Writing Plans as Conscious Design
As writers, our bucket lists are scattered across notebooks, margins of books, prayer lists, calendars, and half-formed intentions. Every year, we revisit our goals and plan anew: what to read or finally read, what to write or finally write, what to teach or really teach, where to go and how, and who we hope to become on the page if we’re becoming anything at all.
For me, planning a writing year is not about productivity or pressure. It is about alignment. How do we choose to read, for example, books that will shape how we write? How do we relate to the things we pepper our spaces with? How much attention is wasted on what is less meaningful? Where do we hope to go, and why go there at all? And as we begin and pursue our projects, are we conscious of our growth as word crafters?
In this essay, I am sharing my own writing plans, something I have always done. This calendar I prayed for is designed around reading, writing, teaching, and moving through 2026 with greater discipline and intention.
A Writer’s Bucket List: Why Listing Still Matters (If Only We Stick to It)
Among us writers, bucket lists mostly cover travel plans. As a New Year routine, I have always listed my dream travel destinations, but I’ve never really actualized any of what I have been listing through the years. Why? Because dreaming is different from doing. Design needs execution, but execution needs intention. So every year, the “bucket list” has been one that I merely planned on paper—words I quickly abandoned.
Not this year. This 2026 list is not about becoming a tourist in some dreamy destination, but about direction.
At this senior age, what matters to me as a writer is clearer and less daunting. I care more about results now, whereas before I was more invested in processes. From the way I delivered my lectures on literature and art appreciation to the rituals of writing content for my websites, I wasn’t intentional. I had always been random, filled with desire but without diligence. If I set my mind this year in a way similar to what the apostle Paul advocates as the true Christian’s way of disciplining oneself, I will stop throwing punches in the air.
“Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”
— 1 Corinthians 9:26–27
So here goes. This year, I’m going to:
- Reread the books on my bookshelf (specifically all the historicals, most especially the classics).
- Write doggedly toward submission to a writing contest—a YA novel. One English novel and one Tagalog novel will each have a routine, with me writing both as if in a race to the finish line.
- Write short poetry twice a week for an inventory to be used for future merchandise (T-shirts, stickers, calendars, posters, etc. for WordHouse Tagawika).
- Teach only literary texts that will serve as models for my own writing (World Literature, Term 2).
- Teach Filipino crafts in Contemporary Arts for the Region.
- Pray for travel to Japan or South Korea, whichever is affordable, and also pray for travel to Rome—this being an actual tour offered by the church.
Reread the Historical Fiction on My Bookshelf
Rereading historical fiction I already own will help me focus on writing historical fiction. I’ve written some initial chapters that I intend to pursue, but I still need to do much research. Most of the books I own are realistic fiction, because I have always enjoyed reading about characters set in specific social upheavals and historical contexts.
All the fiction on my bookshelf will have to reveal their secrets to me now: how they shaped narratives into wonderful pacing, engaging voice, impactful timing, and intimate atmosphere. This requires rereading that is closer and more curious, like a moth to a flame.
Reading must feed my writing.
Finish One Y.A. Novel in the Can
Mikka’s Diary (English) and Banggol (Tagalog)—two different novels—will move together. This means shifting: sitting one day writing in English, and another day writing in Tagalog. I expect each novel to move at its own pace, so how each progresses will depend on how the stories unfold on their own, without my plotting the entire narrative too tightly.
While the goal is to let at least one to reach the finish line, I will allow my skills in each language to lead, preventing mind blocks and excuses. Fast or slow, I will move with the intention of entering one of these into a national writing contest. Since publication does not immediately happen, and I still have to court a publisher, this more realistic goal of joining a contest will still meet a deadline and will definitely bring the task to completion.
Write Short Poetry for Specific Occasions
A commercialized mindset, maybe, but necessary, if I am to care more about prospective readers of my poetry. Readers here mean those who will wear T-shirts with poems as designs, use calendars and planners with poems as inserts, and patronize stickers, bookmarks, bag charms, and other items with poems as characters or text.
Merchandising is a future goal, and building an inventory of short poems is part of that: mainly tanaga, bugtong, kasabihan, dalit, and English haiku, couplets, tercets, rhyming or not. There is more than one reason to do this, but the main one is discipline: writing poems as regularly as possible and, in the process, polishing the craft. Above all, this is stewardship of talent.
Teach Model Literary Texts
The reading list I give my students must also usher me into those same texts more humbly, allowing them to teach me more about style and craft. The list can’t be made up of random poems, novels, short stories, or plays I have simply grown used to teaching. These must be master texts that serve as my own entry point into excellent craftsmanship.
Ambitious, maybe, but how else does one learn to write masterfully and with integrity? Added to this, of course, is how tradition, peers, and a community of writers will assess the final product.
Pray for Travels Later in the Year
By God’s grace, and only by God’s grace, will I be able to travel this year. Budget and circumstances notwithstanding, I am hoping to travel to either Japan or South Korea in September or November. To pray is to actively pursue this goal.
Travel isn’t always urgent for me, but if I travel at all, I prefer to linger in a place rather than rush from one tourist spot to another. Perhaps three weeks or a month is the ideal length of stay. Meanwhile, all the extra hours not spent sightseeing or moving about incognito will also be spent writing my personal projects.
Commit to Purchase Nothing
Included in this bucket list is a no-buy year. No purchases of clothes, shoes, bags, or other vanity items. Basic necessities for face and body care are the only exclusions to this rule. Less buying, less clutter.
Part of not buying is maintenance. This year. whatever is still usable and durable will be cleaned or restored. I initially thought of changing my shower curtain, for example, yet I realized I could simply wash and clean the one I already have. This helps the environment, too, I think. How much trash do we generate simply because we chase the “aesthetics” of place and space?
This List is Doable
I’m not trying to outdo myself with this 2026 bucket list. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as the saying goes. Whether I accomplish everything I’ve listed remains the challenge. But this list is doable, not uselessly dreamy, not mere desiring.
It matters to me that something tangible comes out of this year. If, by the end of it, I have reread old books more deeply, purchased nothing redundant, recycled and reused what I already own, written plenty of short poems, and finished a YA novel for a contest, then I have kept pace with a more intentional, decisive, and disciplined 2026 in my writing life.
Are you a fellow writer mapping your own year? Let me into your own bucket list. Let’s be accountable to each other, to stay, and to finish all that we have begun.
