New Year, New Journal! 

I celebrated the start of 2024 by getting rid of my old progress journal and jumping into a brand new one. This brand new one has three sections and a LOT of cool features. Let’s see how it worked for tracking progress. 

Section 1: Individual Projects

For January I decided to focus on the short story collection. My goal was to finish drafting the entire (10 story) collection. Here’s how it looked when the year started. 

Here’s how it looked when January ended. 

I managed to fully draft all the stories, get the entire anthology formatted the way I wanted, and even started editing. 

Now, in February, I plan to keep that momentum up and get this baby edited! I have a good vibe going. 

Section 2: Monthly Progress

I cannot possibly make progress on these projects without looking at the months individually and setting some goals. So, I set up pages to dedicate to each month.

For January my goal was to write every day. I even had a cute little tracker to help me check on them. Here’s what that looked like before the month started.

Here’s how it looked on the 31st. 

I missed 2 days of writing. Do I have excuses for those? Of course. But I don’t want to focus on those. I want to celebrate my 29 days of writing this month and the 30,000 words I wrote. In February, I plan to try again to write each day. 

Section 3: Reading

Of course, reading is a HUGE part of my routine and my life. You might have noticed I logged over 4,000 words on book reviews in January. So what did I read?

15 total books (it worked out to about 176 pages per day). Everything I meant to read, a few bonus review copies I was able to squeeze in, and a lot of stuff I was happy to get to. 

Here’s those covers, because covers are always fun!

Best book of the month: No Land for Heroes by CM Black. This blend of fantasy and western was an AMAZING journey. The characters are awesome and the story really sings. I listened to the audiobook but it’s also available in other formats. TOTALLY recommended. 

That’s my January progress. I’m hoping to carry this crazy momentum I have going into February! Wish me luck.