Five years ago, I wrote one of those “where I want to be in five years” posts for my blog. Today, I thought I’d take a look at where I wanted to be versus where I ended up.
WHAT I WANTED TO HAVE DONE IN FIVE YEARS
—Publish Second Nature
—Publish Full Circle
—Publish Retail Rhapsody
—Figure out how to use Scrivener
WHAT I ACTUALLY DID IN FIVE YEARS
Well, if we only look at the above list, then I only accomplished the first item on it. Second Nature was published in 2018. I think. It was somewhere around then anyway. Within the last five years, at least, which is the point.
I only just recently finished Full Circle‘s first draft (like in the last couple of months), and Retail Rhapsody remains a work in progress. I don’t know how or why Scrivener made the list at all, but yeah…it mostly remains a mystery to me and I’m okay with that (Kudos to you, if you’re one of those writers who love it. I will never be one of you).
But I did do one thing that wasn’t on this list—something that wasn’t even on my radar at all back in December 2016. And that was publish Love & Other Lies, probably better known as the Terrible Romance Novel. I didn’t decide to do anything with that project until January 2017 and didn’t set it loose upon the world until 2020.
WHAT I HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS
—Publish Full Circle
—Publish Terrible Romance Sequel
—Finish the first draft of Adventures In Babysitting
—Finish the first draft of Threnody
WHAT’S MY PLAN TO GET IT ALL DONE
Yeah. Like I have a plan. Except for this, maybe…
And hey—there are certainly worst plans in the world. Maybe this one could work for me?
All right, that’s going to do it for me today. And knowing me the way I do, this will likely end up being my last post of the year. Thanks for stopping by, not just today but all year long.
Stay safe and well…and whatever you may celebrate this time of year, I hope you have a very happy holiday.
See you next year, y’all…
I couldn’t get Scrivener to work for me either. I wanted to because it seems great and so many people love it, but no matter what I tried, I just couldn’t get into it.
Love the “snowman”! 🙂
Enjoy the holidays, MJ!
I had the same experience with Scrivener. And again, I know a lot of people who love it, but I just don’t think it’s for me.
I guess I figured out Scrivener for you. I took a day (or two) and just worked through their tutorial. I did have to spend some time, but now I swear by it. But, whatever works for you is what works for you.
Good for you for making a five-year plan. And that’s a really good average for those sorts of things. In five years, so many things change that what was a priority before isn’t so much anymore.
Life is perpetually throwing curve balls. I find your five year accomplishments to be quite impressive, even if some of them weren’t actually part of the plan!
I read your post and went searching through mine because I was certain I’d written a “goals” post some time ago that said what I wanted to do in 5 years. Well, I found it… back in 2013. I cackled at the sheer ridiculousness of what I put down. It was clearly written before my husband got let go from his job, before I got rear-ended, before my daughter was hospitalized with pneumonia, before I knew my son would be flipping tables at school, before I realized the revision hell book 2 would get stuck in.
I’m glad you’re doing much better with your 5 year goals than I did with mine!
You do better than me when it comes to long term plans. I’m asked about what I want done in five years and I tend to remind them I never know what I want done tomorrow.
I use Scrivener, but I don’t think I use it the way it’s supposed to be used. I just like the way you can move stuff around so easily in there. I think there are a whole lot of other features too, but I’ve never wanted to use them, so I never learned how…