Morgan’s 2024 & 2025 Retrospective

Morgan Hazelwood, ,

Past Retrospectives: 2023 | 2022 Part 1 & Part 2 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017

As the new year kicks into full swing, I like to take a moment to look back at the goals that past-Morgan thought she’d accomplish and laugh. Only, this time, it’s been TWO YEARS since I last did one of these. So, hang on tight while I talk about the good, the bad, and the utterly ridiculous.

My Writing Goals From The Last Two Years

Whenever I set goals, I do my best to focus on things I can actually control, rather than ‘get a 9-figure publishing and movie deal’ (although, I probably wouldn’t say no if you offered me one). My goals are SMART, i.e. they are specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound. For 2024, my priorities were: writing, querying, and revisions, but we all know how my 2024 ended up (recovering from burn out). 2025? I only bothered with one goal. Read. Fewer. Books.

So, how did Morgan do? Gear up for the break down.

For the sake of sanity, I’m just going to pretend my other 2024 plans carried over to 2025. So, without further ado, here’s my list, ordered by priority.

2024 (and 2025) Goals

1. Writing

Morgan sits on a rug, writing in a notebook.

The Plan: I wanted to finish my second space fantasy by June, and write 50k toward a novel in November of 2024. I hoped to draft at least 1 short story and 15 poems.

Reality: I didn’t even LOOK at that second space fantasy from pencils down on November 30th of 2023 until November 1st of 2025. BUT! I did get 79,424 words written on my 2024 November project, currently known as “Morgan’s Urban Fantasy” aka. “The vampire one”, aka. “Twice Bitten, Thrice Shy”. I even drafted a short story. Now, while I didn’t hit 15 poems, I did manage 10, so I’m not too sad.

For 2025, I did a fair amount better. Between Twice Bitten, Thrice Shy and the second space fantasy, I wrote 98,717 words and edited 53,132 words. While I didn’t draft any short stories, I did write 16 poems!

All in all? Partial success.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

2. Querying & Submitting (& Publishing)

The Plan: I planned to query 10 agents and submit 5 short stories/poems a quarter.

<Insert hysterical laughter here>

Okay. Now that’s over with.

Reality: I queried 1 agent in 2024, 2 in 2025, and submitted to 1 small press. And I submitted 2 poems for the Spilled Ink Poetry Collection that came out in fall of 2025 When You Hand a Poet A Microphone (affiliate link).

In other words, I put my work out there just enough that I can say I did something, but I definitely was no where near my goal.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

3. Revising

The Plan: I’d hoped to get my 2nd space fantasy beta read in summer of 2024, and revised that fall. Plus, revise a short story and submit it to publishers.

Reality: Nope. Nuh-uh. I don’t think I revised a single thing in all of 2024. Now, 2025, I edited about 53,132 words in the still-in-progress Twice Bitten, Thrice Shy, and I was revising as I was working toward finishing the Second Space Fantasy, to the tune of 23,500 words.

So, this goal was a total wash in 2024 and a rousing success in 2025.

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ AND ★★★★★

4. Reading

I thought my binge reading had gotten out of control in 2023. (244 books. Oh, sweet summer child…)

The Plan: Read 100 books, with a book a month being physical. Then, after the ridiculousness of 2024, my one and only New Years Resolution for 2025 was to read FEWER books.

Reality: So… I read 680 books in 2024 and 553 in 2025. And 1 of those was physical.

Clearly, I blew my goals out of the water, both times.

Rating: ★★★★★[★]

5. Blogging/Vlogging/Podcasting

empty chair in front of laptop set up to stream.

The Plan: When I ended 2023, I hadn’t missed a weekly blogpost since February 2016, or a vlogpost ever (started in June of 2017). So, I thought it would be an easy win to have a weekly Thursday post, a podcast episode, and a weekly livestream – skipping no more than 1 livestream off per quarter.

Reality: Nope. I’m here, so clearly, I still dabble. But, while I have basically 10 years worth of content, I posted 11 times in 2024 and 6 times in 2025.

That said, the podcast had 16 and 24 episodes, partially due to me not nudging my sound engineer early enough. Despite everything in the last two years, though, my livestream kept going strong.

I’m giving myself a partial win here.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

6. Conventions / Writing Groups

The Plan: Panel at 3+ conventions, attend 6+ open mic nights, 6+ monthly writer meetings, and 3 NaNoWriMo events. Plus? Staff Balticon.

Reality: Both years, hit 5 Spilled Ink open mic night for writers, and paneled at ScribbleCon, Balticon, Imaginarium, CapClave, was a back-up streamer for the (virtual) 100 Hours Of Writing (OHHOW), and I paneled at RavenCon in 2025. (They make you take a year off every 3). However, NaNoWriMo outright died. But, I did make it to 3 write-ins and 1 November Challenge celebration party in 2024. I attended 3 or 4 virtual panels in 2025. Plus, I made it to Arts Alive in 2024 and the Circle of Laurates in 2025, with poetry readings and poetry workshops.

I did continued to staff Balticon. As I say there, I quit running their social media and publicity, except for 4 days a year — Balticon Friday through Monday. Why? Because our Publicity and Social Media staff is made up of: the heads of the Dealers Room, Registration, and Programming.

I was a panelist and a host for the following panels/events:

(I’m including links to blogposts where I share my own opinions on the topics that were discussed in the panels. I cannot capture a panel of notes while participating, though. Sorry!)

I think we can all agree that I knocked this one out of the park. Better yet, I got to meet some of you in person.

Rating: ★★★★★[★]

‘Fun’ side story: In 2024, Sako and I spent the first three hours of the roadtrip to Imaginarium in Kentucky trapped just far enough behind a house on a trailer that we could see it. It blocked both lanes of 66 until it dead-ended at highway 81. Did the police escorts make them let everyone by? No. Instead, they continued another two hours down 81 until they finally took exit 205. Three very long hours after that house came in sight we were finally freed! An actual fun fact that amuses me more than it should: despite the trip always taking over 9 hours, if you ignore stops for gas, I only have 7 turns to get to the convention.

7. Beta Readers

The Plan: Beta read 1 manuscript or short story. No more than 3 stories for others.

Reality: I read nothing in 2024, 1 query and the first 3rd of a friend’s manuscript in 2025. But, points off for never sending it to her.

All I can claim credit for was at least not NOT being a beta reader. (Yeah, enjoy that double negative.)

Rating: ⯪☆☆☆☆

Bonus: Things outside this list I achieved

Patrick Hopkins and I launched “My Agent Database“, on Patreon. Querying made easy. We put tons of online sources and agent research in one place to help you find the right agents to query.

In Conclusion

Burn out destroyed me for a while. End of 2023 Morgan thought she knew what binge reading and a lack of executive function looked like. Still, when I look at the scope creep, I see the root cause was overcommitting myself. My blog started as a quick post, and I easily added recording it for youtube and that was okay.

Then, I started paneling at multiple conventions a year and posting regularly on my socials to establish a platform. When I started running social media for Balticon, the time-suck just grew.

By 2023, I’d quit the Balticon social media team, but I’d decided to up my production quality at the urging of friends. I started using a teleprompter app and creating new infographics for each weekly post. Instead of just a blogpost, I was also posting an author spotlight interview and a weekly roundup post every week. With the implosion of Twitter, I’d migrated to the 3 replacement platforms and joined the short video social medias — including TikTok, posting videos multiple times a week.

Each of those things, by themselves, was a small expenditure of time and effort. Added together? They were a full time job that wasn’t paying me, on top of my dayjob, family, and friends — and not writing novels.

I’m aiming for more realistic expectations these days: a post when I have something to share, social media as it strikes me, and focusing more on my actual writing than my nebulous platform.

However…

As you can see, despite my dysfunction, I still made a boatload of progress in the last 2 years that I can be proud of. I read 1,233 books (with an average of 275 pages), wrote 178,141 words across 2 manuscripts, edited 76,632 words, composed 26 poems, attended 10 open mic nights, hit 5 different conventions (all but RavenCon I hit twice), ran 9 workshops, spoke on 29 panels, hosted 6 events, and held 3 readings.

I may have fallen short on some things, but… as I quote Les Brown every retrospective: “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

How well did you do on your goals?

Text: Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." - Les Brown Background: the moon and a star in the upper right, with clouds in the lower right.
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Published by Morgan Hazelwood

Morgan Hazelwood (she/her) is a fantasy novelist who blogs and vlogs writing tips and writerly musings. She likes taking pictures of the sky, reading a good book, and ambiverting from her living room. She's also a voice for the fairy-tale audio drama: Anansi Storytime and its sister podcast: Legendsmith. She's been known to procrasti-clean her whole house and alphabetize other people's bookshelves.

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