2021 Year in Review

Let’s see what my goals were for 2021!

2021 Goal Scorecard

Continue caregiving for Lut: Sure did!

Grade: A+, with extra credit for dealing with ordering specialty medications again and again.

Publish two books: I did! I released The Lord, His Monster, and Their Lady in June, and You Thought You Wanted to Be Level 99, But Really You Wanted to Be a Better Person in November.

I had to go back through my blog to find out what my first release of the year was. It feels so long ago. O_o

Grade: A

Finish drafting two books: Technically, I finished three drafts: Angel’s Grace, You Thought You Wanted to Be Level 99, But Really You Wanted to Be a Better Person, and A Game to You. Angel’s Grace was like three-quarters drafted when I started the year, but still, it counts.

Grade: A+

Continue to track food & exercise: This fell apart a few times, especially at the end of November and in December. But I tracked for a good 80-90% of the days in the year.

Grade: B+, you tried.

Post monthly updates: Every month!

Grade: A

Put month & year goal list in your bullet journal so you'll actually remember to look at it. Also, look at it: I did put the goals into my bullet journal spreadsheet, and I did look at them now and again. I didn’t quite make ‘every month’, much less ‘on a regular basis’, but it happened.

Grade: B+

Stretch Goals

Make an art every month. Part of an art counts if it's a complicated art:

...

So I was erratic about this one. I did more than the usual number of finished paintings in 2021, mostly from “Joy of Painting” videos. And I practiced more than usual; I started using Adorkastock’s sketch app for figure drawing practice during the Craft & Chat. On the other hand, I did nothing at all art-related in April, and I didn’t do anything but sketches in December, and I did some color work in November but hated it all.

I was gonna just say “no, I didn’t do this one” but I feel like I actually nailed the spirit of the goal. I worked on illustrations! I even did some intentional practice instead of just drawing or painting things and hoping I’d learn something from it!

So, no, I can’t do a nice “here’s one art piece from each month” collage, but whatever. I worked on this. It counts.

Grade: A for effort, you did good

Finish outlines for two books: Technically, I did four outlines: Level 99, A Game to You, and Alien Peacelords, plus I revamped The Twin Etheriums outline. I do not plan to write The Twin Etheriums based on the existing outline, but hey, it counts.

Grade: A+, you overachieved on a stretch goal, congrats.

Read 12 books:

*Non-Player Character by Victoria Corva *Spells, Snow, and Sky by CoffeeQuills *Micro Science Fiction by O Westin *The Fall of Lord Drayson *India After Gandhi *Shadeslinger *Looking for Group *Boyfriend Material *Definitely Maybe Yours *Coracle by MCA Hogarth *Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher

So eleven titles, one of which is a novella and another is a collection of microfics. This gets an honorable mention because I did read more than I did in 2019 & 2020, though.

Grade: C, whatever, it was a stretch goal anyway.

Write 50 blog posts: I posted forty-nine blog entries, but I wrote a few that I never posted, so I score this one on a technicality.

Grade: A

For next year, mostly reusing last year’s goals.

Goals for 2022

• Continue caregiving for Lut
• Publish two books
• Finish drafting two books
• Finish outlining two books
• Track food & exercise, on most days
• Post monthly updates.
• Put month & year goal list in my bullet journal so I'll remember to look at it. Also, look at it.

Stretch Goals

• Practice illustration on some kind of regular basis.
• Paint
• Read at least a few pages of a book I didn’t write, on most days
• Keep track of how many books I finish or DNF
• Exercise 15+ times per month
• Use bullet journal to track what I’ve done, on most days
• Promote my books a little
• Write 50 blog posts

I’m using “most days” because I found that if I’m supposed to do something “daily” then the first day I break the streak makes me way more likely to stop doing it entirely. Aiming for something like “300 out of 365 days”. More is better, less is acceptable.