Drawing the curtains on another year

Here's how 2024 went

Every year, around this time of the year, usually between Christmas and New Year, I take stock of the year that’s just ending, and look ahead to the new year.

I take stock personally and professionally and the space in between, One of the reasons I do this is to evaluate my goals from the beginning of the current year - but also to feel good about all the things I’ve accomplished - from small to big.

This has helped me plan for the future - first by setting goals but also by giving me a sense of purpose. When I was in the corporate world, we are used to taking stock of the year, quarterly. And at the end of the year, we will celebrate wins, review fails and hope to learn from what didn’t go right. We would set goals, budgets and set new ways of working for the new year.

Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

I carried that habit into my personal and professional writing life too. Ever since I went freelance, I’m my own boss. So, I set my own goals, sometimes a bit of a challenge, a stretch goal as my old corporate self would call it. I will also set personal goals - with respect to health, balance of work and life, trips to take, course to do - whatever I’m feeling at the moment. Similar to my old life, I will set these quarterly so I can revisit them ever so often to see if I can manage to do them and revise them - if things have changed.

This has helped me immensely to look forward to the new year with renewed purpose. Take stock of what didn’t go well and why, helps me plan better for the upcoming year. Having stretch goals that I didn’t accomplish could either mean I can carry those goals into the new year, if they are still relevant or figure out why they were out of reach.

I don’t set new year resolutions - I plan my new year with achievable SMART goals. My goals are always within my circle of influence and my capability to achieve (with a stretch at times). I will never set a goal to get a new book deal, I will set a goal to finish a book. I will never set a goal to win an award, I will set a goal to remind my publishers to submit to awards.

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

I started doing this on paper few years ago… some of those notebooks / sheets of paper I still have. Nowadays (Since 2022) I do them in my journaling app. I have a plan for the new year, broken down by quarter for professional and personal growth. I check-in every quarter or ever so often, to see if I have forgotten any or if they need moving.

Being freelance and being a creative freelancer means, I can’t really predict deadlines much ahead. When a book contract lands or what deadlines are set for those, are not always within my control. So when that happens, my original planned goal might become unachievable. So I reassess the plan and if required move it to a different quarter. My plan is a living document not a forgotten new year resolution. (How to manage such deadlines is another substack post altogether)

Some of you might think this is an overkill. But trust me this is the planner’s equivalent of “telling the universe.”

I believe telling the universe must start with telling yourself. When I explicitly state my goal, my aspiration however ridiculous it might be, it has a better chance of happening. Because I will plan for the goal - take small steps.

For example, I want to write a new novel set in a historical time period, it was just a wish at first. Once I stated that as a goal, then my planning looked like this:

• Research the time-period

• Read a list of books

• Write an outline

• Write one chapter a week

• etc etc…

Then it became achievable with some time-element added to it. I started working on this historical novel in 2022. I did my research, read up everything and started writing the first draft. I finished a first draft, and I sent it to a friend to read. They gave me notes. But by this time, Nikhil & Jay, the TV show had been green-lit and I was deep in production.

So, I hardly had time to implement the changes. But the goal stayed in my plan. Then I grabbed two quiet weeks by the end of 2022 to revise it, and sent it to my agent.

My agent came back a few weeks later in 2023 with a big note! So back to the desk - again - I had very little time to work on this as I was in the middle of my Ballet Besties series and the TV show work was going on and I had other things on the plate. But it was on my review every quarter.

Then again during a lull of 10 days, between deadlines, I revised it and sent it to my agent in the middle of 2024. This time my agent liked the sample pages and wanted to see the rest. When she read the rest, she had structural notes. And now I’m working on the structural notes and line edits so I can send to her in 2025, for the next round of notes / edits.

It has taken at least 3 years of follow-through - I kept it in my plan every year, every quarter because I really wanted to finish it. And that hopefully will turn the dream of writing a historical novel to actually finishing it. All this while I also worked on the TV show, writing a few episodes of other TV shows, writing 4 Ballet Besties books, two Nikhil and Jay books and 5 picture books that sold and many more in the drawer. So all in all, good result.

I’m not saying this to boast. I wanted to show a real example of how the planning helped, hoping it will help someone else, who is wondering how I’m so productive.

So I took stock of this year too! From accomplishments to failures, and I’m in the process of planning my new year.

Here is a quick look at my year as it happened - from international school visits to an international launch of a new TV show, from book events to TV conferences, it’s been a rollercoaster ride as always. Wonder what 2025 will bring! Whatever it does, you bet, I have a slot for it in my planner!

Do you take stock of your writing year? Do you plan for the new year? Tell me about it!

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