2012 Round-up

Wow, I can't believe another year has passed and we have survived (we have even survived the Apocalypse that was supposed to have happened 8 days ago) and a lot of things have happened this year.

This year I made a major relocation to a small country town from a big coastal suburb and began a new career (and survived the first year as a teacher), and the year has definitely been filled with a lot of ups and downs that made it very difficult to battle this year (including a very sad tragedy that occurred to the school community), but as they say it's how you handle the obstacles and find a way to overcome them that makes you grow stronger... so I guess I have definitely grown stronger this year.

So, on to the round-up:

This year I participated in 4 reading challenges and, to my surprise, I succeeded in all 4:

1. 2012 Debut Author Reading Challenge: 13 out of 11
2. 2012 TBR Pile Reading Challenge: I said I would read between 11-20 and I read 23
3. 2012 Young Adult Reading Challenge: 66 out of 50+
4. 2012 Outdo Yourself Challenge: My aim was to read between 52-57 books this year and I read 70

Okay, that's the first time I have succeeded in all of my reading challenges, and to make it an even better year, I set myself two goals for the year:

1. Finish the final draft of Shadow Embraced
2. Finish first draft of a new manuscript

and I actually achieved both of those goals (even though the new manuscript was not the one I had thought it would be). My finished manuscript was my NanoWriMo manuscript, which I was excited to finish writing because it was as if the story actually wrote itself. Now I can't wait to get over to Japan and finish off the research to add to some more of the descriptions for the next draft.

If there was one thing I wish I would have done throughout the year, that was to have been more organised with my time, especially with blogging and writing, but I guess that's something I can work on next year.

How was everyone else's year? Did you achieve all of your resolutions? Was there anything that you wish you had achieved throughout the year?

Resolutions? Do you have any?

Every new year I aim to stick to a few resolutions I make... most of the time, the resolutions are broken by the end of January. Yeah, why do I make them then? I love giving myself some goal to achieve. Why I can't keep them is simple... Life!

Life gets in the way, especially when I say I'll eat healthier, do exercise each day or focus on my studies more. These sound easy to keep, but when life gets busy, it is easy to get lost in all the commotion and activities that are required to do. This makes it easier to pick up some fast food snack or something else to break the resolutions.

This year, my resolutions are going to revolve around my writing (and this year I'm going to keep them :D). I'm going to:

• Complete the novels I've started and query at least 1 more.
• Focus more on blogging on a steady schedule, as well as replying to comments and commenting on more blogs.
• Get out more reviews for my critique group.

I think these are resolutions I can keep this year.

What about you? Do you give yourself resolutions for the new year? What are some of your resolutions or why don't you have any?