It is me, the one who disappears randomly for long stretches of time! I made a post on Twitter at the start of January stating that pretty much everything was on hold thanks to life really laying it on for a while. I’m really glad I went into 2021 with the expectation that it was going to be more of the same shit as 2020 because that way it wasn’t too much of a shock to the system that 2021 turned out to be much, much worse. 

On the plus side, 2022 is off to a far better start, so that’s something. More on that and what I’ve been up to in my next post. For now, let’s finally put that godforsaken year to bed with the round up of my goals and how I did. Spoiler alert: not well. 

1. Write 1 short story per month – This one never recovered and I can’t say that’s surprising. 
2. Get something beta ready – Considering how my year was, I’m proud of how well I did on this one. I didn’t finish but I’m very close to being at the line edit stage and I can’t wait to carry on working on this. The Halfway House was one of the few things keeping me going last year, even when I couldn’t work on it. 
3. Read new books – Another big flop. I’ve done better already this year than I did the entirety of last year. Not sure if that’s a tragic thing for last year or a good thing for this one. 
4. Keep Through the Black on submission – This started off well, and it wasn’t until relatively late in the year when everything really went sideways that it stumbled. Another fail but again, it was a bad year and a bad time. 
5. Keep up blog posts – I think we all know the answer to this one. 

Moving on to some non writing related ones:

6. Draw 1 piece of art per month – My poor 2021 art folder didn’t even get 12 finished pieces for the whole year, never mind one per month. Pretty gutted about it but other things needed to take priority. 
7. Weight goal – Ell oh Ell. 
8. Voice Therapy – I technically succeeded at this one! My goal was to speak on voice chat to my gaming peeps and I did! Like twice. It still counts, and I’m planning on being more consistent this year. The first time is the worst time and that’s out of the way now. 

One out of eight is a new low for me, and I’m hoping this is my rock bottom for bringing myself back up again. Though I’m going to be cheating by setting myself way less than I normally would, especially since I’m expecting more disruption through the year (though if all goes to plan that’s going to be far more controlled and exciting disruption).

Here’s to 2021, may you rest in a ditch somewhere!