Emma Kexin Wang

2020 does not sound like a real year.

It’s that time of year again. Where I set seemingly achievable goals for myself and achieve about half of them. But then again, new year, new me, so who’s really to say.

Here’s my 2019 as a writing year Wrapped:

• Did not self-publish Harbinger due to quite a sudden realization that my book, written at fourteen, edited at ages fifteen and sixteen, is not good.
• Did actually write one blog post a month (and more!)
• Could argue that I did write an hour each day (if counting the many, many, many papers I had in my English classes).
• Dabbled in poetry.
• A short story a week? Laughable.

However, this is what I did do, in terms of writing/reading:

• Spent three months on a short story named Teddy
• Participated in Kenyon Young Writers Workshop (still, arguably the best two continuous weeks ever)
• Dabbled in script-writing (two screen plays!)
• Wrote so, so many college essays. So many.
• Finally read Virginia Woolf.

I’ve realized that I have a rather bad habit of creating unrealistic goals for myself – I mean, to write and finish a short story a week? Poor me at the beginning of 2019 believing that I could actually do that.

In that mindset, I don’t consider 2019 a failure in terms of my writing (even though I didn’t publish a book at seventeen, god forbid), but I do believe that I can spend a little less time on Instagram watching the same Chihuahua videos again and again. So, once more, here are my goals for 2020.

Personal:

• Exercise three times a week.
• Be honest and authentic.
• Maintain good friendships.
• Call my parents often.
• Read one book every two weeks.

Writing:

• Try, try and write just a little bit every day.
• Edit the hell out of my stories – don’t stop until I’ve “milked” everything out of one.
• One blog post every two weeks.
• Continue to dabble in script-writing.
• Get published in my favorite lit mag (I’m not gonna say the name here in case I jinx it – no, I’m not superstitious).

2019 was a weird one. I still can’t believe it’s over. It’s January?? What? January???

Anyways, thanks for reading my strange, strange posts. I hope you have a hell of year.