THE 2024 GOAL THINGY

Another year, another entry about writing goals. The thing I try to keep in mind when doing these is that, although officially I am running a business, this is very much still a hobby to me. When a hobby isn’t fun, I put it off, and the more pressure I put on myself to get things done for this hobby, the less fun it becomes. I have the goals and even try to gamify it with my stats nerd spreadsheet every year, but it is supposed to be play for me, a way to unwind from JOB. When it can’t do that, I put it off. And then I see increasing numbers in the deficit column of the game, and I put even more pressure on myself.

I suppose I could get rid of the goals and take that pressure away, but where’s the fun in that? What an ambivalent dichotomy is my life!

That said, let’s do this!

THE 2023 RECAP:

1) 134,000 words – 45.27% – I managed to write 60,662 words. Considering that just over 50k of them were for NaNoWriMo (more on that later), it was not exactly a banner year for the Blake Writing Powerhouse. More like Powerless.

2) Publish one book – 0.0% – The bad news is that this did not happen. The good news is that I have chosen the one I want to work on next. (More on this one when we get to the actual goals for 2024.)

3) Write one book outside November – 0.0% – Did you want to laugh at such hubris, or should I?

4) Write one short story. (LOW PRIORITY) – 0.0% – In fairness, I did attempt this one, but it all ended up in my Unpublishable Nonsense folder.

5) Read 11 books – 100.0% – I killed this one. I read (listened to) 17 books in 2023. They were all audiobooks, because the one ebook I’ve been trying to read (I owe reviews on two Giveaway books that I got well over a year ago now) has been… we’ll say delayed… by my eyesight issues and laziness for trying to read with the eyes that don’t work too well anyway.

6) Spend $50 in advertising (LOW PRIORITY) – 0.0% – I got to thinking about this, and it seemed to me that with Comedy of Terrors having been over three years ago (coming up on four, in fact), This money would be better spent to trying to attract attention to the new book. Except that the new book is still miles away… It’s all good. I’m not keen on the whole “pay to play” aspect of certain retail platforms anyway.

FINAL SCORE: 29.05%

OTHER THINGS THAT HAPPENED (OR DIDN’T) IN 2023:

In February, my first niece Pookie introduced my third grandkid to the world. A beautiful grandnephew. Her younger sister gave me my first two, a niece and nephew. Although my family is halfway across the country from me, it’s been a great joy watching this tiny little baby grow through Instagram. I think he’s even cuter than Tweedle was. Don’t tell my sister.

Not much has really happened in my personal life. In hobbyist news, if I haven’t mentioned it here before, we have a fifth member in the Gaming Groupies, the biweekly gaming group. The character he’s playing in Pathfinder Adventure Card Game has brought a much-needed skill set that the rest of us did not have, and he’s been a great addition so far.

And then there is the something that did not happen. I did not get the eye surgery I desperately need for my cataracts. The one to blame for that is me. I’m still scared. In spite of the effect my vision is having on my day to day life, I was not able to wrangle my fear enough to get it fixed. I’ll talk more abut this in the 2024 section.

The final thing I want to mention for 2023 is something that should have had its own entry last month, but lazy. So it gets its own segment in the recap:

NANOWRIMO

National Novel Writing Month, the annual November event that pits thousands of writers against their novels. It was… a journey?

	DAY'S	TOTAL
DATE	COUNT	COUNT	GOAL
11/01*	2,172	2,172	1,667
11/02	1,589	3,761	3,334
11/03	0	3,761	5,000
11/04*	0	3,761	6,667
11/05*	2,468	6,229	8,334
11/06	2,111	8,340	10,000
11/07	1,927	10,267	11,667
11/08	0	10,267	13,334
11/09	2,132	12,399	15,000
11/10	0	12,399	16,667
11/11*	1,825	14,224	18,334
11/12*	0	14,224	20,000
11/13	0	14,224	21,667
11/14	0	14,224	23,334
11/15	0	14,224	25,000
11/16	0	14,224	26,667
11/17	0	14,224	28,334
11/18*	0	14,224	30,000
11/19*	0	14,224	31,667
11/20	0	14,224	33,334
11/21	0	14,224	35,000
11/22	0	14,224	36,667
11/23*	3,444	17,668	38,334
11/24*	2,226	19,894	40,000
11/25*	2,005	21,899	41,667
11/26*	3,864	25,763	43,334
11/27	6,090	31,853	45,000
11/28	3,132	34,985	46,667
11/29	5,812	40,797	48,334
11/30	9,462	50,259	50,000
*Days I did not have to JOB

Holy expletive deleted, Batman! This is not the first time I had myself convinced I was going to lose. (Or, as I put it when it’s someone else, not win.) This isn’t even the first time losing (or not winning) was a real possibility.

But this is the closest I’ve come to losing to date. My usual strategy of a Thanksgiving weekend catch-up did not happen as I’d hoped. I also had way too many consecutive zero-word days. By all rights, I should have lost.

But somehow, in the 11th hour, quite literally, I somehow did it. I still don’t know how. I woke up on November 30 knowing full well I was not going to get the 9k plus I would need… and somehow… somehow my will (or maybe my ego) took over and put me on a strict regimen of sprinting and short breaks. Something in me smacked me upside the head. At 11:30pm, I posted my final word count and was crowned a winner.

As for the event itself, I have to shout out bonetti yet again. This time for the thing one might expect a Municipal Liaison to do. When I had my 0-day spiral, I went into hiding out of shame. He noticed I had disappeared and got concerned. He reached out to check in on me and make sure I hadn’t quit.

I replied to his message to assure him that everything was fine, but that I couldn’t talk again until December. There are some personal reasons behind it but it boiled down to motivation and stubbornness. (I knew he would push me, and I was afraid I would have resisted enough to ensure my defeat.)

NaNoWriMo 2023, my 19th time participating, garnered my 19th win.

And I still can’t believe it.

THE 2024 GOALS:

If you thought my inability to meet my goals meant I would adjust them for 2024, you were as wrong as I am every time I think I’m going to meet them. It’s going to happen if I ever decide I want it bad enough.

1) 134,000 words for the year. (250 words/day except in November, where the goal for that month is 50,000.)

2) Publish one book. (See Note Below.)

3) Write one book outside November.

4) Write one short story. (LOW PRIORITY)

5) Read 12 books. (One per month.)

6) Spend $50 in advertising at some point in the year. (LOW PRIORITY)

Regarding goal #2: As I said in the recap part, I know what this will be, and so do you if you have a memory that allows you to remember unimportant things from a random writer on the internet. I want to revise and publish Best Enemies Forever. The bad news is that I’m not sure how to go about the revisions I know this needs to be even the level of bad that my published books are. And honestly? I’d like this one to be slightly better than that. The things that are going to slow me down, besides my lack of skill, are that a) this is not a StabbyMurderDeath book. And also that b) structurally, this thing is a nightmare. I have characters I don’t think I need or that need to be redesigned. I have a mythos that is simple in concept but convoluted in execution. And the “twist” I threw in early on makes that convoluted mess even murkier. I know, that’s extremely general for a very specific issue, but that’s why this is going to take time and effort.

ANYTHING ELSE FOR 2024?

Actually, yes. I’m being forced by JOB to do that eye thing I’ve been putting off due to debilitating fear. I’ve made my preliminary appointment, but I don’t think that one’s going to happen, as my insurance isn’t going to cover any of this. I have to talk to real live people (ACK!) to try to deal with the ensuing red tape to see if they will take me anyway. I have money. I can pay.

And this is no longer something I can afford to put off. I’m going blind, and that idea scares me almost as much as getting surgery on my eyes. I figure if I have to face a fear, I’ll try to face the one that will (fingers crossed) let me see on the other side of it. I miss reading with my eyes!

Other than that, just games. We’re re-entering Adventure 3 in Skull & Shackles and will resume receiving the rewards soon. Also, once I can see, I should be able to play The Sims again! And EverQuest! With all of these incentives, you might wonder what the heck has taken me so long to decide to do it. Well… see Fear. See Fear completely take over your brain and prevent you from doing things you know you need. See Fear Win.

(Excerpt from my upcoming Children’s Book Parody Fun with Fear and Cowardice.)

(I’m not actually writing a parody. I don’t know why I said it like that.)

(I also don’t know why I’m speaking in parentheticals again.)

(Okay. I’m stopping now.)

WRAPPING UP

So we made it around the sun one more time. I really hope 2023 was everything you hoped it would be. If it wasn’t, I hope it at least had some highs to go with the lows. And, of course, I wish for you the best 2024 anyone has ever had. May you go forth and conquer your corner of the universe. And anytime life tells you that you can’t do the things you set your mind to, you laugh and say, “Hold my [beverage of choice].” Let no one stop you from making your dreams cone true.

Be well. Be loved.

Be you.