2021: An Author Retrospective

Hey there!

It's the final week of the year. I know it, you know it, your neighbor knows it - it's that weird time of the year that everyone has varying opinions about. Personally, I have to force myself to slow my hopeful roll towards the forthcoming year and take some time to reflect on the events of the current one. It helps to organize some of the mental chaos that's built up all year long and allows me to fully embrace the cliché of "starting fresh". Since I'll be reflecting mainly on things related to writing and authoring, I'm hoping to keep this post relatively short - so bear with me!

2021 was an interesting year, all things considered. It's the year I was able to, for the first time, refer to myself as an author - albeit a self-published one. In the spirit of a true retrospective, I'll break this down into three categories: Start, Stop, and Improve.

Start allows me to identify weak areas in how I conduct myself in regards to writing. When writing Tomes of Pirudus - Book 1 (TOP1), I often found myself either writing fervently or not having the desire to write at all. The main focus that I want to start moving forward is that of, well, focus. Setting a clear roadmap for progress checks and doing a greater amount of forward planning will allow for a more cohesive storyline and ensure there's always something to be written. A supporting focus for this category is to start branching out. With my ultimate desire to have multiple book series published, I think it's wise to invest some time splashing out and exploring some other novel ideas.

Stop is a category that is truly an exercise in humility and involves making conscious efforts to excise those actions that drag you down more than they lift you up. The first, and probably greatest, thing for me to stop doing is blatant procrastination. Personally, I am guilt of blatant procrastination when it comes to writing. It took me two years to fully finish and publish TOP1 and it's something I'd like to see come to an end. By setting realistic goals and managing my expectations against the free time. have, I believe I can (at the very least) alleviate some of my procrastination and direct that energy towards writing. A supporting focus for this category goes hand-in-hand with "branching out". I need to stop feeling the fear of splashing out into something different than I am currently writing and embrace the potential that is new content.

Improve is an interesting category, and the one that I sometimes find to be the most difficult. For this past year though, especially related to writing, I find this one to be pretty simple. I need to improve my pre-publishing preparations (try saying that five times fast). Commissioning covers, running marketing, and generating some excitement over a new book is something that you learn how to plan better over time - and I've certainly learned. I've learned to budget more time for the post-creative process to ensure the book gets the love it needs to be successful on launch.

Well, there you have it. I did my best to keep it short and sweet while still getting these thoughts and musings regarding the beautiful year that was 2021 (don't read into that, it was not that great). If you have any thoughts for how 2021 went, or even your own retrospective, I'd love to hear about it!

Once again, thanks for dropping by.