Why in all hell would I want to revisit that awful year??? Well, here’s the thing, back in 2019, I managed to get some Blogmas posts up during December. And as I was pondering what to do for my next post, I decided to look through the old ones and see if there was any I could possibly revisit. And I came across this post where I talked about what a good year 2019 had been (Disney Paris, I miss you every day) and my loose ‘goals’ for 2020.
I know some of them I…will not have achieved. But I thought I’d take a look and see where I stand now compared to when I wrote it, and how many of these ‘goals’ I hit in 2020 or 2021.
Back in 2019, I’d managed to get 100 followers by the end of the year, and I hoped to hit 200 in 2020. I’m not sure when I hit 200, but I am now over 300! For me, that really is awesome, as I never expected to have so many people following my blog! Thank you to everyone who does.
I also spoke briefly about Goodreads. I was on 65 at the time of writing the post and hoping to hit over 50 in 2020. Thanks to, well, everything, I really exceeded 50 in 2020. I kept increasing the challenge, and eventually ended up with a goal of 100, and reading 127. That’s really impressive for me – in 2018 I’d read 52, so a massive different. 2021 has been pretty good too. At the end of 2019 I was increasing my general reading time, having taken on arcs. This year, thanks to, well, everything, not only did I reach my goal of 50, I’m currently on 91. I’m really pleased with that. But this time I haven’t extended the goal, and have just kept it at 50.
Back in 2019, I was very hopeful about submitting short stories. Unfortunately, with…everything going on (yes that’s my excuse for everything) that fell by the side. I haven’t submitted multiple stories for a while, though I did write for a couple of specific anthologies and got acceptances, was invited to another, and am currently putting together an anthology with S.H. Cooper. So even though I had a small number of publications and didn’t submit as much, I’m still happy about where I am writing-wise.
2020 also saw changes in for me when myself and Ellen took over Divination Hollow, and despite some difficulties, the website goes from strength and strength, and we took on a few more people to the team in 2021. I absolutely love the site, and I adore working with Ellen and the rest of the team, and I’m super excited for our events on the site next year, too!
Even though I didn’t achieve my 2020 goals as such, I’m still okay with how things are going now. 2021 was a strange year, and I am partly looking forward to putting it behind me. And I’m not going to dwell on the ‘goals’ I didn’t reach, but be happy for the things that happened I’d never even planned for.
Unwrapping Words 