My 2023 Goals
I’m feeling really good about 2023. The last few years have had their fair share of struggles, but the trajectory is soundly skyward, and I have been so blessed in so many ways. I’m beyond excited to tackle the new year and what it will bring, and to that end, I wanted to go ahead and show y’all a picture of what my goals are for the year. These will mainly be side-project oriented goals, but there will be a few work goals and personal goals thrown in here as well.
My primary purpose for doing this is accountability—it’s harder to let your goals fall by the wayside if you have people who know what you’re supposed to be accomplishing. I’ll check in periodically to see how these goals are doing, as I’m breaking them down month by month and week by week anyway so I can make clear incremental progress. Some of these goals will have clear application for this blog—I’ll be posting writing exercises, excerpts, and more.
Alright, without further ado, let’s get to the goals.
Write 12 Short Stories
I say “write” twelve short stories, but in reality a few of these pieces will be older works that I revise and update. I’ve wanted to write a longer work of fiction for a while now, but I don’t think I have the time or energy to do a long-form novel in my current life situation. So, instead, I want to put out an anthology of shorter works of fantasy fiction (short story to novella length) sometime next year. Each month, I’m going to take a new piece (either starting from the ground up or working with something I’ve already done in the past) and dedicate some time to making it excellent. I’ll hopefully be posting progress and excerpts as I go.
I’m really excited to jump back into creative writing in a fuller capacity, and I’m hoping that this goal of twelve short stories will help me stay excited about the craft. If you’re interested in the sort of fiction that I write, check out the Stories section of the website here.
Edit Crow Inquisitors Podcast Season 2
I’ve been working on adapting some of our earlier tabletop shows into a fully edited podcast format, complete with music and bonus content to make the story shine. I’m jumping back into it again this year, and boy do I have a lot of audio editing ahead of me. But that’s basically my life now, isn’t it? There are several steps to this process, including relistening to the season and making notes on things I might need to change to fix any glaring errors, as well as streamline the story to make it the best it can be. Next will be the actual audio editing—listening through each episode and editing out annoying sounds and unnecessary dialogue. Those early sessions had rough audio, so this is going to be a massive labor of love to accomplish. I look forward to the days when adapting a show to a podcast like this won’t be so massively time-consuming. We did eventually get better at muting ourselves during the stream.
After the rough editing, there will be music composition, which I’m honestly really looking forward to—this podcast has been a great excuse for me to make some orchestral music and flex those creative muscles. Usually it shakes out to be about six to eight minutes of music per episode, which really adds up by the end of the project. The individual tracks are only about a minute long, typically, so it’s historically been pretty easy to churn them out—I don’t have to try to make a giant symphonic piece that connects gracefully, just a bunch of orchestral “sketches” that takes a theme and dials it to 11 in sixty seconds time.
Then there’s bonus content. I’m gonna try to be slightly less crazy this time with this, but the bonus content of the Crow Inquisitors podcast—including lore, explanation of the rules of the game we’re playing, behind-the-scenes looks at the show, as well as short stories and lyrical songs—but there’s still gonna be loads.
Honestly, I still have to work out the broad details of the outline for this, so the project might be too ambitious to accomplish in just a year, but we’ll see after I’ve sat down and made a bunch of notes. If you’re interested in the project so far, you can check it out here.
Write 12 Blog Posts
This was originally “Write 24 Blog Posts” but my wife convinced me that I was starting to get ahead of myself, and she’s probably right. I do want to use this website more—I’m paying enough for it that I better—but I don’t want to burn myself out by trying to produce content when there’s nothing in the tank. This post is the first of the twelve, and this should be an easily attainable goal—just one blog post a month, and I’m golden. Expect to see goal updates, excerpts of my writing, reviews of books, movies, or music, and maybe an essay or two this year.
Publish 24 Episodes of Each Podcast
I run three regular podcasts (not including the Crow Inquisitors podcast, which is more of a seasonal thing) and I want to be more consistent with these. Often I’ll do them in spurts, but I’m hoping I can try for a consistent two episodes a month for 2023. This includes The Christian Artist, the podcast I do with my wife and brother, where we talk about creativity from a Christian perspective, as well as Disagree With Me, my podcast with my friend Angel where we have guests on to talk about a taboo topic, whether religion, politics, or what’s the best faux-Mexican fast food. There’s also Idle Inspiration, the podcast I do with my friend David, where we discuss one of my favorite topics—tabletop roleplaying games.
These podcasts are my primary outlet to talk about art, theology, politics, and other hobbies of mine, and I’m looking forward to sitting down and chatting with friends about topics that are near and dear to my heart.
Read 150 Books
Last year my book-reading goal (which I usually set and track on Goodreads) was 115 books, and I ended up blowing that out of the water and reading a whopping 216 books in total. Some of those were short stories and the occasional children’s book, but I was still really happy with how much I managed to read last year. I didn’t want to try to go crazy this year, so I settled for a more manageable 150 books as my goal for this year.
There was once a time when I rarely read 60 books in a year, but lately with how much time I spend listening to audiobooks, whether for work or for fun, and how committed I’ve been to reading in the margins of my life—a page or two here or there throughout my day of several different nonfiction books—I’ve been getting to 100 pretty consistently. Let’s go for 150!
Release 12 Acoustic Sessions
I’ve written a lot of songs over the years. Sitting down with my acoustic guitar and banging out some lyrics has been one of many joys over the years, but I’ve rarely had the pleasure of actually getting these songs out there to others so they can enjoy them as well. I’m hoping this year to start that process, at least in a minor way.
This year, I’m planning on releasing—once a month—a series of videos on my YouTube channel where I sit down in front of a camera and a microphone with my acoustic guitar and play a song I’ve written. I haven’t yet decided in what order I’m gonna release these—whether I’m gonna start with some of my older songs or the newest ones, but I’m hoping you’ll enjoy them!
Be Healthier
Both my work and my hobbies are pretty sedentary activities, and I’m not in my early twenties anymore, so I know I need to start paying more direct attention to fitness and health. A few of my concrete goals in doing that this year are:
Exercising Regularly: I’m gonna be starting slow on this—a few home workouts a week and regular walks and hikes, but I’m hoping I can ramp up throughout the year if I just build a consistent habit of exercising regularly.
Minimize Sugar: I’ve had a very love-hate relationship with sugar over the years. Either I’m having way too much of it or I’m swearing it off completely, only to go back to binging again. I’m gonna be trying to take a more moderate approach this year, and allow myself a single small dessert—a cookie, or a handful of jelly beans, for example—every day, but no more than that.
Have Better Posture: My sedentary life is getting the better of me here—I’ve been having some back pain and noticing that I tend to have really bad posture, especially while sitting, for extended periods during the day. I’m gonna try to be more intentional about correcting myself here, and standing and moving more often throughout the day to promote this.
Stop Biting My Fingernails: This is probably my biggest bad habit—I’ve pretty much been consistently biting my nails for my whole life, partially as a nervous habit, partially as a stress relief. But no more! It’s bad for your teeth and when you keep biting them down to the nubs, it’s impossible to open cans.
Make $1000 From Freelancing
I have a great job that I love very much, but I want to branch out a bit to diversify my income and try my hand at a few more skills. I have a Fiverr account, and I’m planning on reaching out to various avenues to see about freelance audio work, among other things. If you’re interested at all in commissioning me for anything, from audio-video work to music composition to creative writing or editing, please reach out!
Finish Reading Through The Bible
So, I’m not 100% sure if I’ve ever read through the whole Bible. I probably have at this point, since I’ve hopped around and read just about every book at this point, but I’m not positive about it, since I’ve never read it straight through before. I know, I know, I really should have done this years ago, but I’m planning on making 2023 the year that it happens. I’m going through the Bible chronologically currently, following along with the study notes in the Reformation Study Bible released by Ligonier, so I’m hoping to finish that read-through in 2023.
Well, there you have it—those are my goals! Feel free to post your own goals for this year down in the comments below, or if you have any feedback for me, please, I’d love to hear it. I’m hoping these are realistic enough goals, and given how much I accomplished last year, I think they’re manageable, while still being a sizable leap forward for me.
Here’s to the new year!