2019: Look after the days and the year will look after itself

It’s a little depressing to see that of the eight goals I had for 2018, I only managed to complete two: to read 100 books and to publish a seres of textbooks for kindergarten kids at a neighbouring English school.

But to be fair to myself, I did manage to do a few other literary things too that weren’t on the list, notably adapting Macbeth for Japanese primary school pupils, editing and publishing Kamikaze to Croydon, a novel by Martin J. Frid, which led to the birth of my own editing and publishing services business, I’ve just about finished the textbook for third-year Japanese junior high school kids learning English. And despite losing the manuscript to my third Hana Walker novel, I did manage to complete a new “first” draft, which I humbly submit, m’lud is a lot better than the, er,  first first draft. I even managed to make a series of videos about the process too. And started attending monthly art lessons.

It feels a little anticlimactic to proclaim my goals for 2019, which are largely the same as they were for 2018, so instead I’ll just list three daily habit “goals”:

1. Write for 30 minutes.

2. Edit for 30 minutes.

3. Sketch for 30 minutes.

If I can stick to these modest habits, the results at the end of the year will be worth shouting about.

Happy New Year!

* * *

Patrick Sherriff publishes a monthly newsletter highlighting good fiction published in English about Japan. He lives in Abiko with his wife and two daughters.