It's The First Post of 2021

*Pokes 2021 with a stick*

"Is it safe to come out yet?"

Normally, I would say that another year has come and gone, but, well, this year has been horrible. As a Canadian, I was saved from most of the trouble. However, at the end of the year, everything started to snowball, even here. That said, I'm making this week a time of reflection, which includes looking back at what I wanted to accomplish last year.

So, last year the tasks I wanted to finish were publishing Lord’s Curse, writing Noble’s Choice, Improving my health, open an account on Fiverr, open an Etsy shop, read 75 books, study Japanese and Spanish, clean my house, and editing Fox’s Façade.

Of that list, I did okay, I suppose. First, my successes.

I did publish Lord’s Curse during the warm summertime.  Working with my editor was awesome and I can’t wait to do it again. Though my release was overshadowed by riots and rampant disease, it was still published and that was a win. I also finished writing Noble’s Choice. And all in all, I’m really pleased with how it turned out so far. I can't wait to start editing it after Fox's Facade is done. While I decided against opening an Etsy shop, I’m counting it as a win, since I made a firm decision on it. When I open a web store I will probably create an account then and put the necklaces and prints up there at the same time. I also opened a Fiverr account. I got hired a few times, but things slowed down as the year imploded, which I understand. I’ll be promoting it a bit more in the new year, so if you have a bit of writing you need developmental editing on, consider using me!

I had a few things I worked on but didn’t succeed to a level of “success” as well, of course. For instance, I cleaned my house (office) and actually came really close to finishing… Before I ran into a month and a half of rush and had to stop. My office is a complete mess again now, but that’s usually how the year goes. The real difference for me here is that I actually have a place for most things now, which solves a lot of the cleaning problem. For my yearly reading challenge, I decided to try reading 75 books for the year. However, I found out that extreme stress makes it so I can’t concentrate on writing, which meant that I spent a lot more time listening to music than reading. Despite that, I did completely finish 65 books. While that total is low for me, I find reading speed very subjective, so I know that while some of you will give me shade for “only” finishing 65, the other half will be wondering when I find the time. It's not a win, but 65 books is nothing to scoff at either. My language studies are in here because while I think I’ve done rather well at identifying issues with my learning and have figured out better ways to learn in Japanese, I wrote at the beginning of the year that I wanted to work on Spanish as well. Since I dropped Spanish entirely, I have to count it as a partial win. The last thing in this list is my novel Fox's Facade. Even at the beginning of the year, I wasn't sure if I would have it done by December and the near-total rewrites did not help things. Despite that, I am halfway through my last edit before it goes out to beta readers and my editor, so we're on time for hopefully a summer release. 

The one thing that I did not keep up is my goal to improve my health. I am still overweight and want better stamina, flexibility, and balance. This goal is getting moved onto 2021's wholesale. With the Switchfit game as my Yule gift from my husband and the Boxing game (perhaps updating to the new one when I have a bit more cash), I'm hoping to have a better response to this next year. 

So, that's it. This is the beginning of a new year! Let's move forward bravely, but also carry a big stick to beat 2021 down if we need to. 💪

PenPen the Penguin rocking away listening to New Year's Tunes.