Looking Forward to 2019

Wow! I can't believe how quickly December has gone by. I feel like this past week had crawled by slowly but that's only because it's been Christmas week. The rest of December has just flown by and there's only like 4 days left of 2018! I'm in a wildly different stage of life than I was last December. Last December I was still technically a teenage, 19, and now I'm in my twenties! I was getting ready to take my final few semesters of classes so I could graduate this month and now I have! I have my Associates and instead of getting ready for more classes in January, I'm... well, I don't really have anything to get ready for. This coming Spring and Summer will be a time of getting my driver's permit and getting Second Star ready to query to agents and try to get traditionally published. This Spring and Summer will be the first time in a long time where I have no classes to get ready for. I get to focus on my writing and that's fun to think about but also kind of scary. I also will be thinking and praying about what to do next, about whether I should move forward and get my Bachelors or not.

Those are just a few things that are going on in 2019, but here are the things I am really excited about (mostly TV shows and movies because I'm weird like that ;)).

• Roswell, New Mexico starts. I'm kind of nervous about this but also really excited. I hope they don't mess it up because I love the original so much! 

• Siren Starts back up again! This season is going to be good! 

• The Wicked King comes out. I am seriously counting down the days until this book comes out. I can't wait to read more of Jude's story!! 

• Slayer comes out! Ahh, one of my most anticipated reads of 2019!!  

• My small group starts up again. This is the first time in a long time that I'll be with the same small group at church for more than a semester. All my other small groups have always split up within the first few semesters of being together, but this is the one that's going to stick. Or at least, I hope it is. 
  
• I'm going to my first Twenty-One Pilots Concert. I love Twenty-One Pilots and I am so excited to see them with my best friend! 

• How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. After watching that last trailer I don't know if I'll be able to see it in theaters. Just watching the trailer makes me want to cry, so I know I'm going to be crying my eyes out watching the movie. This trilogy has been going since 2010 which means I was like twelve or thirteen when I first watched this movie. I don't know, it's just going to be hard to say goodbye to them and I'm not even as invested in the characters and the world as some of my friends are! 

• Avengers: Endgame. The only thing I'm ready for in this movie is to see Ant-Man again and find out how the heck he ended up where he did. Everything else that is bound to happen in this movie... nope... I'm not ready. 

• Dark Phoenix. This movie was supposed to come out last year, but they finally released a trailer like a few months ago. I can't wait for this one. I hope they do it well!  

• Frozen 2. I'm nervous about how this will turn out. There are certain things that I want to happen and certain things I do not want to happen. Either way, I'm sure it'll be as fun and cute as the first one. 

• I turn twenty-one. I just realized something. I'll be twenty-one when I go to my first twenty-one pilots concert. That's kind of awesome haha
  
• On a sadder note, this is the first year in a long time that there is no TVD or Originals or Teen Wolf. 
  

Those are a few of the big things I am excited about. There's no definite plans and it may not happen but... there may be a trip to the most magical place on Earth later in the year. Like way later in the year but there's a lot to figure out still so it may not happen. 

As for goals in 2019... I don't have as many as I did for 2018. I had a lot I wanted to get done this year and surprisingly... I got a lot of them done which I'm pretty proud of. In 2018, I revised and edited and published Project Hellion plus a children's book. I aced my final classes (or, for a few, I wouldn't say I aced, but I did pass). The blog remained updated most of the time and I managed to meet new people and start to feel connected in my new church. I didn't get to finish my sci-fi YA trilogy and I didn't get my driver's licence, but that's Ok. 2019 is a new year and there's plenty of time for me to do both of those things. I even managed to put a book up on Wattpad and start on the next one too. 

For 2019, here are a few goals I want to achieve by the end of the year: 

• Finish updating Hunter's Heritage on Wattpad

• Write book 3 of my Hunter's series 

• Finish revising Second Star by the end of March 

• Get some people to read it for me and hopefully have get some feedback by May 

• Find an editor for it and get it edited and ready hopefully by July 

• Start working on query letters 

• Research agents and publishers 

• Start querying by August or September 

• Work on a new project and maybe write some short stories 

• Get my driver's permit and driver's licence by the end of the year 

• Work on waiting with God. My best friend I was telling me the other day what he learned while studying a verse in the Bible, about how the word wait in the original text means to intertwine. Like to twine ropes together and so in the context of the verse, wait means to intertwine with God in a season of waiting. To draw closer to Him. To pray and talk to Him, to read about Him and to learn about Him throughout seasons of waiting (we should be doing that even when we aren't waiting). So that's what I want to do. I want to make my time with Him more of a priority. 

• Keep this blog updated too. 

There aren't as many goals as I had in 2018 as I said, but I think this is manageable. There are no books I plan to publish this year, which makes me kind of nervous, but also less anxious. I have no plans, no projects to stress about getting ready to publish all on my own. I made the choice a few months back when I finished the first draft of Second Star, that I wanted 2019 to be the year I try to get traditionally published. So for the next year I'm going to be putting all my writing time and energy into fulfilling that goal. It's daunting and nerve-wracking because I've heard a lot about how hard it is to get an agent and how difficult the publishing industry can be, but it's something I want to do and something I want to try. I've decided that I'm giving myself this entire year and if nothing comes of it then it's just not my time, then maybe God has other plans in store for me or maybe He's just not ready to open that door for me yet. But if something does come of my querying, then I'll be thanking Him for opening that door for me this year. 

So yeah, those are my plans for 2019. We'll have to see how many of those plans get done and what other plans God has in store for me this year. Either way, it's going to be a new year and a new experience and I'm excited to see what happens. 

I hope you all have a great rest of 2018 and a good New Year's Day! 

What are some of your goals for 2019?? :)