The end of another year, and another year where I haven’t done as much as I’d hoped to. But, life gets in the way, and that isn’t always a bad thing.
I’d hoped to write one short story per month in 2024 but realised that writing is hard, even when you have loads of ideas already (I have about 20 short stories “sketched out” ready to be written, as well as the notes and early chapters of what I hope will be a full book) but early in the year I lost my mum, which killed all creativity for a long time.
But, let’s look back at the positive:
Achievements:
I managed to write and release three short stories:
The Knight Of Ivy
The Badger Knight
The Miller’s Son
All three can be downloaded and read for free from this very site.
Stuff wot I’ve liked:
I won’t bore you with overly verbose opinionated “reviews”, but here’s some stuff I’ve loved this year:
TV: House Of The Dragon, The Penguin (Colin Farrell deserves every award possible for this), Only Murders In the Building (only got around to watching it this year, which meant binging the lot), and as I write I’m really loving Star Wars: Skeleton Crew and Squid Game 2, both of which I’ve yet to finish.
Film: Deadpool & Wolverine, Woman Of the Hour (so tense, and such a good directorial debut from Anna Kendrick), and I must have watched some other films but my mind has gone blank right now.
Comics and books: Usagi Yojimbo (every volume is pure gold), Berserk (it’s pretty heavy going, so I need a break between each volume, hence why I’m only on volume 5 of the hardbacks), The Art Of GI Joe (a huuuge art book – with a postage cost from the USA to match – full of photos and details on the 80s and 90s GI Joe toy packaging, most at life size), The Gallows Pole (loved the TV series, and I think I loved the book, but even after reading it months ago I’m still figuring that one out!) and Abroad In Japan by Chris Broad, the guy behind my favourite YouTube channel and podcast.
Music: Very obvious, but Absolute Elsewhere by Blood Incantation and Liminal Animals by Ulver have been top plays for me along with Solace by Shingo Nakamura and D’Muata by Perchta.
Looking to the future:
My aims for 2025 are:
- Write at least another 2 short stories and then publish them, and the previous 3, for free still, on Kindle. I’m not a big fan of Amazon but feel like this is a good way to get them out there for people to read easily
- Get a full first draught of my full length book finished, and then start going over it, hating it and picking it apart
- Write at least 6 short stories in total (12 still seams impossible) and put them out there, for free
- Try to stress out a lot less
And with that, have a happy new year!