2017 Goals – How did I do?

At the start of the year I wrote a post about my goals for the year. All of them. From my craft goals, to blogging, to reading, to Spanish, to my etsy shop. All of the things I planned to do this year. You can check it out here if you want to but I’m about to go over them all again so I suggest just staying put. I also wrote a mid year post about them to check in but it’s the end of the year (when the hell did that happen?) so here we are again. And so to the big question….

How did I do?

Well let’s go through the sections that I split it up into.

---

Writing

Keep writing – write two chapters a month

Last year my goal was to write 1 chapter a month and at the start of the year that, for me, was scary. But I did it and more. So this year I said I wanted to up that to 2 a month. Seeing as I’d done it a few times already and I had just written 13 chapter in a month for Nano, I thought that would be possible. Generally speaking I’ve done this. I only did one in April but that was because I went on holiday and that was planned.

Keep writing my Harry Potter fanfic

Check.

I have come to a little stand still. Because I had an issue with one of my chapters and then Nano happened so I concentrated on my original story for that but I’m back with Harry Potter, fixing that chapter and ready to move on and write more. The whole of year one is up. And I’m so proud of that. This is the blurb and you can read the whole of first year on fan fiction or on ao3 if you want to check it out.

Sebastian Fitzroy knows better than most that the world is not split into good people and death eaters, but what he’s trying to work out is if you can be both.

Its Seb’s turn to go to Hogwarts with his friends Arcturus Lestrange and Matt Rosier. He gets sorted into slytherin with Draco, meets some red-headed twins and befriends a bushy haired girl who cant stop asking him questions

If you can’t tell, it’s a Harry Potter story without Harry Potter in it. I have ten chapters written of year two so far and I’m still finding writing it exciting and can’t wait to share more with people. Thank you to everyone who has read or commented on it.

Finish my prequel story

When I wrote my mid year goals I was just one chapter off finishing this. Well luckily I managed that one chapter and it’s done. This was the first time I’ve ever written a full story. First draft from start to finish. It was 105k and I am so proud I’ve done this.

Do a first edit of my prequel

I did a first edit and it is only a first edit. It’s a prequel so it’s not really meant to be read. It was for me, but I did go and fix auto correct, made a note of all the facts and made sure they didn’t change (someone’s hair colour changed, and the number of sails on my ship also changed!) and I added in some descriptions when I realised that, out of about a dozen main characters, I had literally only mentioned one had brown hair, one had brown eyes and one had pale skin. I know what they look like, okay? I didn’t feel the need to add it in the text apparently. Also I fixed someone’s name suddenly changing. I have a character called Alfie, but in my Harry Potter fic I have a character called Archie (Arcturus) and I got confused half way through.

I also hoped that I would manage to start my next book but I said that it would depend if I was ready come Nano.

Well, I was in the right place to do Nano again. I finished my prequel story in July which gave me 3 months to prepare, finalise the plot, point of views, and start outlining ready for November. And I’m currently half way through this story. 11 chapters have been written and there are 9 chapters left. (I realise that’s more than half but I’m expecting the chapters to get a bit longer so word wise its probably half way)

So, all my writing goals get a big tick.

---

Books and blogging

Keep blogging

Hi! I’m still here. Aren’t you all just so happy to see me?

Post a bit more regularly

I think last year I was posting about every 5 or 6 days and I wanted to try to post every 4 days but wasn’t sure if I’d be able to stick to it. Well. I did. Mostly. Every now and then there was a five day gap simply because of sticking to my Sal update schedule. My parents did have to deal with me complaining about not knowing what to write sometimes but I think I’m doing good. (but seriously, for those of you who blog more frequently. Just. How?!?!) I see some of you blogging every day and I’m just awed by you. But every four days is a good frequency for me.

Last October I was super pumped to reach 200 followers but this year I’ve hit 450! That’s over double in a year and that’s just showing me how much putting that little bit more effort in is making and encouraging me to keep it up. I love interacting with you all.

Read at least 40 books, hopefully 48

I hit 40 books in July when I posted my mid year update. And changed my goal to 52 as that’s something I’d always wanted to do. 52 weeks in a year, one book a week. I figured I’d reach it pretty easily, I mean if I read 40 books in the first half I can read 12 in the second half. But I don’t like setting book targets too high because I want to enjoy the reading not feel pressured. Also I was expecting a slump and the fact Nano was going to happen meant I’d likely not read much in November. So 52 books. Well in the end, or right now because there’s still a couple of weeks left, I’ve managed to read 62 so far.

I was right in guessing I wouldn’t read another 40, and I did have a couple of slumps but I’m still really happy about reading that much. The most I’ve ever read in a year before was 46.

And I’ll be doing a post about the best books of the year at the beginning of January so stick around for that. It’s going to be harder than usual as I’ve read so much more than I usually have!

Books and Blogging also gets a big tick (But stick with me if you’re feeling a little annoyed at me right now, I didn’t achieve all my goals.)

---

Business

Put more energy into my shop & Have more listings

My mid year update told you all that my cutter broke, which meant I had a good few months where I couldn’t make any cards and my business took a backseat while I got a new cutter. But! My new cutter is awesome. I’ve figured out how to use it and have made a load more card designs for my shop. And thankfully sales have picked up too,

The first half of the year I had 15 sales and was lucky if I got 2 or 3 a month but since July I’ve had 47 sales and I’ve reached 80 Sales on etsy! I’ve has a couple of months now where I’ve has ten sales a month, which is so completely awesome! Things have slowed down for Christmas but I’m really hoping they’ll pick up again in January. And I’m so happy things are finally working out and people are wanting my cards and cross stitch patterns! Thank you to everyone who has supported me by buying from me or sharing my shop.

---

 

Crafts

Make some small cross stitches as well as large projects

Four magical pin cushions, and a very colorful Peter pan quote. Unfortunately the Christmas cross stitch that I also mentioned in my mid year goals ended up being a lot bigger than it was in my head so I’m still stitching that. But I like it and when I eventually finish it it’ll go up in my shop.

Make my mum a bag

Already did this by mid year. Really like it.

Make my dad another scarf

I had to do quite a lot of experimenting to find a stitch I liked. But I found one, the camel stitch and if you’ve been following my blog you’re probably bored of me mentioning it by now because not only did I crochet my dad the scarf but I also used the stitch in a cowl for my mum and wrote a tutorial for how to do the stitch here. I finally wove the ends in for dads scarf a couple of weeks ago ready for his birthday at the start of the month.

 

 

New crafts

Make my first quilt

I had made 8 blocks out of 24 by the mid year update and I’ve made… Zero since. Okay no, I started the next lot (I’m doing four blocks in each of the six fabrics so one lot is four blocks) and I did finish piecing all four tops but then…. I’d like to say it was just Nano that side tracked me but it was before then. I spent most of September stitching christmas stockings for my friend’s birthday in October and then a friend came over to visit for a few days which distracted me and THEN Nano happened and now its Christmas….. So no, I definitely didn’t make my first quilt this year but I will get back to this though.

Quilt a table runner

Check! I did manage to do this but wow. I can’t believe that this was this year. It seems so long ago! In fact, I did this in February but apparently that’s still this year. It was my first attempt at free motion quilting and also my first attempt at the join as you go method that I will, at some point, be using on my quilt.

My first quilt was the main target here, the table runner was only to help me practice so this section was a big fat fail.

---

Spanish

Keep a Spanish diary every day

I did this everyday ….. until the end of July when I decided to stop. But hear me out. I was using this notebook to do it and I filled in the whole notebook, that’s 200 pages of Spanish. It’s just, I only do so many things? So there was a lot of – I read a book. I did some cross stitch. I did some sewing on my quilt. I didn’t sleep. I feel tired. And so on and so on. I learnt it all and it was awesome but I ended up repeating the same things over and over again which is good for learning but I stopped learning new things. So when i finished my notebook i decided to switch it up and do something else. I have a KS3 revision and work book from ages ago that I never used and thought learning actual conversation things would be a good new avenue to explore. So I switched over and I started that and was planning on doing one page a day. But I only managed to do like eight pages before I stopped. It wasn’t a habit yet and I failed at making it a habit. So my change of plan failed but I still think doing 200 days worth of Spanish is still a big step up from not doing it!

Find somewhere to check my work

Nope. This one failed. But I learnt a lot anyway, even if some of it is probably wrong….

---

 

Phew. That was a lot of goals to get through and kudos to you if you read through it all! I think generally I did good. The most exciting thing for me is the writing. I’m super happy that I’ve managed to read more too but finishing that first ever first draft is definitely the thing I’m most proud of.

What about you? What’s your proudest moment this year? Did you make goals or resolutions and how did they go? Whether its blogging, reading, writing, crafts, anything. I’d love to hear about it.

Bloglovin / Twitter / Etsy / Goodreads