My second writing-related blog post in which I share my writing, reading and blogging resolutions for 2016

I've already written a sort of jumbled list of my resolutions for this year two posts below but in the end, prompted by other posts of similar nature that have been cropping up everywhere I looked, I've decided to dedicate a separate post to them. So here they are: 

My writing resolutions: I'm working on three major projects at the moment (a regency novel, a fantasy novel and a fairy-tale) and it is my goal to see them completed by the end of the year. Naturally, such a goal requires a lot of hard work, which means that my first and foremost writing resolution is to write daily. I've never been able to accomplish such a feat in the past but I know that if I want to achieve any progress in my writing career at all, I have to work as much and as hard as I possibly can. I must exert myself and establish a daily writing routine, because there's simply no other way. I'm not going to set a very high daily word count, knowing my limits and duties, but I think that I should be able to produce something between 500 and 1500 words a day, depending on what day of the week it is and how many non-writing things I have to do. I also have a lot of ideas for stories that I need to outline before I completely forget them. 

My reading resolutions: I'm not at all happy with the shamefully low number of books I've read in the last two years — in fact, I've been mostly rereading my favourites over and over again — so this year I intend to read as many new books as I can. I have a common book-hoarding disease among writers and book bloggers and I tend to buy new books whenever I'm near a bookshop, which means that I have a lot of books on my TBR shelf; not to mention all the books on my poor neglected Kindle. I don't know what books and in what order I'm going to read — maybe I'll be picking them at random — but I know that at least some of them will be pertaining to Georgian or Regency England (for research purposes), some of them will definitely be Gothic novels (also for research purposes), and some of them will be in Ukrainian (to boost my Ukrainian while I'm working on my Ukrainian-language fairy-tale). I also want to read more classics that I've been neglecting and challenge myself to read outside my favourite genres and even outside my comfort zone. 

My blogging resolutions: I have never been a very active blogger and though I've been blogging (half-heartedly and sporadically) for a long time, I haven't managed to establish my online presence, contacts with other bloggers and fellow writers, let alone, lasting partnerships and friendships. In fact, sometimes I feel that in the vast online writing community, I am an insignificant, invisible, lonely nonentity. Naturally, I want to change that! First, I'm going to post weekly writing-related blog posts. I also intend to take part in different memos and blog hops. I know that they are fun and provide good exposure for you and your work, but whenever I took part in them in the past I was inevitably disappointed by the lack of feedback, which discouraged me from taking part in more of them. Still, I want to learn to network more effectively with others and, what is much more important for me, I want to find my kindred spirits out there and make some awesome writing friends. 

It looks like it's going to be a busy year for me and I hope that I'll manage to keep up with all my plans; after all, it's easy to make such grand plans in the very beginning of January, when you have a little bit of free time on your hands. So, what about you, guys? 

My writing, reading and blogging resolutions for 2016. What are yours? via @faridamestek (Click to tweet)