Happy New Year everyone!
Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year celebration.
One of the most talked about subjects regarding the end of this particular year is that it is the end of a decade. Now normally I don’t make too much of a big deal regarding New Years but the decade ending was something of a special moment. I saw people posting progress updates from the beginning of the decade to the end of the decade which was pretty inspiring. It got me considering my own progress through the decade.
While it’s not exactly what I had in mind, I am pretty happy with how the decade finished for my personal development. The most important target for me in the previous decade was publishing my first book and, on April 7th 2017, that became a reality when I published The Legend of Nariko: The Mark of Silverfrost. However it never really had that impact until a few days ago when the decade ended. It’s strange that I would find recognizing past accomplishments the most impactful reflection at the end of the decade, but there is some merit to acknowledging them.
I think it’s easy to lose sight of that as we push forward towards improving our skills and abilities.
That being said, goals for the new decade would be to improve upon the foundation of 2019. I want to continue writing more stories, the main goal being to finish The Legend of Nariko series. Currently it will be an eight book series and as a result will take a while to complete. Taking a page from Brandon Sanderson (one of my role models), I want to try and start posting progress updates to keep myself accountable while also providing updates for those interested.
The current timeline being:
2020 – The Legend of Nariko: The Goddess Prophecy (Book 2)
2021 to 2022 – The Legend of Nariko: Hellfire Rising (Book 3)
2022 to 2023 – The Legend of Nariko: The Black Anvil (Book 4)
2024 – The Legend of Nariko: Paladin’s Oath (Book 5)
2025 – The Legend of Nariko: The Hailstorm King (Book 6)
2026 – The Legend of Nariko: Judgement (Book 7)
2027 – The Legend of Nariko: The Last Goddess (Book 8)
I’m also currently working on a YA Science Fiction novel based on Arthurian Mythology (because I love it, I really do). I want to finish and publish that early next year hopefully.
Now the first thing that comes to mind is that this publishing schedule is rather ambitious but I think it really is achievable. However it requires a change in schedule and focus. I realize that these publishing goals likely mean I won’t be able to do book reviews as aggressively as I wanted to do in 2019 which I think may actually be a good thing. A book review a week was difficult to maintain as it requires a lot of time spent reading which caused some stress and difficulty, especially when trying to also write books and complete artwork at the same time.
The schedule I imagine setting would be:
Book Review
Artwork post/update
Book Review
Update on writing goals and book progress
Book Reviews help me to understand and learn how to write better while also providing some insight into various books. The Artwork posts I’m debating as it’s not always related to the books I want to publish. Finally the update on writing goals and book progress is to help keep on track for meeting the book publishing schedule I set out for myself. I may change this schedule to reflect more interesting content (the book reviews will stay on schedule as they are very useful).
Let’s make the next decade fantastic! 🙂
– Raphael
Raph's Cozy Musings 