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The inevitable navel gazing.
It was a weird year.
Somehow much more uneven - more good, weirder bad. From a financial, accomplishment, doing-things perspective, so much better than the last couple years. From a mental health perspective, this was apparently the year the bills from 2019-2021 came due.
So things that were good:
- Great stuff on the writing front. I'm in an anthology that should publish at the beginning of 2023. I have a novel that will come out from an actual traditional publisher in 2024. I have some other potential news that's in negotiations that I can't talk about on social media right now (ask me in person) but I hope to have locked down in and public in January-ish.
- I managed to sell my stock from Old Job while it was still worth something. Not a fortune, but a nice windfall.
- Chuckro got an amazing award at work.
- ARR is in general doing really well.
- We got to do a ton of travel this year, and saw a lot of people we haven't seen in years. It was marvelous.
Stuff that has not been good:
- Current Job continues to be a raging garbage fire. My boss quit last week.
- Job market has been terrible.
- Slow roll nervous breakdown over several months, including ER visit, was distinctly unfun. Currently on half-time work (with half pay), which is not a long term solution but a much needed breather. I'm out of "so exhausted that literally nothing in the world is actually fun or interesting" and no longer having weekly panic attacks; now we're just at "geez, I'm kind of tired and still need to take it easy."
Stuff that's not so much resolutions as things that have to happen next year:
- Need to figure out new plan re:job, since this is not sustainable in the long term (two rounds of layoffs, we've fired most of the sales team, there is no product team, and no CMO - this ain't a long term proposition, here)
- Need to figure out how I want to approach social media from the author marketing perspective. Twitter's on fire but not totally dead yet, Tiktok may get banned, the diaspora hasn't landed on a new location yet. I need to start building a presence and beef up my website (will blogs come back? who knows?). I need to decide how to handle the Goodreads situation (my penname is now a Goodreads author - do I want to continue posting reviews? Under which name?) I may not have the energy to maintain the drips of posts here anymore (which is sad on its own; I'll let you know as I make decisions). But there's a lot of work coming on that front I haven't dealt with yet.
- Need to finish the novel draft I'm working on, hopefully before the revisions for the contracted one hit.
- Need to rebuild exercise routine, which has fallen apart.
- Need to figure out a way to balance things better next year so as to incorporate more rest while still getting the most important things done. Because none of this is helpful if I crash and burn again in six months.
Sooooo next year will be a thing! We'll see what kind, I guess.
It was a weird year.
Somehow much more uneven - more good, weirder bad. From a financial, accomplishment, doing-things perspective, so much better than the last couple years. From a mental health perspective, this was apparently the year the bills from 2019-2021 came due.
So things that were good:
- Great stuff on the writing front. I'm in an anthology that should publish at the beginning of 2023. I have a novel that will come out from an actual traditional publisher in 2024. I have some other potential news that's in negotiations that I can't talk about on social media right now (ask me in person) but I hope to have locked down in and public in January-ish.
- I managed to sell my stock from Old Job while it was still worth something. Not a fortune, but a nice windfall.
- Chuckro got an amazing award at work.
- ARR is in general doing really well.
- We got to do a ton of travel this year, and saw a lot of people we haven't seen in years. It was marvelous.
Stuff that has not been good:
- Current Job continues to be a raging garbage fire. My boss quit last week.
- Job market has been terrible.
- Slow roll nervous breakdown over several months, including ER visit, was distinctly unfun. Currently on half-time work (with half pay), which is not a long term solution but a much needed breather. I'm out of "so exhausted that literally nothing in the world is actually fun or interesting" and no longer having weekly panic attacks; now we're just at "geez, I'm kind of tired and still need to take it easy."
Stuff that's not so much resolutions as things that have to happen next year:
- Need to figure out new plan re:job, since this is not sustainable in the long term (two rounds of layoffs, we've fired most of the sales team, there is no product team, and no CMO - this ain't a long term proposition, here)
- Need to figure out how I want to approach social media from the author marketing perspective. Twitter's on fire but not totally dead yet, Tiktok may get banned, the diaspora hasn't landed on a new location yet. I need to start building a presence and beef up my website (will blogs come back? who knows?). I need to decide how to handle the Goodreads situation (my penname is now a Goodreads author - do I want to continue posting reviews? Under which name?) I may not have the energy to maintain the drips of posts here anymore (which is sad on its own; I'll let you know as I make decisions). But there's a lot of work coming on that front I haven't dealt with yet.
- Need to finish the novel draft I'm working on, hopefully before the revisions for the contracted one hit.
- Need to rebuild exercise routine, which has fallen apart.
- Need to figure out a way to balance things better next year so as to incorporate more rest while still getting the most important things done. Because none of this is helpful if I crash and burn again in six months.
Sooooo next year will be a thing! We'll see what kind, I guess.
