Quarter Three Goals

Another attempt at resetting my year

We’ve officially (I think) made it halfway through the year. And in case you couldn’t tell, it’s been insane. For the past four or five years, I’ve always felt a conflict between the excitement of a new year and the fear that I’d lose a grandparent. In fact, I kicked off 2025 at my future-brother-in-law’s house, dog-sitting for them with my boyfriend, watching Wicked: Part One. After watching that movie, I rang in the new year crying over the fear that I could lose a grandparent, if not, two grandparents. I had two out of three grandparents in the hospital at that time, so the fear was reasonable. I just didn’t know it was thirteen months premature.

Now that fear has happened and yet it’s still a fear because I still have two grandparents left. And there is a core part of me that is afraid to dive back into goals while this still looms over me. But I also know I can’t just wait the rest of time for the other shoe to drop, and this feels so heavy on my mind this week.

With the year being as tough as it has been so far, I’m also very hesitant in my own ability to do anything. Every time I try to start a book, something goes wrong. Started a draft of And She Hunts, lost a grand parent. Started a draft of Lost in the Canyon, broke my laptop screen. Tried to plot out And She Hunts, again, broke my office chair. Spent two weeks on a yoga ball.

Obviously losing a grandparent and using a yoga ball as a chair for two weeks are completely different things with different emotional responses, but at the same time, I am so exhausted and so fragile in my productivity, they were both big enough to completely knock me off my rocker.

So, this quarter is going to be tough. The last two have shown me this year is going to be a knockdown, drag out fight. But I’m also realizing more and more that I need writing. I need that creativity, or I feel like a shell of a person. I’ve spent so much time just wallowing all year, and frankly, I need to cut it out. I’ve also spent a lot of time applying for jobs that led to nowhere, and probably will continue to do so.

My goals this quarter, are not much different than any other quarter. They’re just more specific to the big plan.

My Quarter Three Goals

Goal One: Write the first, full draft of And She Hunts

word count target: 93,000 words for the draft
for writing for the quarter: 50,000 (good) / 70,000 (better) or 93,000 (best)

I also need to build out the project in Notion, keep notes and details on characters. Do you ever have any projects you know you need to do - like organize your receipts or track all the work you’ve done on your car so you know the last time you had your brakes worked on? Well, those are things I need to do but I also need to do that with my book business - document character information and details.

So somehow in the middle of writing a book, I’ll update those details, too.

Goal Two: Build Reader base

I hate the term “following.” It feels creepy, especially as a woman on the internet. However, I want people to read my books. And you have to get people to pay attention to you online to do that well these days.

Over the past few years, I’ve narrowed down my focus on social media to mostly be Instagram, since that’s where the bookgals are. I’m also trying to build my actual newsletter, and I do have a substack for my pen name, I’m just not sure what to do with it. I was sharing quotes from And She Runs while I was working on it, maybe I’ll do that with And She Hunts.

But for social media, I have two goals.

Instagram: 800/900/1,000 followers
Email newsletter: 40/50/60 subscribers

There are also some updates I need to make around my email newsletter, like an introduction series for when people do sign up.

There are so many things to do behind the scenes, that’s for sure.

Goal Three: Daily Score Average of 85

This one is a stretch. In quarter two, I toyed around with the idea of leaving Notion for a few reason, but I’m back to it and part of that was my daily score. I have a formula where I add habits and things I do throughout the day to take care of myself, and those add up to a score. My goal is to have a daily average of 85.

Some of the things I document that add to the score are things like doing my laundry (clean clothes are always good), writing, reading a book, cleaning my house, going on a walk. Things that are good for me. Things that help me.

And I really need a lot of things to help me lately. So, here we go, back on another quarter to go and try to make some magic happen.