriMo in April 2015 and July 2016, working on that same novel, giving up both times after about a week and a half. So essentially, I have been a complete failure at NaNoWriMo every single time I've tried to do it. But this time, I want to be successful. Hence all of the planning. 

This time, I'm going to be working on a completely different story. It's not a new story, but it's one that I haven't touched in several years. I already had a pretty detailed outline written for this story, so I was fortunate enough that I didn't have to do much prep in that area. I do have a full video on the topic so I'll keep this description brief and leave it to video-Kristen to give you the more in-depth details if you're curious. Essentially, this story started out as a Jonas Brothers fanfiction back when I was obsessed with them. Over the years, I've replaced them with a fictional boy band, but the story still totally reads as a very cliche, dramatic Quizilla-esque fanfic. Despite recognizing that I can't really do anything with this story, I love this really ridiculous aspect to it and am really excited about it. Further explanations can be found in the video.

Goals & Rewards

So, I'm going to be basing my daily goals off of the typical NaNoWriMo goals. I'll be trying to write the full 50,000 words, so my daily goal is 1,667 words. I've set up both a planner and a tracker in my bullet journal to keep track of the times I plan to write and my daily/total word count goals. I have a schedule that varies from day-to-day, so I have certain hours specified for writing for each day of the week. For each day, I've scheduled 2 hours of writing time, divided into 1 hour blocks. As you can see in the below picture, there are some times I tried to keep constant, but there are some days when times need to be shifted. I've also added in the possibility of extra writing time, but as long as I focus and reach my hourly goals, I shouldn't need the extra time. In fact, I don't expect to need both full hours every day if I'm really focused. 

On the left are the times I intend to write each day, and on the right is my tracker, where I have daily & overall goals and where I will fill in my actual word count each day.

So now on to the rewards for meeting my goals. I've come up with many different goals to keep myself on track. I have goals/rewards for each hour writing, for reaching my daily goal, and for winning NaNoWriMo. I think these are super helpful to get you through even the days where you don't feel like writing. So I'll lay those out for you as well as why I chose those specific goals.

Overall Goal: Write 50K words & WIN NANOWRIMO!

Reward: PlayStation 4

This is something I've saved for for quite a while, but I'm only up to 2/3 of the price. If I win NaNoWriMo, I'm going to go ahead and splurge for it because I've wanted it for so long. Your reward certainly doesn't have to be so big, but it should be something that will really motivate you to succeed.

Now on to daily and hourly rewards. The big thing for these is that you don't want to choose something that would be overwhelming if you reach your goal every single day. For example, do you really want your daily reward to be Starbucks every day if you have to pay for Starbucks every day? To combat that, I'm using a point system for my hourly and daily goals. Essentially, there will be points attached to each goal that will add up in order for me to "buy" rewards. That way, I reward myself, but I don't have to spend a lot of money on the same things day after day. I don't necessarily know that this will work for everyone, but I think this will be a good method for me. 

Daily Goal: Write 1,667 words

Reward: 5 points

Hourly Goal (for each scheduled writing time): Write 850 words

Reward: 1 point

I made my goal per hour 850 words because that evenly divides my 1667 words between my 2 hour chunks. However, when I do sit down to write for a solid hour, I find that I write somewhere around 1200 words or more, so I have a feeling that it won't take me a full 2 hours each day to get my words, but it will probably give me a chance to get ahead for those days when I inevitably don't feel like writing. 

As far as the points, essentially it's possible for me to earn up to 49 points per week. Honestly, if I get 49 points in one week, I'll give myself a bonus 1 point reward because A- I'd be totally SLAYING NaNoWriMo, and B-50 is such a nice round number. I do have rewards set up at specific point values. For example, buying a new book of my choice is 35 points. So if I meet my daily goal every single day for a week (even excluding hourly goals!), I could purchase a new book if I so desired. But there are also slightly smaller rewards, such as ordering non-fast food takeout for 25 points. 

NaNoWriMo Playlist!

This is the first time I've ever put together a playlist specifically for a project that I'm working on. There have certainly been times when I found myself only listening to certain CDs or artists while writing a story, but I never planned in advance. So, it was incredibly fun to go through my music and compile a list of songs that I feel fit my novel. 

Since I first started this as Jonas Brothers fanfic in jr. high and since it takes place in high school, almost all of the music is stuff that I listened to during that time of my life. Some of it is stuff that specifically fits the tone/plot of my story, while other songs are just there for the mood that they invoke to me-- bringing to mind that specific period of time in my life that I associate with this story. 

Now, before you jump on my case and judge me for some of the music that you find on the playlist (*cough*HannahMontana*cough*), I want to briefly remind you that some of the music on this playlist is not music that I still enjoy and listen to on a daily basis. Very soon, it'll become a staple in my life again because of the mood it invokes, but it's not something I still enjoy. I didn't really want to add some of this music to the playlist but it was way too closely tied to that time in my life and to this specific story for me to not include it.

The playlist is embedded at the beginning of this section for your perusal and listening. I also have a second, smaller playlist. Every song on that playlist comes from this larger playlist, so there's nothing new on there. However, that playlist consists of the 10ish songs that I most closely associate with my story. I'm really excited about these playlists and want to explain exactly why everything was chosen but ya know, spoilers and stuff. And it would take forever to explain all of the 50ish songs on the playlist. But feel free to ask questions and I'll go ahead and link the second, smaller playlist down below this. 

Writing Triggers

Writing triggers are another new thing that I'm going to be trying out this year. I've known for a long time about how certain scents, environments, tastes, etc. can be used as associations for things. For example, if you study for an exam while smelling a certain scent, if you smell that scent again while taking the exam, it can help recall the memories of what you studied. Don't go using this as a way to barely study for an exam and think you're definitely going to do well, but it could be a useful study tool that you can try out and see if it helps with your memory. 

Anyway, my point here is that there are a lot of other things that this can be applied to. For example, if you write at the same place, at the same time every day and light the same candle and drink the same flavor of coffee, it helps to create an entire writing atmosphere and can get you in the mood to write. These type of things are writing triggers-- things that you purposely do while writing to help get you in the mood to write or perhaps even recreate the mood of your novel. Often, these are also things that you only do while writing, so that it forms a habit and association. (I'm not an expert in these psychological matters, but I was a psych minor in my undergrad so hopefully that gives you just the slightest bit of faith in me here). 

Like I said, this is something that's new for me. I typically write kind of wherever I feel like it. Typically, that ends up being my bed. However, for NaNoWriMo, I've decided to try out some writing triggers and see how they work for me. I've decided to do all of my writing at my desk in my room (pictured below). One bad habit that I have is that because I typically do basically everything on my couch or in bed, all of my actual surfaces (dining room table, desk, etc.) have just become places to pile my junk. So I did a total overhaul of my desk and now it's a completely clean area for me to work at. So far, I've sat down for a couple hour-long writing sessions and I've been able to completely focus and get stuff written.

This is also kind of where my playlist comes into play as well. I only listen to this playlist (as well as many of the individual songs) while writing, so that should also help to get me in the mood to write. Also, if I'm especially distracted, I will listen to ASMR videos to get work done, so those also help me to focus on doing work. If you're not familiar with ASMR videos, they are basically just people making sounds for relaxation. Some people think it's weird but I really enjoy them and they help me to focus. I've linked one of my favorites below in case you're curious.

There are a lot of other things that come into play here, like the writing schedule that I showed earlier in the post. Since I already discussed that, I won't get into it too much. I also don't have a specific drink or snack for while writing, simply because I don't like eating while writing, and because I'm using caffeine as more of a reward.. and pretty much all of my drinks are caffeinated. So I guess I'll be drinking some water. Energy drinks will be saved for after writing. 

The other writing trigger that I'm very purposely trying to work into my writing routine is a specific scent for writing. Because of that, I went ahead and got a few candles to try out. I've never been someone who used candles, but I thought it would be a really great time to try them out. I went to Yankee Candle for the first time ever (which was super overwhelming- there are like 150 scents. The sales lady said so). It was really difficult to figure out what I wanted, because I wanted to pick a candle that would fit my story. Since the story is a rather lighthearted story set in the fall, so I wanted to pick a scent that matched both of those things. Something cozy and warm, but sweet. I found 2 there and another at Target that I liked, so I went ahead and got the smallest size of each so that I can try them out and get a larger one once I feel like I can commit to one.

L to R: Autumn Gathering, Cashmere Woods, and Mountain Lodge

So... I think that's about it. I mean, it should be after this giant post. I just really wanted to make sure that I got everything in here, both for myself and for y'all. I'm really excited about NaNoWriMo this year, and I wanted to go all out in order to succeed. Let me know down in the comments what all you did to prepare for NaNoWriMo this year! Did you do lots of outlining and planning, or are you pantsing it this year? Do you have a reward system set up, and if so, what is it? Are there any writing triggers that work for you? Let me know down in the comments! Good luck, everyone! I hope you all have a great NaNoWriMo this year and I hope that you all win!

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