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General Year-In-Review
...I promise this is the last of these and then we're back to weird business as usual.
Here is the first line of the first DW entry of every month from last year:
...apparently 2015 was a year of making lists and doing stuff. But mostly making lists.
I had a list of ten goals for the year that I posted last January:
1. Arrange trip to Iceland and go on it
2. Make all the doctory appointments allowed by my insurance, go to them - I did dentist and eye doctor; I made the doctor's appointment, but don't go on it until tomorrow
3. Keep job
4. Stay caught up with tag wrangling stuff! Contribute more! - MIXED RESULTS.
5. Do some kind of deliberate outdoor exercise for at least half an hour at least three days a week, weather permitting - for a very, very generous definition of "weather permitting", sure
6. Go on one Adventure a month, at least one of which is an overnight backpacking trip
7. Get my Maryland Master Naturalist certification - got partway through, am now getting up to the wire on getting moving to finish
8. Submit at least one original story for pro publication - nope, but did finish writing one, 4/5 finish another, and 1/2 finish a third, which is way better than I've done in over a decade, on original stuff
9. Give away at least 10% of my income every month - no, but I do have a patreon now, so I'm getting closer?
10. pay my credit card bill on time every month
...that's, like, 7/10 if I count fractions? Whoo?
Have this year's goals, many of them recycled:
1. Bike to work at least once
2. Do at least 1/2 hour of sustained exercise 3 days a week regardless of weather
3. Have an adventure every month, including an overnight backpacking trip
4. Finish Master Naturalist certification
5. Follow through on all the doctor's appointments stuff even if it involves phone calls
6. Finish the Level 1 Piano book
7. Be less bad at being TW staff
And then writing goals, separately:
8. Sell at least one piece of writing to a pro-rated venue (Stretch goal if I get that done early: qualify for SFWA)
9. Finish my long fanfic wip-as-posted by Nov 8 (Stretch goal if I get that done early: also finish the next part of that YT fic)
10. Average 333 words a day for the year (which comes to 121878 words.)
...also keep up with all the stuff in Habitica.
To get started, here's that WIP meme everyone is doing, with "Go to the seventh line of the seventh page of your wip, and post the next seven sentences". This is from the nearly-finished original story:
...None of that is going to be in the final version because I belatedly realized that Ellysh does nothing in this story except stand around and be pretty, which admittedly is xir primary goal in life, but does not make for efficient storytelling, or make it worth worrying about another person in all the group scenes, even if xie does also stand in for some important worldbuilding.
Which brings me to a question for you all: this will be the first original story I have ever finished that is getting major, major revision right off the bat. It'll be over 8,000 words once it's done. How do revision? Does anyone have any have any useful resources they can point me to for revision on original stories, especially in the short-to-novella range?
(I will want beta readers eventually, but I've been changing stuff on the fly and not going back to fix it, so right now it's too incoherent for even an alpha read.)
Here is the first line of the first DW entry of every month from last year:
So I have closed down my booktracking for 2014. I made another giant To-Do List of doom a week or so ago (it's in a locked entry so y'all don't have to be subjected to it this time. Also by this point has entries like "2.2304 Fold Laundry" because sometimes I am ridiculous.) Snow day tomorrow! they cancelled already, have a snowday todo. My laptop power cord suddenly died last night (instead of slowly dying, like my last several) so I shall probably be rather less online until I figure out what I'm doing about that (not entirely not-online, because phone + work computer + backup laptop, but less.) So, I have a WIP I'm working on that's about toddler Natasha and the Winter Soldier having to go into deep cover as uncle and niece. have some thoughts about stories about which I have been thinking and by "thoughts" i mean elaborately worked out fanwank theories
I did remix this year, thus fulfilling a long-held ambition to be the kind of person who can do remix! I am done with my Month of Ridiculous Travel! I hit level 50 and got Beastmaster and have now rejiggered my Habitica/HabitRPG lists to make it harder. My only statement on the OTW elections: when I saw who was running, my immediate reaction was "But we can't lose Atiya Hakeem or Matty Bowers to the board! They do too much good!" Hmm, time has passed, apparently? it's dark now, ugh. So I did not make 20,000 words in November: I got to 17,333 words and then went to Chessiecon and wrote nothing for three days, and I had hopes of finishing it yesterday (I've written 3000 words in a day before, easy) but work was frazzling and after work on Mondays I have a total of one hour of free time, so, yeah, that didn't happen.
...apparently 2015 was a year of making lists and doing stuff. But mostly making lists.
I had a list of ten goals for the year that I posted last January:
2. Make all the doctory appointments allowed by my insurance, go to them - I did dentist and eye doctor; I made the doctor's appointment, but don't go on it until tomorrow
4. Stay caught up with tag wrangling stuff! Contribute more! - MIXED RESULTS.
5. Do some kind of deliberate outdoor exercise for at least half an hour at least three days a week, weather permitting - for a very, very generous definition of "weather permitting", sure
6.
7. Get my Maryland Master Naturalist certification - got partway through, am now getting up to the wire on getting moving to finish
8. Submit at least one original story for pro publication - nope, but did finish writing one, 4/5 finish another, and 1/2 finish a third, which is way better than I've done in over a decade, on original stuff
9. Give away at least 10% of my income every month - no, but I do have a patreon now, so I'm getting closer?
10.
...that's, like, 7/10 if I count fractions? Whoo?
Have this year's goals, many of them recycled:
1. Bike to work at least once
2. Do at least 1/2 hour of sustained exercise 3 days a week regardless of weather
3. Have an adventure every month, including an overnight backpacking trip
4. Finish Master Naturalist certification
5. Follow through on all the doctor's appointments stuff even if it involves phone calls
6. Finish the Level 1 Piano book
7. Be less bad at being TW staff
And then writing goals, separately:
8. Sell at least one piece of writing to a pro-rated venue (Stretch goal if I get that done early: qualify for SFWA)
9. Finish my long fanfic wip-as-posted by Nov 8 (Stretch goal if I get that done early: also finish the next part of that YT fic)
10. Average 333 words a day for the year (which comes to 121878 words.)
...also keep up with all the stuff in Habitica.
To get started, here's that WIP meme everyone is doing, with "Go to the seventh line of the seventh page of your wip, and post the next seven sentences". This is from the nearly-finished original story:
This dialogue had the air of being well-rehearsed. I considered it. If they really were still in good graces with the Sun Temples, she couldn't be very evil. The Sun Temples didn't have much patience with sorcery at the best of times.
"Are you really Ellysh the Honey-Voiced?" Rewi asked xir weakly, her face turned into my shoulder.
"You're going to ask xir to roll xir seal on something just so you can treasure it next to your heart always, aren't you," I asked her in the Northern Speech.
"Mmmaybe," she answered.
...None of that is going to be in the final version because I belatedly realized that Ellysh does nothing in this story except stand around and be pretty, which admittedly is xir primary goal in life, but does not make for efficient storytelling, or make it worth worrying about another person in all the group scenes, even if xie does also stand in for some important worldbuilding.
Which brings me to a question for you all: this will be the first original story I have ever finished that is getting major, major revision right off the bat. It'll be over 8,000 words once it's done. How do revision? Does anyone have any have any useful resources they can point me to for revision on original stories, especially in the short-to-novella range?
(I will want beta readers eventually, but I've been changing stuff on the fly and not going back to fix it, so right now it's too incoherent for even an alpha read.)
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