I'm kind of dissatisfied with how I managed my time in 2017, though I did some things right.
Stuff I did successfully that I'd like to keep doing:
- Blogging regularly
- Creating great fan content for my favorite cartoon
- Making karaoke videos
- Posting my webcomics on schedule
- Posting my YouTube videos on schedule
Stuff I need to do better at:
- Maintaining my online presences
- Keeping photos up to date
- Using Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter
- Cleaning the house
- Recording more ukulele songs
- Playing Dance Dance Revolution (hey exercise!)
- WRITING FICTION
- Submitting short fiction to magazines
One thing I'd really like to do is redesign my entire website. I actually never completely got through the last redesign that I began in 2007. I'm planning to create a site that's more easily updated and added to, more automated, so adding content isn't as labor-intensive. Plus it all needs a massage and some stuff I posted a long time ago needs to be sort of . . . demoted in the hierarchy of my site. Stuff that I update every week is sort of mixed in with stuff I never change, and even though I have a sort of "what's new" jumpoff point I don't think people who come to my website really know where to look for new stuff.
And of course the other thing I need to do is give some love to my writing. I have a novel in progress and would like to rework its existing chapters and continue from there. I think it'll be a good one. I want to get as excited about this stuff as I used to.
Roadblocks: After my visiting family leaves in a couple days, my birthday is around the corner and I'm planning a party since it's a big milestone. On the one hand, it'd be cool to just sort of focus on the birthday event and not jump back into something that's usually pretty intense if I'm just going to have to pull back out of it to do party planning and spend some time with BFF Meghan. But on the other hand--I need to get used to writing all the time again, and there's no reason I shouldn't relearn how to work writing into an already packed schedule.
And I also have a huge distraction coming up before that: Steven Universe is airing a new two-part special on Friday, and when there's new stuff (especially if it's intense, like this promises to be), I am usually very drawn in by the desire to read and make fan content. This show has new content so rarely that it's hard to NOT get caught up in the hype, so I feel like because it's so rare I shouldn't limit myself to enjoying it when it's brand new.
Maybe I'll just . . . try to ease in and see if I can do a little bit before my birthday. Overdoing new regiments at the start of the new year makes TONS of people give up what they've resolved to accomplish, and I don't want to get overwhelmed and slip back into the patterns that dominated 2017.
Historically, if I want to do something, all I have to do is decide to do it. Then I start and it basically does itself. (I mean, it's not easy, but I have no problem with motivation.) The problem is deciding to start. I know how physically, emotionally, and mentally difficult it is to bust out a project, and because of that I sometimes have to protect myself when I know I'm facing other pressures. (Cartoons and birthday parties, incidentally, are NOT the only pressures I'm looking at here, but the real-life scary ones are also not issues I want to dig into on a public blog.) I guess it's a form of self-care to recognize when I'm not ready to give myself so completely to a project, but at some point you have to wonder whether you're in avoidance or excuse mode.
We'll see what happens.
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