2026: The Year of Writing and More Writing...

Happy New Year!! 2025 is over, which does have me a little down. It was an exciting year, especially for Jane Austen fans as it was Austen's 250th birthday this past December. I had really wished to do more throughout the year to celebrate this but unfortunately found myself with not much time or energy to do that. And maybe that is why I am very excited for this new year.

I am a huge fan of the year change - I love setting new goals, thinking about everything I did in the past year and everything I want to do in the new one. This year I am determined to really focus on my writing, both here on my blog and with other projects. To try holding myself more accountable I thought I would post some of my goals here, and maybe inspire someone else to make new year's goals of your own.

Write Every Single Day

I was taking a creative writing class and the most important thing that I learned from that was I need to WRITE EVERY DAY! We talked about the habit of writing, how much different authors wrote per day, etc. etc.. I've never been a consistent writer, I usually just write whenever inspiration strikes me. But if I want to do this in any kind of professional manner I cannot be waiting around to feel motivated to write.

Have I already failed at this goal? Yes, technically. I did not "write" anything yesterday (January 1st) and so to some degree I feel like I already failed and what's the point. This is when I employ the idea that the new year is just a day and it's never too late or the wrong time to start a new habit. I don't need to wait for a new month, new quarter, or new year, the change can start any day and everyday.

New Articles and Formats?

One of the things that I am most excited for is to start writing more here! I hope with the goal of trying to write everyday I will be able to write more bits and bobs for this blog.

I have a couple of pieces that I want to release in January...

Hopefully I will finish reading an annotated version of Pride & Prejudice soon (I was trying to finish it before the end of the year but that did not happen) and so expect some P&P content! Last year I was trying to reread all of Austen's books but that did not happen... so I'm going to try and finish the rereads this year and will continue to post reviews, quotes, discussions on whatever random thoughts I have through the process. I also got really interested in reading her juvenilia at the 250th birthday celebration that I went to (that you can read more about here).

Aside from straight Austen articles, I have a couple of ideas that I would like to start this month. One of which is doing an end of the month "report" on what I read (and perhaps also watched). The past few years I was doing one or two large posts about all of the books that I read throughout the year but as I've been reading around 50 books a year, those get really clunky really quick. My hope is that by doing a review of everything that I am reading on a month to month basis I'll be able to dive deeper into what books I enjoyed and why, and which ones I didn't enjoy and why.

To end, I hope the holidays treated you kindly and I wish everyone the best new year! I must go and finish that damn Pride & Prejudice now.