I love planning goals. It’s the way in which the dream goes from a hopeful thought to a concrete reality, and it’s a process I very much enjoy.
Reflecting on my 2019-2020 goals had me feeling more emotional than I realized I would. I accomplished a lot of what I set out to do in that I started querying (hooray!) and I completed the revision of SB I needed to do in order to begin querying it. I did complete the Nanowrimo challenge, but it came directly on the heels of losing my Papa, which made November and December very difficult months. I left 2019 knowing that I would need to slow down at the beginning of 2020. My brain and my body were asking for a breather and I took it in the form of silencing most of my notifications on my phone, clearing out a lot of my feeds of anything that didn’t bring me joy, and took a period of rest. It was much needed and gave me space to breathe and heal. As February drew to a close and March kicked in, I started to feel the pull of the writing, and wanted to get into that work I’d set aside. And then the whole world changed. March and April were challenging months for us and the world, and we made our way through them as best we could. Toward the end of April and beginning of May we’d all mostly acclimated to this new way of life and as we really got into the swing of warm NH spring, everything felt a little better. The beginning of May also is when I really began to kick back into high-gear with my writing. In the past four weeks I’ve revised seven chapters of my Nanowrimo 2018 manuscript and written six chapters in my new story. My 2019-2020 writing year was certainly not what I had planned, but everything I accomplished was more than enough.
I’m really excited about crafting and moving into my 2020-2021 writing goals. Many of those goals are ones I’m carrying with me from last year, but there are new projects and growth I want to make as well. I plan to finish and revise each of the projects I currently have open. I also will definitely be completing Nanowrimo 2020 and that manuscript will be the third book in a series I inadvertently wrote in the last two years. I am so beyond excited to bring those characters together (who all reside in the same world as I came to realize, hence the inadvertent trilogy) and see what happens to all of them given time to work together. I also plan to continue searching for representation for my stories and finding my way to publication.
This week, beyond finalizing my goals for 2020-2021, I managed to finish the sixth chapter in the new manuscript and I typed the revisions for the few chapters of my Nanowrimo 2018 manuscript. I printed out the next few chapters of my Nanowrimo 2018 manuscript to revise and then want to write a few more chapters in my new manuscript before printing those out to revise. I’m in a tricky spot in the new novel, where I’m working to show how my main character’s world works, to show her day-to-day while also introducing this problem she’s got to navigate at the same time. I want to give back-story and show her interacting in her world enough for us to know and understand why this thing that’s happening is such a problem and has raised the stakes so high for her future. At the same time, I need to show this other character and how his trajectory so clashes with her own, even though they must complete this thing that so heavily relies on the other. It’s exciting, but tricky, and I’m hoping to make some headway on it this week. My girls are also done remote learning for this year, which means we will be out in the sunshine crafting, playing, writing and reading a lot more often. 🙂
We are all in this together and we must stand by each other to make this world a better place. Spread kindness and light this week and know that you are important.
Happy Writing!
Nikole Breault 
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