2018 in review

In a few short days we will bid farewell to 2018! This will be my last blog post for the year, and I’d like to take the opportunity to reflect on my key accomplishments in terms of my writing, reading, blogging and understanding of social media. Thanks in advance for reading, and if you’ve written your own 2018-in-review post, let me know. I’d love to check it out!!

~ ON WRITING ~

Holding Up the Sky – a contemporary YA novel

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I had big plans for this WIP this year, but the current draft took longer to write than I expected—which is fine, since I am immensely happy with the final result! Here’s how I went on my 2018 goals:

Complete line edits and the third draft—which I finally achieved during NaNoWriMo. The novel now stands at just over 84k words!

Seek advice from beta readers—didn’t happen. I intend to kick-start the beta reading process in early 2019. Are you interested?

Submit to agents / publishers—also didn’t happen on account of the above not occurring. This has been pushed back to the second half of next year.

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Graceborn – an epic fantasy series

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I am SO EXCITED about this WIP and how things are starting to come together! I didn’t get as much actual writing done as I’d planned, but the world building is now almost done. Here’s how I went on my 2018 goals:

Complete the first draft of Blood of Old—formerly called Old Blood, I finished the draft of the series’ first book back in March.

Complete copy edits and write second draft—I’d aimed to have Blood of Old ready for beta reading, but…well…it’s not. It should be ready by mid-2019.

Commence the first draft of book 2—also didn’t happen, but the plot is coming together in my head. This will certainly happen next year!

Publish a few excerpts / quotes on this website—I did it! You can read the excerpts here and here.

World building—was not on my original list of goals, but I’ve spent much of the last 9 months developing the world of Graceborn and I’m quite proud of it 😊

~ ON READING ~

Although there a still a few days left, I can say with 100% confidence that I have read the following number of books in 2018:

📚 78 books 📚

You can see the full list of books, and all its related statistics, on my Goodreads. Here’s how I went on my 2018 reading goals:

Read 35 new books—which I did relatively early on in the year, so I adjusted my reading target as follows…

Read 60 books—which I also completed. Having read 78 books, I effectively completed 30% more books than I originally intended!

Last week, I published my favourite reads of 2018 here on my blog. I listed some of my favourite books in each genre, as well as my top ten favourites overall. Those top ten are:

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~ ON BLOGGING ~

2018 was really big for me in terms of blogging, mainly because it was my first full year! In August, I celebrated my one year blogiversary, which felt like quite a momentous occasion. Many thanks to everyone who has participated! Some of my key blogging statistics for 2018 are:

Of course, statistics aren’t the be-all and end-all, but they are quite fun to track. The most important thing is to have fun (which I certainly have), and to work towards your goals. Here’s how I went on my blogging goals for 2018:

Publish one blog post per week—since setting this goal in early February, I have achieved it! Including this one, I have released 50 new posts this year!

New and improved content—as you can see in the “Categories” segment in the sidebar, I have expanded my blog content to include various types of post.

~ ON SOCIAL MEDIA ~

I had a blast on social media this year! It’s been an incredible learning experience, and I’ve immensely enjoyed connecting with writers and readers across the world. In terms of specific goals, I only really had one, which is as follows:

Subscribe to new social media platforms—I joined Instagram, particularly for the #bookstagram community, and have started investigating Pinterest.

I have been posting regularly on all four of my social media sites (links in the sidebar and top right corner), and my key statistics are given below. Feel free to drop me a link to your own profiles if I’m not following you already!

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Overall, 2018 has been an incredibly busy year! While I may not have reached all my writing goals, I’m still pleased with my progress—especially since I’ve exceeded many of my other goals. And the main thing is that I’ve enjoyed myself. Thank you to everyone who has gotten involved in my blog and I wish you all a safe and happy New Year!

What were your accomplishments for 2018? Did you meet your writing goals? How many books did you read? Most importantly, did you have fun?!

Rebecca Alasdair