Goals for 2025 - Annie Percik

It’s no secret that I’ve been struggling with finding the joy in my writing of late. Drafting my current novel is largely going really well, but I am definitely looking forward to finishing it and sending it off for feedback.

A while ago, I contemplated what it would feel like, once this draft is done, to just take a break from writing and not put it on my to-do list for a while. It was an appealing thought – and it would be an interesting experiment to see how much I missed it and whether or not I came back to it naturally after a certain period.

Then, it was the end of the year, when all the reflecting and goal-setting happens – which is my absolute favourite time of year! I have a lot of annual rituals and workshops and processes I work through to look back on the year just gone and make plans for what I want to achieve in the next 12 months.

But none of that would mean anything, if my only goal was to finish my current novel draft and then – stop.

I also came up with an exciting idea for a short story anthology I want to write, as well as realising there are a lot of other creative projects I have on the go that I want to continue with, even if I don’t start a new big writing endeavour.

And so – writing goals for 2025 were born, as I knew they inevitably would be…

The other members of my business mastermind group are all following the 12-week year structure for goal-setting, where you come up with goals for 12 weeks only, then take a week to review, reflect and readjust, before setting more goals for the next 12 weeks. That seemed like an excellent way to stop me from getting over-excited and over-ambitious, as well as building in regular reflection periods to see how I feel about anything.

This is what I came up with for the first 12 weeks of 2025:

GOAL 1: Mindset

I did a lot of reflective work a few days before Christmas, preparing for the five days we were going to be spending with family and my main goal for that trip was to shift my mindset away from snap negative reactions that would send me spiralling (purely due to my own childish tendencies). And, for the most part, it was really successful – plus (who knew?) it’s actually quite nice to be cheerful instead of grumpy!

SO – my BIGGEST goal for the first 12 weeks of 2025 is to try and maintain, develop and cultivate that positive mindset generally throughout life!

GOAL 2: Novels

A Wizard Calls My Name:

Finish first draft by 22 February
Send to beta readers for feedback

A Darkness Divided:

Go through all received feedback – starting in March
Build a comprehensive revision plan
Start rewrites

GOAL 3: Short Stories

Hope anthology – draft, polish, submit (already completed!)
Broken Succession – go through feedback, rewrite and resubmit by end of March
New flash fiction anthology idea – try writing two stories per week till end of Feb then review and reassess (seven stories already written on retreat!)

GOAL 4: Business Opportunities

Workshops:

Run first Tarot workshop at retreat at end of January
Discuss options for co-hosting workshops with writing coach friend
Potentially join his business to help him expand

Retreats:

Assist with running retreat at end of January
Discuss potential business idea with friends
See where this goes…

CIEP:

Sign up for Proofreading 2 online course in February
Complete course by end of March
Resubmit for Professional status in April

GOAL 5: Schedule

Try out new weekly schedule from mid-January
Mon/Tue/Thu – paid editing work am, own projects pm (novels, short stories, CPD, submissions, blogs)
Wed/Fri – podcast stuff, solo RPG, Tarot, journalling
Sat – when free, do a writing day in a cafe (invite others) – novels, short stories, anecdotes book

GOAL 6: Attitude

Treat all these goals lightly
Remember this is all stuff I am choosing to do
Almost none of it has hard deadlines
If it stops being fun – take a break, take stock, readjust mindset or schedule or both

The positive mindset and treating it all lightly are the highest priorities, as they will affect and inform everything else. And I’m planning to be very conscious about the risk of taking on too much and potentially getting overwhelmed. Rest and relaxation are also important!

Watch this space – and we’ll see how it goes…

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