Amanda Frederickson's Blog: Musings - Posts Tagged "new-year"
Farewell and Good Riddance 2013
Well, 2013 kinda sucked. Especially toward the end with my landlord raising the rent while refusing to do maintenance, AND roping us into another month because we didn't turn in our notice during Thanksgiving (when they were closed).
It could have been worse. There was no kitchen fire and no incompetent "recovery" company that stole our stuff (2010), and I did get a lot of writing done, but no goals were actually met. It feels like most everyone around me had an overall lousy year too.
It wasn't entirely a loss though. I started this blog, I published some short stories, started a Facebook author page, and even though all three of the manuscripts I wanted to finish... aren't, all of them made significant progress and I have half drafts of Rose and Blood Queen under my belt. Rose gets to wait her turn until the other Gatewalkers are finished, but Blood Queen is still making slow progress. (Though well meaning, I think my ambitious plan to write three manuscripts at once instead of one at a time was ultimately more than I could chew. Lesson learned. One project at a time. Maybe two? Heh.) Oh, and remember that contest I mentioned waaaaaay back at the end of July? Its deadline was December 31st. I got it written, finished, revised, and submitted with time to spare. By time to spare I mean about three hours, but I wanted to give it one last go-over (and still felt crazy nervous hitting the "submit" button). HA! Take that 2013. One mission accomplished.
I did also manage, between the lovely crazy stress that ended up piled on these last two months, to learn some down and dirty tricks for writing around life, which I fully intend to apply in 2014, especially in packing/moving through January.
Oh, and I got a cat. He's an adorable monster. I seriously missed having a cat. ^_^
For 2014, one goal: read more.
It could have been worse. There was no kitchen fire and no incompetent "recovery" company that stole our stuff (2010), and I did get a lot of writing done, but no goals were actually met. It feels like most everyone around me had an overall lousy year too.
It wasn't entirely a loss though. I started this blog, I published some short stories, started a Facebook author page, and even though all three of the manuscripts I wanted to finish... aren't, all of them made significant progress and I have half drafts of Rose and Blood Queen under my belt. Rose gets to wait her turn until the other Gatewalkers are finished, but Blood Queen is still making slow progress. (Though well meaning, I think my ambitious plan to write three manuscripts at once instead of one at a time was ultimately more than I could chew. Lesson learned. One project at a time. Maybe two? Heh.) Oh, and remember that contest I mentioned waaaaaay back at the end of July? Its deadline was December 31st. I got it written, finished, revised, and submitted with time to spare. By time to spare I mean about three hours, but I wanted to give it one last go-over (and still felt crazy nervous hitting the "submit" button). HA! Take that 2013. One mission accomplished.
I did also manage, between the lovely crazy stress that ended up piled on these last two months, to learn some down and dirty tricks for writing around life, which I fully intend to apply in 2014, especially in packing/moving through January.
Oh, and I got a cat. He's an adorable monster. I seriously missed having a cat. ^_^
For 2014, one goal: read more.
Wrapping Up 2014
I think the fact that this year’s best Christmas present was a countertop dishwasher means I’m officially old.
2014 was a real roller coaster year, but it also had some amazing blessings, not the least of which is the roof over my head. This year two siblings got married, a sister engaged, another nephew born, and now there’s another nephew or niece on the way. (Yes, I have a big family.) It also ended up being the first Christmas we didn’t have at my parents’ house. Instead, Christmas morning was at my oldest brother’s house, and dinner was at mine.
Yep, first Christmas dinner at my own place. It was an experience. It also went pretty well, if I do say so myself, though the cats were a little traumatized. Nee-chan cooked the turkey and it came out amazing. We even managed to fit everyone into the library, kids and all.
At the beginning of this year, my only resolution was to read more. Looking over the couple of years I’ve been on Goodreads, this year totaled the second lowest number of books, the one lower being my first on Goodreads (which means there were books I didn’t keep track of that year). So much for reading more. I did notice, however, that the year I read the most was the year I had a functioning Kobo all year (before Nee-chan stepped on it). I’m thinking I need to scrape some pennies together to get a new one.
For writing, in August I started writing down how much I wrote each day (in estimated page numbers). November was the best month, of course, and December was the saddest, averaging .7 pages per day. For the rest of the months it was between 1.4 and 1.7 pages per day.
So. The resolution for 2015 is, first off, to get a handle on setting reasonable goals. Now that I have a bit of a baseline, for January I’m going to aim for an average of two pages flat. Not a big change, granted, but it’s something to start with.
Bring it on, 2015.
2014 was a real roller coaster year, but it also had some amazing blessings, not the least of which is the roof over my head. This year two siblings got married, a sister engaged, another nephew born, and now there’s another nephew or niece on the way. (Yes, I have a big family.) It also ended up being the first Christmas we didn’t have at my parents’ house. Instead, Christmas morning was at my oldest brother’s house, and dinner was at mine.
Yep, first Christmas dinner at my own place. It was an experience. It also went pretty well, if I do say so myself, though the cats were a little traumatized. Nee-chan cooked the turkey and it came out amazing. We even managed to fit everyone into the library, kids and all.
At the beginning of this year, my only resolution was to read more. Looking over the couple of years I’ve been on Goodreads, this year totaled the second lowest number of books, the one lower being my first on Goodreads (which means there were books I didn’t keep track of that year). So much for reading more. I did notice, however, that the year I read the most was the year I had a functioning Kobo all year (before Nee-chan stepped on it). I’m thinking I need to scrape some pennies together to get a new one.
For writing, in August I started writing down how much I wrote each day (in estimated page numbers). November was the best month, of course, and December was the saddest, averaging .7 pages per day. For the rest of the months it was between 1.4 and 1.7 pages per day.
So. The resolution for 2015 is, first off, to get a handle on setting reasonable goals. Now that I have a bit of a baseline, for January I’m going to aim for an average of two pages flat. Not a big change, granted, but it’s something to start with.
Bring it on, 2015.
