I don't post here often enough. Also, I beat myself up too much.
sigh.
It was a busy year. This review is late because I put it off, thinking it would amount to very little and I can't help comparing myself to others. But then I did a "highlights reel" list and ... there was a lot on it. So.
First and foremost, I finished a novel!
Then incorporated feedback from an editor and several sensitivity readers, and then it was so long I decided I had to split it into a duology. Finished the first half in prep to publish it--and it's done. I mean... I would have published it in the fall, but I couldn't face the possibility of trying to do an author launch right after the election. So I put it off to 2025. But. A book! Is! Done!
For a serial incompletionist, this is huge.
I have cover art, if not yet a cover, and the pieces of a publication plan, even.
Wish it felt more like YAY!!! Than yay?!?
My brain, y'all. (Also, this world, but ... later).
Also in 2024 I prepped another manuscript (edited it to be congruent with the above manuscript) and sent that off to the editor. Wrote a few short stories.
Took a weekend and a another week just for writing/revising, the first with some SFF buds and the second with my long-term crit group/writing sisterhood.
Went to three SFF conventions and took a week in Scotland, OMG, Scotland was amazing. The cons were great too.
A few weekend trips/events with friends and partner -- Randy Rainbow, a wine-tasting thing, Eugene Gay Men's performance, Lewis Black on his farewell tour, bartenders' competition at the downtown event, friends' reading at a bookstore, an anniversary trip, a bookstore getaway and dinner, a low-key and delicious yule at the coast with friends.
Spent about a day a month thinning and organizing. It's... helping. I have a few problem areas remaining, but I'm not paying for a storage unit anymore and the house feels ... like a place people live. Comfortable. Like I'm not embarrassed if someone shows up at the door. It's a ridiculously huge weight off my soul.
Medical stuff (nothing serious, but finding a provider who actually listens is huge.)
Also, spent a few hours a week much of the year helping out with a friend who's having ... life.
Finished the French tree in Duolingo; kept my streak all year. Keeping up with review on that while I dabbled with a few other languages; settled on Spanish, which I've been working on more slowly.
Singing-wise, I took part in two regional competitions (solo), performed with my choir in the spring and at a national choral conference, and sang with them this fall until my depression got to me.
The election levelled me.
sigh.
There was no working on the election in that list above. I didn't have that in me. Just a shit-ton of donations to candidates and organizations. I dunno if it helped hold the tide. It doesn't feel like it. I don't begrudge the expense, hell, I feel like I should have done more. But oddly enough, it's not effective to scream at voters to get them to change their worldview or their propoganda-laced viewpoints, and that's where I've been most of this year. So. No working on the election, just writing checks.
We live in DeliberateIgnorance-plus-Naziland now, and I need to figure out how to cope with that, how to react to that, how to act in that.
How to combat that.
How to create in and despite that.
Self-care first -- putting on my own oxygen mask before helping others. That's kind of been the last two very non-productive months. Grieving, raging, accepting. Haven't gotten much beyond that, but I'm starting to get there. Actually wrote a short story start earlier this week.
But. That's all on 2025, and this is a review of 2024. Which in and of itself, was an okay year for me until election day. Like a flood of sewage that ruins the beautiful village we've worked on and built together, because we didn't work hard enough to maintain the walls on the sewage pond.
It's an analogy. I'm working on it.
So, 2024: adieu and adios, pretty-decent-until-November year. Can't say as I'm looking forward to your replacement.
Forward, whether I want to or not.
Courage.
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