Tag Archives: Homeowner

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!