A Janus Look
This time of year I like to take a Janus look at my goals.
Janus, looking backward and forward in time.
Janus was the Roman god of beginnings and endings. He looked into the future and to the past. So, as we end one year and begin another, I like to take a Janus look both back and forward in time.
I write goals every year and, as the year winds to an end, I enjoy looking back at those old goals and seeing how I have done. That look into my past helps me set goals for the coming year. While for us mortals, every look forward in time is seen as if through a dark glass, I still like to imagine what I may achieve in the year ahead?
So, here is my 2017 look back into the past and into the future. These seven points were my goals of 2016.
1. Complete the first book in a new series. As 2016 started this project was so new the novel didn’t have a title and neither did the series. It was planned as a three book series dealing with the issue of electromagnetic pulse. In the first novel, storms on the sun throw off massive Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that hit Earth over a twenty-four hour period. The resulting electromagnetic pulses set technology across the planet back a hundred years.
I failed on this goal and have only written thirteen chapters of this still unnamed novel. However, as 2017 starts, I’m updating this goal with a plan to finish the first book and release it by May of 2017. You can read more about this upcoming novel on the projects page of my website.
2. Complete the second book in the Guardian Knights series. At the start of 2016, I had completed the first novel in the series Seekers of Earth, a 39,000 word prequel that ends in a cliffhanger. I wanted to finish the second book, Recall the Earth, and have both available near the same time.
I succeeded with this goal. Seekers of Earth will be released in March of 2017, and Recall the Earth is scheduled for release in April. Since I’ve achieved this goal I’m adding a new one, complete the third book in the series, Return to Earth, by December 2017. You can read more about this series on the projects page of my website.
3. Write 130,000 words in 2016. I planned to complete the EMP book, Recall the Earth, Nightmare in Slow Motion and The Long Way Home. I finish all of them except the EMP book and wrote 107,342 words.
While I’m pleased with what I accomplished, I didn’t make my goal. I’ve updated the projects list with The EMP book and Return to Earth and set my writing goal for 2017 at 110,000 words.
4. Release the Strengthen What Remains omnibus edition. Planned for release in April of 2016, this ebook only edition would include Through Many Fires, A Time to Endure, Braving the Storms, a short story, Nightmare in Slow Motion and a novelette, The Long Way Home. The boxset came out late, in August, but is now available. Click here for more information on the boxset.
5. More book promotions. My only book promotion of 2015 was tied to the release of Braving the Storms. I planned for three book promotions in 2016 with two tied to the Strengthen What Remains series.
The promotions went off close to what I had planned making this fifth goal a success. So, I’m planning five in 2017, three large scale events and two smaller campaigns. The first major event, discounting A Time to Endure to 99 cents, has already been scheduled for January 19th.
6. Update the website cover pictures regularly. This turned out to be a burden and received mixed reviews from website visitors. As with goal number three, I’m pleased with what I did, but need to do better, or in this case, different. I adopted a more landing page style for the website and have been working on other changes that visitors will see over the coming year.
7. Make shorter blogposts. A year ago my wife looked at the goals blogpost and said, “People don’t have time to read long blogposts.”
Yeah, I’m still working on that.