Beautiful People - Writers edition

Well, after being away for over a week and basically spending the beginning of the year strangely, I feel a bit disoriented. Because conferences with full catering are nothing like normal life. It's like being in another world that operates under completely different rules. Except that rain still makes you wet and it's still hard to talk to strangers.

Because of that, I can't come up with anything wonderful and I'm just going to do the beautiful people linkup. I have already answered some of these questions partially, so I hope you won't mind me repeating myself.

What were your writing achievements last year?
I actually started writing.  I proved to myself that I can meet goals sometimes.

Tell us about your top priority writing project for this year?
Finishing my first book, which is going to involve a lot of work.

List 5 areas you’d like to work the hardest to improve this year.
Dialogue. I have a tendency to let my character ramble all over the subject. I need to work on being more concise.
Scene structure. I really don't know much about that at all.
Simplicity. My ideas always seem to become huge and complicated in order to support a whole plot. Writing faster. Everything is going really slowly at the moment. If I want to get three books drafted this years I need to speed up.
Being more organized with my writing time.

Are you participating in any writing challenges?
I intend to do both Camp Nanowrimos and maybe even full NaNoWriMo.

What’s your critique partner/beta reader situation like and do you have plans to expand this year?
I do have a writing partner. I haven't actually sent her anything though. Soon I hope to be at a stage where I will want to do that.

Do you have plans to read any writer-related books this year?
Yes. I have a stack of four on the floor near me and I actually am going to buy a couple.
Or are there specific books you want to read for research? 
The History of Venice is partly story research and I'm sure I'll pick up a few more things.

Pick one character you want to get to know better, and how are you going to achieve this? 
The unnamed protagonist of my second story. I know next to nothing about her. I'll have to start by fleshing the story idea out a bit more and figuring out what I need her to be like. Then I'll have to be creative.

Do you plan to edit or query, and what’s your plan of attack? 
I will be either editing or completely rewriting. I'll do the first edit when I type my hand written draft into the computer.

Toni Morrison once said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” What are the books that you want to see more of, and what “holes” do you think need filling in the literary world? 
More books that actually teach you the truth about reality. Subtly and in fun ways of course.

What do you hope to have achieved by the end of 2016?
One book ready for beta readers and a couple more roughly drafted.

What do you all think I should try to write this year? Even give me your crazy ideas.