Goals Achieved for the Fluid Creator

Or: how many goals did I reach in 2025?

Me with Kamilah Cole in Austin last month. She is the absolute best human and her books are the best too—so go check her out!

First off: I realize I’ve been quiet in recent months. The reason for this is multifold.

1. My thirteenth and fourteenth books come out this fall. Which meant I was traveling. A lot. And I also had so much self-promotion to hustle through…

   1. Now the travel and promo hustle is past! Thank goodness. I know I’m very lucky to get to do as many events as I do, but I was getting really tired of planes, hotel beds, DoorDash, and Lyfts. 🥲

   2. If you want to buy The Executioners Three¹ or the Witchlands series, what better time to do so than the holidays? Also, get signed, personalized copies!

2. I sold four books to HarperCollins (yay!) and they will be released every six months (yay!) which means…oh yeah. Deadlines.

   1. Because two of those books are even under a crash schedule², I had to get them done before 2025 was over. BUT I DID IT! 🥳

   2. Now I have more breathing room for the next two are due.

3. Cricket started kindergarten—and extracurricular activities.

   1. I am now That Mom driving her kid around and writing in her car while the kid does [insert class/sport here].

   2. On the one hand, I kind of like that there’s nothing for me to do for an hour other than work when I’m sitting in my car waiting for her to finish a class.

   3. On the other hand, all the driving around + “fighting with her to put on her dance clothes/taekwondo uniform/whatever” is a real time and energy suck. 😂

4. I had some personal tragedy this year that was quite prolonged and physically difficult, and that I am still grieving and processing.

   1. So I hope you can understand that writing newsletters was one thing I decided to cut from my plate to make life a little more manageable.

Now that I’ve made excuses explained myself, I do want to make clear that I feel bad about being so absent this year on the Misfits & Daydreamers.

So to make up for it, you can expect far more consistent content in the next few months.

At least until I have to dive back into promo mode for my next release, Two for Joy, on May 5, 2025! (Pre-order the US edition here. Pre-order the UK edition here.)

So if there’s any topic you’d like covered, be sure to leave a comment on the latest AMA!

Or if you’re interested in maybe a live Q&A—you bring the Qs, I give the As—before the year is up, let me know below!

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Goals Achieved for 2025

Or should I say “destinations reached for 2025” instead? Because earlier this year, way back in February, I wrote about setting goals as a fluid creator. I said:

Rather than set any kind of specific goal with my writing, I instead make a a number of Really Vague Destinations I’d like to get to within a Really Broad Timeframe.

I imagine it like I’m Frodo. Here I am, in the Shire, and waaaaaaaay over there is Mount Doom. I have to reach Mordor to deal with this ring, but the journey? Why, it’s fluid, baby! Maybe I’ll go through the Mines of Moria. Maybe I’ll head toward Isengard or Mines Tirith or the Dead Marshes or WHO KNOWS? That’s the whole point—I don’t know how I’ll get there.

I just know I will make it to Mount Doom.

I then proceeded to out the “destinations” I wanted to reach before 2025 ended. And now that the end of the year is closing in, I though it would be fun to check in and see how I did…

My Destinations:

• Write a 9,000-word short story for an anthology (this is under contract—so I have to make sure it gets done by April)

• Finish The Executioners Three and Witchlight copy edits + pass pages (also under contract with attached deadlines—will wrap up in April)

• Get a new proposal to my publisher(s) — DONE

• Finish at least 2 books

• Stretch goal: Finish 3 books

How I did:

• Write a 9,000-word short story for an anthology (this is under contract—so I have to make sure it gets done by April)

  • Yep! I turned it in and have done a round of edits now too. And honestly, I think it might be one of the best things I’ve written. It’s definitely perfect for fans of the Witchlands.

• Finish The Executioners Three and Witchlight copy edits + pass pages (also under contract with attached deadlines—will wrap up in April)

  • Yep! Obviously I got this done since both books have now hit stores!

• Get a new proposal to my publisher(s)

  • I not only did this, but I wrote six proposals this year for six different books, went on submission to publishers for four of them, and sold the full Murder Quartet to HarperCollins and Daphne Press!

• Finish at least 2 books

  • Yep! I finished Two for Joy and Four and Twenty Blackbirds this year.

• Stretch goal: Finish 3 books

  • I haven’t finished three…but the year isn’t over yet!

  • And even if I don’t manage to finish before 2026, I still:

    • Wrote 55K in a new book: Three Mollys in the Well (Murder Quartet book 3)

    • Wrote 40K in a different new book: One Raven for a Dove (Murder Quartet book 4)

    • Wrote 65K in another different new book: Salt of my Enemy, book 1 in a planned post-apocalyptic duology (trilogy?)

    • Edited and pulled together an adult epic fantasy proposal that I’ve been noodling at for a few years (The Alchemist and the Nightsong).

      • I then ultimately decided not to sell it, but hey, now it’s ready to work on for another day—and the first 20K words are strong!

    • Edited and pulled together an adult detective fantasy proposal I’ve also been noodling at for a few years (The Hand That Feeds). I will do something with it eventually.

      • I love the ~30K I have written so far, but it’s such a weird, quirky genre mashing project. 😅 Classic Sooz.

    • Added 5K to an adult cozy cosmic horror WIP called An Unkindness of Mirrors. Also been poking at this one for a few years now.

      • This book is so slow-going for me. It’s just so plot-driven and I’m such a character writer. I can’t fall into flow like I normally would—I’m crafting such an intricate arrangement of sneaky plot beats…

    • Made about 85,000 reels and social media graphics. And posted them on Instagram.

    • Wrote about 85,000 fan-dedicated newsletters for The Worlds of Susan Dennard.

    • And in a non-work accomplishment, I also got back into martial arts. Which has felt amazing.

      • I slipped a disc over the summer, and recovery has been excruciatingly slow. But martial arts have been the one thing that has truly helped.

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What I Failed At

Over all, I’m pretty pleased with my output for the year. Especially when you consider that I had two books release this fall and had to travel a ton.

Leaning into my true nature has truly transformed my writing life. It has also made me a much happier and more resilient person. When the writing life is fulfilling and healthy, that ripples into all the rest of my world!

And oh yeah, quitting social media has also made such a massive difference in my baseline happiness.³ No social also means I have more time for writing, being with my family, reading, gaming—whatever!

Here are all the posts I’ve made on the subject of “finding my true writing nature” and also on quitting social media:

Audio: Strengths as a Writer

My Typical Work Day

Goal Setting for the Fluid Creator

What happened when I got off social media

What happened when I got off social media, part 2

Okay, but if you feel so good about the year, Sooz, then what exactly did you fail at?

Well, for one, when tragedy struck back in the spring, I stopped tracking my progress in the way I described in this post.

To be honest, I wasn’t doing much work at that time anyway, beyond the bare minimum. There was nothing to track, in other words. Only after surgery in mid May did I slowly claw back into some Real Work. But by then, I was out of the habit of tracking progress—and frankly I’d forgotten I was even tracking it! Oops.

I also fully failed to keep up here, with the Misfits & Daydreamers! Sorry. 😬

And lastly, I still haven’t finished my freaking Creative Life workshop over on the Academy. I have no excuse for this one, other than it’s a low priority so it just keeps getting punted to my “do later” list.

And…that’s it.

The list is honestly pretty small because overall, I’m really pleased by how the year went. Despite tragedy—or perhaps because of it—I feel very glass isn’t half full YET but there’s so much potential for it to get there!

Life was hard; I found solace in my work; and I will continue to write because it brings me true, reliable joy.

I also had such a wonderfully fulfilling fall with all my travel. Yes, the travel part gets exhausting, but not the events. Never the events! I love meeting readers more than any other part of my job, and I got to enjoy so much of that.

It was truly rewarding, and it filled me to the brim.⁴ Now I can use all that fuel from connecting with readers to feed my writing through winter.

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What about you?

Did any of you change your approach to writing this year? Did you maybe let yourself be more fluid or perhaps you added more structure or…?

And if you did try a new approach, what did you learn from the experiment?

Leave a comment and let me know!

💚 - Sooz

1. Now available in Walmart—and it’s my FIRST BOOK IN WALMART!

2. This means they are going to be rushed on the production side, and that is not a cheap or easy thing to do in traditional publishing.

3. If you’re wondering how I could have posted on Instagram as often as I did this year while “quitting” social, it’s actually quite easy: I still only install the app to post. Then I delete it. Period. The app simply doesn’t exist to me beyond the 5 minutes it takes me to post something.

4. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to everyone who came to see me across the country! And UK, I haven’t forgotten you! I’m hoping to swing your way again in 2026.