With a year coming to an end, it’s time to look both back and forward. Let’s see how I did with my 2019 plans and what I’d like to manage in 2020.

Writing

2019 summary

My plan for 2019 was to get my debut out into the world. If you read my blog regularly, you know I haven’t managed that. I started 2019 with the first round of beta in progress. Now, I’m in early third beta round – which I hope to be the last.

There were some small steps aside from my main WIP – the second book went through a quick round of revision that brought it from ~235k down to ~196k and I wrote an early draft of the first few chapters for Legend of Sagittus which I plan to be a look into the backstory of my main trilogy.

Also, with this summary done, I won’t be making a separate December recap.

2020 plans

Logically, I’m keeping the 2019 plan to finish #1. First step will be to finish the current beta round, then it’ll be time to see what the next step will be. If this beta stage demans only small changes and minimal or no changes to the story itself, then I’d likely wrap it up and start preparing the release. Finding a cover designer is something I’d like to do in Spring (and I realize I said the same a year ago but, without the story finished, I found little reason in such a move).

And I’d also like to get some work done on #2 – the third draft at least. In the best case, to have it beta-ready by the time #1 is out in the world.

Reading

2019 summary

I’ve repeated the plan from 2018 – 25 books. The result was not as simple to judge as it was in 2018, though. The final result is: 25 books read, 1 book DNF’ed, 2 finished beta swaps, and 2 beta swaps in-progress.

2020 plans

I am a bit reluctant to repeat the ’25 books’ goal for simple reason – my reading dropped in 2019. Not so much in the book count but in length. Beta swaps had some impact on it (they’re slower than ‘normal’ reading) but part of it was that I was just poor at getting myself to read at times. If I focus more on beta swaps and my writing, it’s likely I might drop below 25 books per year.

I’ll also try to keep posting monthly updates as I did in 2019.

Hiking

2019 summary

I had a vague goal for this: 30-35 hikes and target range at 700-800km.

I had way overshot both – 34 one-day hikes, one extended weekend (3 days) and one 8-day hiking holiday sums up to total 45 individual hikes.

The sum, however, was what blasted all my other years apart. 1033km in total, beating my previous best from 2016 (which was at 945km), let alone 2017 and 2017 which were around 750km.

2020 plans

By the end of 2019, I’ve felt the record-breaking season in my legs. A lot. I guess the optimal ‘serving’ for my body in the current state would be somewhere around 850-900km.

Thus, I’m staying low with my plans – if I drop back to ~750km, I won’t mind to give my body an easier year. It’s not just about the rest, though – the stable 2019 weather drained my store of ideas where to go a lot so I might struggle planning my hikes in 2020. The fact that train schedules faced major changes on some lines will also affect my planning.

Blog

To be honest, I don’t really have any major standalone plan for this. I’ll probably try to keep it at two posts per week though there’s a chance it might drop to just one.

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Well, I guess that’s my look at both 2019 and 2020. I hope your 2019 was at least decent and that 2020 will be great for you – whatever your own plans are.