Re: 2024 Resolutions
Dec. 31st, 2024 08:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI’m proud of what I accomplished this year:
- I finished my first original novel.
- I got my first “real” fiction publication in an award-winning international magazine.
- I got my first publication of a short original comic in an online magazine.
- I collaborated with a long-admired artist on a cover for a zine collection of my stories.
- I relaunched my book review blog and started receiving advance review copies.
- I published two research articles that I’ve wanted to write for years.
- I won a substantial travel grant and presented at an international conference.
- I did not stab anyone in the face, though I dearly wanted to at times.
I worked hard and hustled hard, and I’ve seen major improvements in my writing and visual art.
At the same time, 2024 hasn’t been my year. I’ve been overwhelmed with rejections; and, due to the slow collapse of social media, nothing I’ve been able to publish has found an audience. Although I’ve been careful not to acknowledge it, I experienced sustained online harassment in March and November. I’m so tired and afraid all the time that I haven’t been able to eat, and I’ve lost a lot of weight. I wish I could be more positive about this, but it’s been a tough year.
But what can you do. It is what it is.
People like to say that “you create your own luck,” and I’m doing my best. Still, I hope some actual luck comes my way in 2025. Good luck to all of us in the new year. I hope we all make it.
- I finished my first original novel.
- I got my first “real” fiction publication in an award-winning international magazine.
- I got my first publication of a short original comic in an online magazine.
- I collaborated with a long-admired artist on a cover for a zine collection of my stories.
- I relaunched my book review blog and started receiving advance review copies.
- I published two research articles that I’ve wanted to write for years.
- I won a substantial travel grant and presented at an international conference.
- I did not stab anyone in the face, though I dearly wanted to at times.
I worked hard and hustled hard, and I’ve seen major improvements in my writing and visual art.
At the same time, 2024 hasn’t been my year. I’ve been overwhelmed with rejections; and, due to the slow collapse of social media, nothing I’ve been able to publish has found an audience. Although I’ve been careful not to acknowledge it, I experienced sustained online harassment in March and November. I’m so tired and afraid all the time that I haven’t been able to eat, and I’ve lost a lot of weight. I wish I could be more positive about this, but it’s been a tough year.
But what can you do. It is what it is.
People like to say that “you create your own luck,” and I’m doing my best. Still, I hope some actual luck comes my way in 2025. Good luck to all of us in the new year. I hope we all make it.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-01 03:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-02 02:19 pm (UTC)For real though, the purpose of the hammer is to use the claw (which is apparently what you call the v-shaped pointy end) to loosen compacted urban soil for the purpose of planting sunflowers and tomato vines. I can't fix geopolitics or solve neoliberalism, but I can plant flowers in the neighborhood at least.
I'm wishing you lots of good fortune (and a minimum of disasters) in the days and months ahead. Happy New Year!