Tag Archives: Happy New Year!

My Bookish Things in 2023 + Goals for 2024

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Now that we’re most of a full week into 2024, it seems like time for my yearly recap and goal setting post.

2023 has been an interesting year, at least for me, in that it seems to be the first year that we’re truly ‘back’ after the pandemic. Of course COVID-19 hasn’t gone anywhere, but the threat seems less pervasive. If we were looking at an extremely long electrical panel with a switch for each of life’s many facets, at this point, basically everything has been switched back to ON.

I don’t really have any specific examples of how this collective ‘ignition’ has influenced me directly (except perhaps a general sense of overwhelm), but this year’s numbers compared to last year, and even more so compared to 2021, would bear out a correlation.

But I can’t let the machinations of the larger world take sole responsibility for my output (or lack there of), I must bear some of the burden myself.

In this more personal arena, I feel a few things are at play. I’ve mentioned in some newsletters, and maybe in some other posts on this blog, I started a new job last January. Since that time, I’ve learned a TON of new skills and gained lots of new experience. I really enjoy the work and feel I’ve grown with each new challenge its presented.

But still it’s hard work. Tiring and sometimes slow to develop. In many ways, even though I’ve been there a year, I still feel like I’m learning its patterns and rhythms. It’s meant that many nights when I come home, the well is dry and I just need to rest.

I anticipate things in this arena will become easier with time and patience. 2023 has certainly been a building year, and I’m hopeful that I’ll begin to see the dividends from that work in 2024. Though there will be some exciting developments taking place at work in 2024 — each with their own challenges I’m sure — I’m mostly looking forward to getting things a bit more settled.

2023 was also my first full year as a homeowner!

This has been another experience which has been both gratifying and loads of work haha. Since last January, essentially every major appliance in the home has needed to be replaced, and because I’m me, I’ll spend a month or more doing the most stressful and time consuming workarounds while I research how to fix whatever has broken and try to complete the repair myself before calling for help.

In 2023 the house has received a new heater, air conditioner, water heater, plumbing in the shower, washer / dryer, and garbage disposal. Only the AC and water heater were replaced together, everything else seemed to break just when the last thing got fixed.

Even the garbage disposal, which should have taken twenty minutes to fix ended up being a whole ordeal because the broken one was so badly ‘hardwired’ — two open wires connected with electrical tape — that we had to put in an outlet under the sink.

Anyway, despite all the stress (and MONEY) I put into the house this year I learned a lot of valuable skills along the way. I can now put in drywall sorta decently and have a bunch of new tools. I think I’m most proud of my ‘fix’ for the broken dryer which was to buy a combined washer/dryer which still seems like something out of a science fiction movie (it uses water to dry the clothes?), and has given back a ton of room in my kitchen (yea its a weird situation).

I did get to enjoy a few benefits of having a home in 2023 as well. I hosted a big house warming party and used my new grill. I hosted a few book club meetings here as well. I haven’t been able to host as much as I would like but I do enjoy it from time to time so I’m looking forward doing that more in 2024.

And now that basically everything has been replaced (knocks on wood), I’m excited to spend more time getting some paint up on the walls, and perhaps some artwork. I don’t know, maybe trying to get pieces of furniture that match . . . I know that’s crazy.

The last big change (read DISTRACTION) in 2023 has been more hobby focused. I picked up the guitar in March and while I can’t say I’ve been super rigorous in my practice regiment, I have still managed to squander a lot of time and focus enjoying it. Even when I’m not physically playing the instrument, it seems my attention is never far from it.

What’s been fun and interesting for me this year, is that I feel like I listen to music in an entirely different way than I used to in my past (as a drummer). Old favorites have new intrigue and bands/genres which never appealed to me suddenly seem fresh and interesting.

Growth and experimentation in this area of my life is probably the thing I’m most excited for in 2024. Maybe even more so than writing . . .

But by this point, writing (and reading) is a long-loved (and long-suffered) avocation, and I wouldn’t just give her up for any passing fling (although there’s a good argument to say that music has been my passion and writing was just a phase but I’m going to ignore that argument . . . because I want to).

So let’s do what we came here to do and wrap-up my writing/reading for 2023 and see what 2024 (potentially) has in store for us

Writing 2023

My 2023 goals were simple:

  • Post weekly on this blog
  • Publish Aegyptosaur
  • Write a sequel to Narmer and the God-Beast
  • Write 4 new pieces for my newsletter
  • Finish a Nanowrimo draft of the a novel set in my Zhenya-Verse
  • Write Comedies instead of being so serious and (maybe even) Grimdark all the time

I accomplished zero of those goals, although progress was made towards all of them. I feel like I applied myself the most towards posting on this blog, and writing newsletter fiction. But I think it was the last goal, learning to write more humorously, which really derailed everything.

Of my 44 posts on the blog (around 47.4K words), I most enjoyed:

For my newsletter, I managed two posts which included a chapter of my Zhenya-verse Novel, and a worldbuilding exercise for another short story which turned into a kind of encyclopedia-entry style piece of lore which I named The Brothers Draugen.

The story that The Brothers Draugen was written to flesh out, Klatch of Clans, sadly never got finished (although I think I’m soooo close) just as a #smaugust inspired short story, Like Clockwork (see preview 1 and preview 2 for a sneak peak), got caught in revision hell.

Both of these, and a third story I got reinspired to write while I was reading so much Greek Mythology, were all supposed to be more humorous pieces than what I’d written previously. However, in the process of attempting to write them, I realized I actually knew nothing about writing humor.

With this realization, I think a lot of my motivation for writing fled. I didn’t want to write the same old stuff I’d been writing before, but I didn’t know how to write what I DID want to write. So, 2023 became a time of learning, experimentation and hopefully growth as a writer.

Unfortunately it did not result in a lot of finished work. Oh well.

My last notable accomplishment for 2023 was sending Aegyptosaur to a developmental editor. I got a ton of feedback and the manuscript feels like it’s brimming with potential like never before. However, I think it will require a pretty massive rewrite. Again, oh well.

Writing Goals for 2024

So what can we expect in 2024? Well, it seems like the stage is set for more of the same. I feel like many of the goals I set for 2023 are still worth pursuing even though I did not accomplish them last year.

However things might look just a tad different:

  • Continue a post a week on the blog (seems more doable with inclusion of videogames, movies and short stories)
  • Finish Klatch of Clans (short story)
  • Revise Like Clockwork
  • Write Greek Mythology inspired short story code named: Stoic Tale
  • Publish these 3 short stories along with all my other short fiction in a collection
  • Revise / rewrite Aegyptosaur
  • Maybe just do a little work on Aegyptosaur 2 since I’m in the neighborhood.

You’ll notice that keeping up a newsletter is no longer on this list. I had some issues with spammers and just the whole logistics of running a newsletter (not even just writing it) seems WAY beyond what I’m interested in doing at the moment. So I’m nixing it for 2024. Perhaps I can get it going again some other time when I’m better able to manage it.

Even though the list technically has less on it then last year, it seems a good deal like MORE to do. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Reading 2023

Here again, the numbers are significantly lower than last year. I managed:

  • 28 books (a little more than half the 50 I did last year)
  • 8,255 pages

The longest book I read was Jonathan Strahan’s The Book of Witches (507 pages), and the shortest was “For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (really just a short story at 19 pages). It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that the most popular book I read this year was Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightening Thief, but I think it’s also worth pointing out the least “shelved” book: The Fifth Horseman by Jon Smith.

Obviously all the stuff I wrote about at the beginning of my post affected my reading productivity, but I think there is also something else which may explain why the change is so drastic.

In many ways, 2023 has been an unofficial YEAR OF SHORT FICTION. Indeed 5 of the 28 books I read this year were anthologies (perhaps the best was How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?), and there were MANY other short stories I read this year in dribs and drabs which are not represented in my Goodreads account.

There’s some good novella representation here as well with titles like Penric’s Demon and The Tsar’s Last Dragon. Oh an we can’t forget The Deep . . .

Perhaps somewhat subconsciously, I think this is reflective of the type of writing I was focused on primarily during 2023, which was mainly short stories. My thinking here (I guess) was that if that was the type of material I wanted to write, I had better have read a few. And so I dove all in.

Reading Goals for 2024

I set my goal for 2024 at 30 books. With everything I have going on these days, I think this will actually be a pretty difficult challenge for me.

In terms of what I’ll read, I have really only one goal: CATCH UP ON THE COSMERE!!

After that, you can take a look at End of Year Book Tag 2023 for specifics, but I think it would be nice to finish the Winternight Trilogy, and get a few more Witcher books under my belt.

Of course there are MANY more Percy Jackson books, and it would be good to squeeze in a couple books about Dinosaurs, and maybe return to Ancient Egypt. Since I’m into guitar now, perhaps some memoirs and biographies of different guitarists or just rock history in general.

And always, read more debut authors! We’ll see.

Onward!

So there it is. My year of 2023, and plans for 2024. What do think? Which projects are you most interested to see complete? What songs should I learn on the guitar? Any goals (reading or writing) that you’re hoping to complete in the new year?

Let me know in the comments, and thanks for reading all of this! I know it was a long post.

See you next time!

The Irony of Fate (Ирония судьбы) or Enjoy Your Bath! (или С лёгким паром!)

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C новым годом! Happy new year!

Yes, I already did a new years post with a bit of a review of 2022 and hopes for 2023, but the celebration isn’t over just yet.

Some of you will remember from last year, that I keep a tradition of celebrating the new year twice. Once on January 1st with everyone else, and then again on January 14th for ‘Old’ New Year.

Please see last year’s C новым годом! Or Happy New Year! for a little background on старый Новый год (Stary Novy God) and some info about Russian Fairy Tale characters like Morozko (Морозко) and ‘Russian Santa’ Ded Moroz and his daughter/grandaughter Snegurotchka (Дед Мороз и Снегурочка).

Since you’re in the archive anyway, С Рождеством! Merry (Russian Orthodox) Christmas! will also help get you up to speed on why there’s two sets of holidays.

So what does this have to do with irony, fate, and a bath? (not to mention this handsome couple right here).

Well, put quite simply, it’s a movie which a friend recommended I watch, in order to celebrate the new year properly. After a little bit of research, it is apparently a very popular tradition to watch the film The Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Bath (I’m wondering if the image I found is doctored cause it definitely says ‘you’ bath but my copy is correct and says ‘your’ bath) while waiting for the clock to strike midnight.

So, I gave it a shot.

The whole thing was such a goofy charming experience that I can’t help but think this will become a tradition of mine moving forward. However, I’ll admit that it was pretty hard to get into at first. I was prepared, and even looking forward to the fact that the dialogue, music, and credits were all in Russian (no dubbing but thankfully you can turn on subtitles). But I was not expecting the opening fever dream of strange cartoon tenement buildings marching around to a serious orchestral score. For about ten minutes I wondered if I’d even purchased the right DVD until finally we open on real-life tenements in (assumedly) Moscow.

From there, the film is mostly a comedy (although it does get pretty serious at times) with a goofy premise (man comes home drunk from a visit to the banya (баня) only to find that he’s in an almost identical version of his own home but someone else is living there), and to my surprise, quite a few songs.

It’s my understanding that the movie was intended to be a comedy, and there is plenty of humor baked into the situations and circumstances that the characters find themselves in. However, I think there is also a good amount of humor which can be derived from the time period the film was made (the 1970s). There isn’t much need for ‘effects’ (special or otherwise) but the few that were added were either intentionally bad, or legitimately terrible enough to be laughable. There’s a scene in which one of the characters, foreshadowed early in the movie to be a reckless driver, is driving like a maniac with no logic to what he’s doing other than that it might look cool and confirm he’s an asshole on the road. I was laughing so hard my sides were aching.

Of course, no film is perfect, and this one is probably a little further from perfect than most just by virtue of when it was made. If you haven’t already guessed, the two characters who find themselves ‘victims of circumstance’ and end up in the same apartment end up falling in love, but both have fiancés who they ostensibly love. Each is stricken by guilt at this during different parts of the movie and when the female lead, named Nadya, feels guilty and wants the male lead (Zhenya) to go, he won’t. It sets up some awkward situations in which he is behaving like her fiancé even though he is technically just a stranger. This leads to him kissing her even though she does not want him to etc.

We’re meant to believe it’s ok, because really she loves him, but the whole thing definitely seemed to sit awkwardly to a modern audience. It looks like an American version of the story came out in 2022 called About Fate. I’m definitely curious if the story has been updated at all to fit more modern sensibilities, and whether or not that particular scene is still part of the story.

Finally, there were the songs. This was I think the part of the film I enjoyed the most, as most of them were acoustic guitar and vocals, which is a combo I definitely love. But what made me really take pleasure in listening to them, is that the lyrics sung were a little easier to understand then the constant back-and-forth dialogue of the two leads. I’ve been learning Russian on Duolingo for just under a year (323 days as of this posting), and I was proud that it finally came in handy while attempting to understand each tune.

So . . . Give It a Watch?

Absolutely. As I mentioned above, I will likely try to make this a tradition for myself, but even if you’re not interested in the new year, this movie is still a bit of a treasure and a gem. No matter what language you speak, it’s funny, philosophical, and all around an excellent story.

That’s all I have for now. Have any of you seen this film? Would you like to? What was your favorite part? Leave your replies in the comments section. C новым годом! Happy new year!

Still here? Awesome. I’m glad you enjoyed The Irony of Fate (Ирония судьбы) or Enjoy Your Bath! (или С лёгким паром!)

If you enjoyed this little glimpse into my life and nonsense, you might just want to sign up for my newsletter.

Every quarter I try to share a little bit of myself in the newsletter that doesn’t get shared here on the blog, and it’s also packed with other things like new short fiction I’ve written. This quarter, I’ll be releasing the opening chapter of a novel I’m writing which is a mystery, taking place within a Russian Fairy Tale setting. It should go out on January 16th.

Anyway, thanks for your time, and I hope to see you around here more!

My Bookish things in 2022 + Goals for 2023!

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In the immortal words of John Lennon: “Another year over, and a new one just begun.”

Somewhere just before that he talks about it being Christmas (tomorrow is Russian Orthodox Christmas by the way), and then like a proverbial familial elder wastes no time in making things uncomfortable in the most judgmental sort of way:

“AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

The more of these year-in-review type posts I read from friends around the internet, and the more of them I write myself, the more I wonder if Lennon hasn’t hit something prescient in his lyrics about the way we spend our time, and the pressure we put on ourselves to achieve, achieve, achieve.

Writing in 2022

Reviewing my Bookish things in 2021 + goals for 2022 post from last January, 2021 was a veritable cornucopia of writing, with a novel draft finished and a short story (Narmer and the God-beast) published on Amazon. Plus 85 blog posts and a couple short stories written for my newsletter.

142,341 words were written in 2021 and wow was it a wild ride.

2022 . . . not so much.

I bought a house, hunted for a new job (which I found! First day was this week!), and generally feel like I’ve been busier than ever with all things that aren’t writing.

However, my not so trusty writing bot implies that I managed to write MORE!! in 2022 coming in around 147,945. Career wise, I’m at 290,286 words logged, and I can account for 112,591 of them with what I know I worked on this year:

  • 58,400 for 2022 on this blog
  • 34,690 for this year’s Nanowrimo competition which I sadly did not complete
  • 6,214 or there abouts for At the Edge of Legend. (newsletter exclusive)
  • 3,687 towards Narmer and the God Beast 2 (pitiful lol)
  • 10,000 ish for Farewell to Rusalka (newsletter exclusive) and Where the Lobsters Go to Winter (presumably for the newsletter but I never finished it)

The other 35,354? I’m not sure. So perhaps keeping track of all these words isn’t exactly a useful metric. However, of the goals I set last year, I am happy to say that I managed to write two short stories I’m pretty proud of (Edge of Legend & Farewell Rusalka) and one that I think I could be proud of with some editing (Where the Lobsters Go to Winter).

I think I achieved a more sustainable pace on the blog (only 1 post a week), although that doesn’t mean I didn’t hit rough patches. November and December seem to be particularly difficult with NaNoWriMo, holidays, and just general end of the year craziness/fatigue. If you’d like to read any of what I consider my “blog hits” for 2022, please check out my Moon Knight coverage, as well as my #WyrdAndWonder2022 posts.

2nd, I think my writing has really started to undergo a transformation in tone away from sort of serious stories set in one fantastical world to (hopefully) some more humorous stories set in a different fantastical world. This has been a very slow change, as I’m really learning an entirely new way to write, one that is (apparently) not natural to me at all. It’s taken a lot of work, and but I’m happy with the strides I’ve made so far.

Also, I feel like I have much better tools in my toolbox when it comes to revising my work. I will still need to practice this process a lot, but I think the foundations are there to really see some benefits moving forward.

Writing 2023?

As for 2023, my goals will be much the same as 2022:

  • Publish Aegyptosaur, probably on Amazon considering querying was more or less useless (although I did participate in a few fun twitter pitches)
  • Write NATGB2
  • 4 exclusive pieces of fiction for the newsletter
  • Finish drafting NaNoWrimo22 project (no 2023 NaNo project. I’ve had enough of that for a bit haha)
  • Continue attempting to hone my craft and explore more humorous stories as I can.

Reading 2022

I’m pretty happy with my reading numbers this year although I’m not going to set a goal to match or exceed them next year. I managed:

  • 50 books read (7 more than last year)
  • 14,265 pages read (1,075 (or 1 stormlight novel) less than last year)

The longest (and one of the best) book I read last year was Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee, while the shortest was The Angel of Khan el-Khalili by P. Djeli Clark. The most popular was Verity by Colleen Hoover, and boy what a wild ride that book was. I don’t have a review up on the blog for it yet, but I’d like to give a shout out to Sacha Black for The Anatomy of a Best Seller. Definitely the most interesting book on writing as a craft that I read last year.

Reading 2023?

For 2023 I’m going to be cautiously optimistic and shoot for 41 books read. Technically it is higher than my 2022 goal but I don’t want to over shoot and promise 51 books as I think I won’t have nearly as much time for reading with a new job and all the writing I have planned. We’ll see . . .

. . . Without any fear.

To abruptly come back to Lennon, I think my biggest hope for 2023 — regardless of what on this list I’ve accomplished or not — is to return to this time of year in 2024 and face down the question “and what have you done?”, without any fear. It is after all, just another new year (but let’s hope it’s a good one!).

What are y’all’s goals for 2023? Reading? Writing? Go ahead and post them in the comments. I’m interested to see what ya’ll have been doing. Until next week!

C новым годом! Or Happy New Year!

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Ded Moroz holding his winter staff w/ granddaughter Snegurochka riding the classic troika

с новым годом! Or happy new year!

As we discussed last week, the Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on January 7th, instead of December 25th because they still follow the Julian Calendar instead of the Gregorian Calendar which most (all?) countries and governments follow. As such, the celebrating does not end on January 7th, but instead follows through to January 14th for старый Новый год (Stary Novy God) or ‘Old’ New Year.

Interestingly, it seems that many of the ancient traditions and folklore surrounding the old Christmas celebrations were at first abolished when the Soviets came to power, but later adopted into the New Years tradition and sanctioned by the government as time passed and the Soviets found that they could not stamp out these old practices and ritual.

Father Frost and the Snow Maiden (Дед Мороз и Снегурочка)

Two of the most well known figures from folkloric tradition associated (at first with xmas and then) with the new year’s holiday, are Father Frost and the Snow Maiden (Дед Мороз и Снегурочка). Ded Moroz seems to have a kind of dual lineage, part St. Nicholas / Santa Clause, and part Morozko (Морозко), a kind of embodiment of winter (some may recognize him as the frost demon in The Bear and the Nightingale).

Morozko and the stepdaughter.

Morozko features prominently in one famous tale in which a stepmother sends her stepdaughter out into the snow knowing that it is cold but uncaring that the child will likely die. Morozko finds the young girl and when he asks her if she is cold, she is polite and says no. Morozko lights a fire for her to get warm and gives her gifts which she takes back to the stepmother. The stepmother sends her daughter out into the snow as well, thinking that she will come back with more riches from Morozko, but when the winter spirit finds the daughter and asks if she is warm, the daughter is rude and ungrateful and so Morozko freezes her to death (lots of paraphrasing happening here). What’s interesting to me about this tale is that it shows Morozko as both benevolent, and malevolent in a single tale.

Ded Moroz however, seems to be purely a benevolent figure, giving gifts and spreading cheer similar to Santa Clause here in America. While Ded Moroz does have many similarities with Santa, he differs in many ways as well. He wears a blue robe (instead of red), often with geometric patterns and carries a staff. He rides a classic Russian Troika — a type of sleigh pulled by three horses instead of reindeer — and has a daughter/granddaughter (depending on the myth) named Snegurochka (who I’m still researching so perhaps I’ll have to write more about her later).

How to Celebrate Old New Year?

So, how does one celebrate this unofficial holiday?

Well, it seems like there are many ways. The Moscow Times, says to ring in the new year eating vareniki (a kind of dumpling or perogi), blini (a sort of pancake), and roast pork. But they mention to be careful biting into vereniki on Old New Year’s Eve in Moscow, because sometimes items are hidden inside the dumplings to help predict the kind of year you will have. For instance, if you find a ring? You’ll be going to a wedding. Some thread? Travel.

How to Celebrate New Year’s Holidays Like a Russian (Medium.com) tells us that people go from house to house singing carols and getting food like pierogi (like a singing Halloween although without costumes), feasting, and telling fortunes. Apparently if you throw a boot into the snow, your new husband will be in whichever direction the toe of the boot points when it lands (I wonder if this works for wives as well).

And Here in America?

I’m sure this depends on the family, but growing up (forth generation Russian orthodox), I don’t remember us participating in many rituals or celebrations on Stary Novy God. One ritual I do remember was that we used to put a silver coin on our window sill on ‘Russian’ New Years Eve and this was supposed to bring us luck and money in the new year. Interestingly, I wasn’t able to find this listed anywhere so I’m wondering if this was some other tradition that filtered in somewhere and might tell me a little bit more about where I came from. Or if my mind might just be completely faulty and we didn’t do this, but I think we did. Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out this mystery before the year is through and can update everyone next year!

Anyway, for this year, с новым годом! Happy New Year!

Please let me know what you think in the comments. Any interesting new years traditions in your family? Any you can’t explain? What’s your favorite Russian Fairy Tale?

See you next time!

Still here? Awesome. I’m glad you enjoyed C новым годом! Or Happy New Year! If you enjoyed this little glimpse into my life and nonsense, you might just want to sign up for my newsletter.

Every quarter I try to share a little bit of myself in the newsletter that doesn’t get shared here on the blog, and it’s also packed with other things like new short fiction I’ve written. The next one should go out on January 15th.

Thanks for your time, and I hope to see you around here more!