Lots of people are talking today about New Year’s Resolutions. I haven’t always set a lot of importance upon them, but at the beginning of this year I did make some resolutions.
Today, I thought I should revisit them and evaluate my “performance”.
#1. Get 500 followers on Twitter.
Check! I started the year on about 317. Today, I have just over 3100.
#2. Write a review for every book I read.
So, there were two books for which I did not leave a review. They were… how do I say this nicely? The reviews would not have been positive, nor would they have helped to sell any further books.
I did, however, email both authors with my responses and comments. Hopefully they made some changes, hired an editor, and improved the quality of their book.
Goodreads tells me that I read and reviewed 68 books, so that’s a fair effort!
I’m checking that one off, too.
#3. Develop my book blog.
This is something of which I am very proud. Book Squirrel has spent the year featuring books, authors, new releases, and book reviews. On December 15th, Book Squirrel announced the inaugural Golden Squirrel Awards for Indie books of excellence.
This is a definite check!
#4. Publish two more books.
Done! In fact, I added five (Five! How the heck did I manage that?) more books to my author’s shelf, two in a new genre for me, and two novellas in a wonderful collection of reinvented fairy tales. I also have two poems published in two different anthologies, one on forgiveness and one on fairy tales and folklore. Whew!
#5. Be nicer to people.
In all honesty, I’ve tried. I haven’t always succeeded. But when I wrote this on my note almost a year ago, I had no idea just how much grace or forbearance I was going to need in order to survive some of the treatment I’ve received this year, either.
I want to give this a check, but with a “work in progress” disclaimer.
All in all, I think I’ve done okay. Some of these will feed into my resolutions for 2018. I’ll be posting about those tomorrow!
If you have suggestions, or reflections on your own resolutions, I’d love for you to leave a comment below.
WordyNerdBird 
Wow, firstly huge congratulations!! Secondly, this is hugely inspiring to me. I’ve never really done New Years resolutions, but I think this year I’ll give myself 1 or 2!
Well done wordynerdbird! It’s a brave thing to publish and reflect. It’s inspired me to do the same… thank you SO much…bless you, k
Thank you, Kees!
Congrats on your list. Great job! My list for 2019 is going to be a little different. I’m going to try to be kinder to myself. To listen to my intuition more. And myself more. I 2019 I want to figure who I really am and what i want and need. I’m going to concentrate on myself next year.
After the year I’ve had, some of those thi
After the year I’ve had in 2018, some of those things will be on my 2019 list, too.