Monday Musings: New Year, New Goals

It's a new year, and while waiting for a new week/month/year isn't the best way to set a goal in place, I'm doing the new year's resolution thing again this year because that's how things have come together around here.

But first, a little self-examination about last year's resolutions.

How did I do last year?

I laid out my personal reading resolution here on the blog. And . . . I did okay.

I kept myself to the read a book to buy a book resolution, mostly. Christmas money kind of did that in.

I didn't do so well with the read a book on the shelf before adding one, though I did switch books out more often than outright adding more. And I only read 12 out of the 62 books on my shelf that were there at the start of the year. That's less than 20% if you're keeping track (and given that my Goodreads total for the year is over 90, I really should have tried to squeeze in more of the original shelf).

But I read more than 20 books beyond my original goal on Goodreads, so I'm not doing too badly.

This Year's Writing Goals

• Edit Albion Apparent and get it to the publisher. This is my main writing goal for the year.
• Finish writing "Paper and (T)horns". This has been an ongoing goal since April of last year.
• Write/edit/complete 1-3 other short works. Just because I want to complete some things in between Albion books.
• Finish my Fisher King cycle of Arthurian poems. I don't get the poetry bug often, but it hit me earlier this year, and I want to finish this work since it's a chance to examine Arthurian legends from a slightly different angle than the Albion books.

This Year's Art Goals

• Design 100 Myths. As mentioned in the survey results, I'm going to be designing 100 mythical beings (primarily humanoid, so we won't be seeing my personal Fantastic Beasts book). I have a running list of ideas, but if you have any mythical beings (including deities, demigods, heroes/heroines, fairy tale and folklore characters) that you'd like to suggest for my series, leave them in the comments below! This isn't necessarily a "complete it in 1 calendar year" goal as much as it is an ongoing project to keep me trying new things with my art.
• Try new things. I have new art supplies (see this month's upcoming Watercolor Wednesday post) that I'm going to be playing with, and I want to stretch myself further with both drawing and painting.

This Year's Reading Goals

• Read 75-100 books. Including rereads. This is basically the same as last year.
• Read more than 20% of my bedroom shelf. Because we can always improve.
• Clear out some of the Kindle to-read pile that's just been mounting up while I ignore the discount ebooks I buy.

This Year's Blog Goals

• More reviews of all kinds.
• A new series going through rereads (and first reads) of Shakespeare's plays. This will be a semi-regular feature that may link up with some other bloggers. I'm still working out details, but it's going to happen because I need more Shakespeare in my life.
• Finish the Osten Ard and O'Brien read-through series. I realize these have been left hanging for a while, and I will get them completed this year.

And that's it. It seems like a lot more than it did when I started typing, but maybe I can find the balance to keep it all going.

Are you setting any new goals for the new year? Tell me about them!