December 2023 in Review

 Health/Fitness

My exercise habit is BACK. I exercised 28 out of 31 days in December. \o/

Granted that my standards of what counts as "exercise" have become very low, this is not as impressive as it sounds. But it does mean that on every one of those 28 days, I made a concerted effort to move around in some fashion more than I would have otherwise, even if it was just for a 10-minute aerobics video or to clean the kitchen or whatever. It's much better than I was doing in August through October. It's probably better than I've done since I quit Pokemon GO! in 2020, tbh.

I still wasn't paying attention to my eating habits, and I need to get back to that, if only to make them more in line with my appetite and less in line with my stress levels.

Writing

I worked on notes for a few different books: a sequel to A Game to You (this was ridiculous because I'm not even ready to edit that book, never mind writing a sequel. But I did it anyway), a new Etherium romance, and another romance in the same setting as A Dragonling's Family. I'm leaning towards the last as my actual next WIP, but we'll see what wins out. I like the last option because it's not only a romance, but a romance between people who aren't rich or powerful, and whose problems are on a personal rather than national or global level. I often write stories about Important and Influential People who need to tackle some major crisis affecting millions. This is a great trope but I have a deep and abiding love for small stories and I don't write enough of them.

The Business of Writing

I published Alien Peacelords! Good job, me. This involved finishing the last editing pass and then final read-through, as well as all the miscellaneous tasks of publication. It took me until Christmas Day to finally wrap it up. But I did it! \o/

Art

I finished the art for the Alien Peacelords cover again. The original blond figure on the cover looked off to me and I figured it would always bother me if I didn't get him at least better. So I removed the original figure and redrew him from scratch and probably no one else who saw both versions even noticed the difference. But I'm happier, and frankly that's what counts.

Besides that, I illustrated 34 Apothecaria entries, through entry 285. 

Social

Hm.

I may have forgotten to social at all in December. 

I called my parents a few times -- four, I think. Not quite the "weekly" I was aiming for, but not terrible.

Gaming

Lut and I played Kill Team once or twice each week (usually once). The last two weekends, we've played at home instead of playing at the gaming store. With the incidence of various contagious diseases rising over the holidays, we figured we'd stay home for a few weeks until the surges pass.

On a related note, the oncology center called to reschedule an appointment for Lut last week because his oncologist had covid. Again. :/ (This oncology center stuck with their mask mandate longer than any other provider we've seen, too -- they didn't drop it until this summer.)

Goal Scorecard for Prior Month

• Help Lut: Done!
• Keep in touch with parents: We'll call it done, if not as well as I'd like.
• Track exercise: Done! For bonus points, I actually did exercise this month so there was a lot to track!
• Pay bills: Done! Though I gotta remember to get some money out of my non-retirement investment account so that I can pay January's bills.
• Check goal list occasionally: Done! 
• Complete an outline for a new book: Nope! Worked on a few different options, didn't finish any of them.
• Finish penultimate read-through on Alien Peacelords: Done!
• Layout the cover art for Alien Peacelords: Done!
• Layout Alien Peacelords for publication: Done!
• Finish final read-through on Alien Peacelords: Done!
• Publish Alien Peacelords: Done!

Stretch goals:

• Illustrate 30+ Apothecaria entries: Sure did!
• Post an Apothecaria entry every day: Ayup!
• Generally other productive things from the Bored? list: 
  • "exercised 28 out of 31 days" falls under this heading. I did other stuff that's on the list, but mostly gaming/reading/entertainment type things. I think all the other productive stuff was covered elsewhere. OH WAIT. Blogging! How could I forget blogging?
  • For the nth time I decided I'd post more random blog entries and then, for whatever reason, this time actually did post more random blog entries. I made seven posts in December, six of them in the last five days of the year. One was the usual month-in-review and one was a release post for Alien Peacelords. But the other five were pretty random; the kind of things I used to post back in my early, early days of online journaling, and that I haven't posted regularly in many, many years. Anyway, that was cool. I don't know if I'll keep that up, but I might. I like having a record of my life.
  • This was my last month before semi-retirement: I am now only working seven hours a week. I've only been working thirteen hours a week for the last four months, so this is only a drop by six hours. But it feels huge and I want to note it in the review.
  • Man I just remembered something else that went in here and I instantly forgot it, brain why. Oh yeah! I collected most of my Apothecaria pages into an epub: Cassie, Witch of High Rannoc: Spring . Doesn't cover the most recent entries, which will go into the "Summer" version. The ebook is ginormous because it's all images, but it means I can read it on my phone at night. I am happy.
  • Ooh and BUDGET! For the first time in ages (possibly ever?), I made a projected budget of how much I plan to spend and on what. I've never done this because my spending has always been "spend whatever you have to and save the rest". And I am a compulsive saver so I've never overspent. But moving into semi-retirement meant that I wanted to make sure that the way I've been spending matched the amount of income I'd have available to spend. It does, although it meant guesstimating the present value of the social security payments I won't be getting for 10+ years. It also means assuming Social Security and Medicare will still be there when I'm old enough to collect them. This is probable although not certain. My wage earnings have always been pretty solidly "lower middle class", which is one of the least likely segments to be targeted by American politics for cuts. If anyone's still getting social security, it'll be the people who had low-but-consistent incomes during their working years and who do not have high taxable incomes as retirees. But it wouldn't shock me if Congress decided to raise the retirement age for Medicare & Social Security. Oh, and my budget is also dependent on Obamacare, which is also not certain to stick around. The Obamacare healthcare subsidy actually covers all of my monthly premiums for 2024, to my surprise. Anyway, there's plenty of place I could cut spending if I had to, so my confidence is in the 95%+ range.

Goals for Next Month

Hmm.

• Help Lut
• Keep in touch with parents
• Track exercise & consumption
• Pay bills
• Check goal list occasionally
• Complete the 2023-in-review post and set goals for 2024.
• Complete an outline for a new book
• Flesh out editing list for A Dragonling's Family
• Get 25% (combined) through editing one or more drafts.

I expect I will be editing A Dragonling's Family next because it's the path of least resistance (I have three other completed drafts but they all have Major Issues to address in edits and I'm extremely meh about doing so). But I'm leaving myself open to the idea that I'd rather edit something else. If I get 10% done on one book and 15% on another, that's fine too.  

Stretch goals:

• Illustrate 30+ Apothecaria entries
• Post an Apothecaria page every day.
• Keep up the blogging habit. "Every week" qualifies for this but "almost daily" is fine.
• Compare actual spending to budget for December and see how that's working out.
• Get 50% (combined) through edits.
• Make an Illustration Retrospective for 2023.
• Work on the cover for A Dragonling's Family 
• Any other productive stuff.

2023 in Review and 2024 Goals

 Commentary (content warning: death, grief, cancer)

I will always remember 2023 as the year that both Bard and Terrycloth passed away. Because brain cancer made it increasingly difficult for Bard to communicate in writing -- our default method of communication since we first met on FurryMUCK in the early 90s -- I'd not spoken with Bard nearly as much in the last years of their life as I would have preferred. From 2007 through 2020, we'd talked regularly, often daily, via instant message or email. I feel their loss keenly still.

Terry's death was more sudden and hit me even harder. We'd spoken daily since 2007 too -- the +terrible butterflies+ online game had deepened my friendship with Bard and formed it with Terry -- and we'd gamed online four nights a week, every week, for most of that time. He was my long-distance boyfriend, as important to me as Lut, a constant in my life. In August of 2022, Terry was -- so far as we both knew -- in good health, with no more than the same minor issues doctors had failed to find a cause for after many years of asking. By August of 2023, he was gone. By January 2023, we knew his prognosis was bad; his oncologist estimated 18 months (or perhaps "18 months or less", I'm not sure). Even so, his death after less than nine was a shock to everyone. 

They were both such amazing people, and I'm grateful I got to know them as well as I did. I miss them so much.

My year-in-review is usually just my accomplishments for the year: pictures drawn and books written and whatnot. But it would be an injustice to me and to the loved ones I lost in 2023 not to mention them. One thing I did in 2023 is grieve. I am still grieving. That wasn't on my to-do list for the year, but here we are.

But I did other things in 2023, too. Some of them were even on my goal list. 

Goals 2023

Publish two books: I did this one! Just barely. I finished the final touches on Alien Peacelords on Christmas Day and put it up for sale because pre-orders and release dates based on marketing strategy are for people who actually have a marketing strategy.

Finish drafting two books: I also did this one! I finished A Dragonling's Family and wrote the first draft of The Jewel-Strewn Night, my second sf romance. I have significant reservations about some choices I made in The Jewel-Strewn Night, so I don't know if I'll edit & publish it. We'll see. Maybe I'll feel differently about it when I eventually read it through.

Finish outlining two books: Oops, no. I outlined The Jewel-Strewn Night but that was it.

Track food & exercise, on most days: Technically?  I tracked for 229 days, through mid-August. That's the majority of days in the year.

Post monthly updates: Yup, still doing these like clockwork. 

Put month & year goal list in my bullet journal so I'll remember to look at it. Also, look at it: Did this one, too.There was a month or two where I didn't bother updating, in part because my goal list stopped being "goals" and started being "here's some things to do if you're in the mood." 

Be gentle with myself : Yeah, I'm doing this one. Not beating myself up over the goals I missed, for instance.

Stretch Goals 2023

Practice illustration on a regular basis (say, 10 hours per month): omigosh MASSIVELY OVERACHIEVED. I did some painting & drawing from January through mid-March -- a few Curator Prompts, some cartoons based on Veo Corva's avatar and the games they streamed, some sketches of friend's characters, some work on cover art for A Game to You and Alien Peacelords. Then in late March, I started playing Apothecaria and illustrating entries for it. 284 illustrations in one year. (285 illustrated entries, but one of them is a collage of illustrations from other entries.)

Finish some paintings that I like: I mean, 284 illustrations. They're not all gems, but I do like some of them! I like the Alien Peacelords cover, too.

Keep track of how many books I finish or DNF: Kind of? I didn't read that much in 2023. I started off strong when I opened a bookwyrm.social account and read a bunch of novellas and short stories in January (some while traveling to and from visiting Terrycloth). Then I stopped reading much and only finished a handful of books in the rest of the year. Counting novellas, short fiction, a novel-length fanfiction by Terrycloth, and Tuftears' incomplete and privately-posted Alien Tastes, I think I get to 13 or so total. I don't remember if decided to DNF anything; I kind of think "no, I didn't officially decide I won't finish this, but there are two things I started and haven't finished yet." 

I think in 2024 I'll finally open a Storygraph and see if that makes tracking more fun. Bookwyrm has always been sort of annoying -- I've had to add most of what I read manually, I never got the hang of how to get it to believe that I've finished a book, and while it technically federates with other ActivityPub services, it's so sluggish about it that it's hard to tell if it's working or not.

I don't know if Storygraph will be better for any of this, but it's the service I hear most talked about. Also, I'd love to have a service that lets me track things I read that aren't "epubs/print books available from a retail stie". No idea if Storygraph will help with that.

Use bullet journal to track what I’ve done, on most days: I didn't do this one. I tracked daily things through mid-June and then just dropped it. The main reason I dropped it is that I stopped caring about what I'd done on a day-to-day level in this format.  With most things I cared about tracking -- writing, editing, art -- I could retrace what I'd done by looking at the last month-in-review entry and compare it to current progress.  The only thing that might be useful to track daily is "hours spent drawing", which is something I'd like to know. But I can get an approximation by looking at my output, and it's not worth the trouble to get something more granular. I'm still using the spreadsheet as my appointment calendar because I find calendar apps so annoying. And for some other stuff, like exercise tracking. But at the present time, I don't plan to get back to tracking other daily activities with it. 

Goals 2024

• Continue caregiving for Lut
• Keep in touch with parents
• Publish one book
• Complete three of initial edits or first drafts (so editing one book and drafting two, or editing three books, whatever)  
• 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.
• Be gentle with myself

I really don't want to drop my publishing goal to "one". I want to get back to my pre-pandemic "write/edit/publish three books per year" stride. But I've published three books in 2022 and 2023 combined. While I have four complete drafts that I could edit at present, I have started edits on zero of them and I expect the editing process to be lengthy, if not in the "it would be easier to just write a new book that was less complicated" range. 

I will be semi-retired in 2024, so I'll have more free time. I might have better luck with the people I love surviving 2024, though at my age and given the health of some of my loved ones, this is not a guarantee. v_v I was willing to set some actual goals for January instead of "Celebrate whatever you manage to do. God be with you." Maybe I'll get back into the groove of editing and writing and return to the halcyon days when I could write a book in two months and edit it to completion in two months. (Not consecutive months -- the whole process took six or more -- but I could work on other projects while one project was resting, so the pipeline remained functional.) But I'm not setting goals based around that ambition. My brain is better at exceeding expectations than at achieving difficult goals. So I'll make the goals easy and will either zoom past them or amble towards them, and either way, it'll be fine.

Stretch Goals 2024

• Post 365 Apothecaria entries or until the story arc is complete 
• Illustrate 365 Apothecaria entries or until the story arc is complete
• Start another journaling game if I finish my current journaling game
• Keep doing art even if I stop with illustrated journaling 
• Figure out how to measure personal improvement at art (I want a goal of “work at improving” but first I have to figure out how to tell if I’m improving.)
• Read at least a few pages of fiction (or a nonfiction book) I didn’t write, on most days
• Keep track of how many books I finish or DNF
• Exercise 15+ times per month
• Promote my books a little
• Write 50 blog posts