hey writers can you guys believe that we are already a quarter of the way through 2022
how are your writer goals going i know for me the first part of quarter 1 was actually going really
well i was getting a lot of my writer goals done but as you probably noticed in march you
saw a little less of me because unfortunately i got the sickness that shall not be named it
definitely took me out for a while but thank god i'm okay and so is our little one who is going to
be born in just a few weeks and today i'm really excited to not only share with you exactly how
my quarter one goals went and what i'm planning for quarter two but i'm also going to be giving
you guys the planning prompts i typically use so you also can celebrate review and plan
right along with me before we get into the plan with me though i do have a fun announcement if
you haven't seen the news on my socials already i'm running my very first ever book sale right now
wings of betrayal the first installment in my why fantasy cereal series is only 99 cents or free if
you have kindle unlimited but today is the last day to take advantage of the sale if you don't
want to miss the deal i've linked the e-book sale down below and if you've already read and
loved the book or you just want to help support me feel free to share this post from my instagram to
your instagram stories to help spread the news to other readers today and don't forget to tag
me for a shout out i'll also say that this is really the perfect time to start reading the
series because at the end of the month i'm going to be hosting a live book chat here on my channel
with a ton of behind the scenes details answering your questions about the series some sneak peeks
for the sequel that i'm currently working on right now and a bunch of giveaways for now though let's
get into the plan with me and the first thing i love to do before even planning the next quarter
is to look back at the previous quarter and review three things the good the highlights the things i
can celebrate my wins the things that went really well the bad or the things that didn't go the way
i planned or i had to adjust along the way and the learned the things that i learned along the way
that i want to take with me and grow from as i go forward let's first talk about the good what are
the top things you can celebrate or be thankful for from quarter one take a moment you can pause
this video if you want to brainstorm a bit or type them in the comments to let us know what they were
so that we can celebrate with you and i'll share a few of my wins real quick and i tend to separate
my goals into three categories book goals business goals and personal goals so for the book goals
i finally published the paperback version of on wings of ash and dust which is the complete novel
that includes all six episodes that were in my cereal i also nearly doubled my sales goal for
that first week of publication i did my first ever bookstagram tour with sapphire inc press
to promote the book and then i got to mail out physical goodies for the first time to my readers
who signed up for them after buying the paperback all of these things were so much fun and i share a
bunch of them in this vlog right here if you want to see all the fun details for this first book i
also have a goal this year of doing an audio book so i definitely did a lot of audiobook research
which included interviewing my friend renee dugan on her audiobook process in this video if you want
to check that out and later in the quarter i was prepping to do this awesome book sale that
i told you guys about earlier for the e-book for episode one as many of you who watch my channel a
lot know i'm also working on the sequel for on wings of ash and dust this quarter i wanted to
do all the prep so that i could start drafting the sequel in quarter two so i successfully wrote and
finished my narrative outline synopsis that i sent to my critique partners to get feedback so i
could learn what parts of the story really needed adjusting or beefing up before i even got into the
first draft if you want to learn more about that process you can check out this video and then i
had a few wins for my business goals income wise i set good better best goals for each month and
two out of the three months in this first quarter i surpassed my best goal which was awesome i've
also been really wanting to update a few things in my author website boot camp course which i
started doing a little bit of work on but then i got really excited about a new course that i want
to create that shares with writers how i wrote and published my serial series for any writers that
really want to do the same with their own stories because i was sick i didn't make as much progress
as i wanted to but i did finish mostly scripting out the videos for the course so that was good
then in my marketing realm of the business goals i really wanted to get into tick tock and
within this first quarter i surpassed a thousand followers and i'm now at 1289. actually recently
just did a collab with karlie and brooke all about tick tock giving our tips tons of tick tock video
ideas and more so if you've been looking to grow on tick tock i'll link that down below too
then just as a quick personal update i am 30 weeks pregnant we are almost there i'm so excited only
10 weeks to go and we have pretty much completely finished the nursery so i'll show you guys a
quick preview of that right now so you can see how cute it is again i hope you take a second
to celebrate yourself and what you got done in quarter one and definitely share it with us down
below we'd love to celebrate with you but let's talk very briefly about the bad and the prompt
for this is what are the things i didn't get to or things i had to adjust for me the biggest
thing was getting sick which slowed me down definitely delayed certain deadlines i had set
for myself like getting my sequel totally ready so i could just start drafting during camp nano and
completely finishing scripting the serial course and reviewing the bad usually leads perfectly into
the learned what things did i learn that i can apply going forward for me i felt like i learned
three big things the first is actually something i've done in the past that i've kind of let go of
but what probably would have helped me when i was sick is already having a week or so within
the quarter planned ahead of time as like a buffer week just in case something got delayed or i got
sick or something else came up putting a buffer week or buffer time into future planning for each
quarter is definitely something i want to do going forward number two was that i probably shouldn't
plan a big launch and a big writing goal in the same month especially right now being pregnant not
having as much energy it's just not realistic and it probably won't get any easier when i have an
infant and i really learned this in january because i planned to publish my book at the
same time that i really wanted to get ahead on creating the outline for the sequel that obviously
didn't happen i had to push off my outlining in order to focus on the paperback release
but even in doing that i've actually stayed true to my word of the year which is flexibility
and had grace with myself when i realized okay i can pick one priority that i can focus on but
i can't do everything so i'm gonna be flexible and move some deadlines around another example of this
was getting all excited about totally redoing my author website bootcamp when it really doesn't
need that many updates when i could be creating a whole new course that means i have two courses i
can even bundle the two courses to make it cheaper for you guys and honestly the serial course is
gonna be a lot faster to create than redoing my entire author website bootcamp course the third
thing i learned was actually having full days that are dedicated to one thing at a time has been more
effective for me lately than trying to schedule out my days with like maybe doing something
in the morning and then a different thing in the afternoon and in a different season
cutting up my days into multiple tasks has been really helpful so in this quarter i experimented
doing that and then having these block days that are just dedicated to one thing and it went so
much better again probably because i have less energy being pregnant but i think going forward
especially for quarter two that is the kind of scheduling system that i think i'm gonna use for
myself if you're wondering how i keep track of all my goals throughout the quarter so i can do this
review really easy and or if you're looking for a super helpful tool to help you do this i've been
loving using notion you can see here in my quarter one spread i set all the main goals for each month
in order i have a monthly spread that goes even more nitty gritty into goals for each week and
the to-do list for each day and then back in the quarter one spread at the end i'll record the good
bad and learned for the end of the quarter so i can review it all at once then when the next
quarter rolls around i set up a similar spread to do the same thing if you would like to steal
my exact templates i have a video tutorial that shows you all the notion basics and a link to my
templates that i'll leave below for you guys but now let's continue to plan together quarter two
the first thing i do is think of my top goals what are the top goals i want to accomplish in each
month for me in april i obviously wanted to do the 99 kindle countdown deal for episode one which i
have done and i can check that off next is just a shorthand for on wings of ash and dust the sequel
that i want to at least start drafting the first draft during camp nanowrimo i also want to host
that live book chat for the entirety of book one that i mentioned at the beginning of the video
and i would really love to get to the point where i'm filming for this serial course if i can get
it done that would be even better then in may assuming that i get draft one done of my sequel
i could then send it to my critique partners and maybe make a plan to self-edit it even if i was
still working on the draft in may if i could at least get it sent to critique partners by the
end of may that would be great i'd also love to finish and launch at the serial course if possible
and those of you that are excited about that there is a wait list that you can sign up down below and
then i really need to start probably slowing down at some point in may and start prepping
for maternity leave because in june is my due date june 12th and i will definitely be having some
maternity leave starting in june and will probably last for the first couple months of his little
life but hopefully some of the prep that i'll do in may will mean that i have some content for you
guys that i can just simply post while i'm away but we'll see i will do my best the second thing
i love to do when planning is think about how i'm going to grow forward answering the question is
my plan applying what i learned from quarter one well with one of the things i learned of needing
to put in buffer space i'll definitely have plenty of buffer time and off time when i go on maternity
leave so i am trying to pack quite a bit into the next two months in anticipation of this with that
though i am trying to keep in mind that i also don't want to overwhelm myself which i'm kind of
already doing because i have this sale i've been promoting and i want to do this live book chat at
the end of the month while i also have this a big writing goal of drafting my sequel and filming a
course i know i'm crazy i'm obviously not fully applying what i've learned but again i'm really
feeling this deadline so i think what i'm going to end up doing is holding these goals with open
hands probably prioritizing one or two and then just allowing myself to be flexible with the other
goals pushing off the deadlines if i need to the third thing i want to apply is continuing to have
these block days where i focus on one made task each day and that leads very nicely into the third
thing i do while planning which is deeper planning breaking down the monthly goals into weekly goals
and again that is why i have a spreads like this where i can really plan my goals
week by week and break up the bigger projects into smaller tasks as you've been planning with me
definitely put your top goals for quarter two in the comments below so we can root you on as you
pursue them this quarter did you guys find this plan with me helpful if you did please let me know
if i should keep doing them in the future and even though we're kind of in the midst
of quarter two already i hope that you're feeling that much more excited about your goals if you're
looking for any of the resources i mentioned in this video they are all linked down below
including the book sale link for wings of betrayal remember today is the last day you can get it for
just 99 cents and little sneak peek for next week since it's camp nanowrimo i was thinking of doing
a camp sprint and it'll probably be one of my fairy sprints where everyone gets to join one
of the fairy clans from my book and competes with their clan to win the sprint with their
productivity points during the livestream if you don't want to miss that make sure you're
subscribed and until then you can check out one of these two videos and we'll see you there