It’s strange to think that at this time last year, we’d just lost Eiwynn and were figuring out a system for writer support threads without her diligence and dedication; thanks to everyone who kept them going last year, including you, Chance.
This might be a good place for me to reflect on last year’s annual goals and set this year’s. As of January 2025, I was hoping to accomplish two things:
The first one happened. I got to Chapter Seven, which I’m hoping to finish this month, so not even that far away from Chapter Eight, either.
The other thing… fell through. I’m honestly in a bit of a creative ditch right now, so to speak. I can do plenty of one-sentence ‘high-concept’ sorts of things, and even build some of those out into respectable outlines with characters, a mechanic idea or two, and so on. But I always hit some point where I don’t know what’s supposed to connect C and D in the plot, or I can’t get down to a granular-enough level of detail about how things will work to satisfy myself.
It’s become quite frustrating. I could, of course, “just wing it,” but having done that with plenty of my previous work, I can say I never feel quite satisfied with the result of that, either. It’s quite the paralyzing dilemma.
Nonetheless, I need to keep moving forward, and some annual goals for 2026 are a good start:
- Finish Blood of the Living, edit it, and submit it for publication.
- Get a solid outline, design, and other pre-work done for whatever comes next, plus one or two chapters.
Hopefully, that will be manageable in the next twelve months. We’ll see how it goes. As for this month, I really just need to get one thing done:
- Finish Chapter Seven
If I can do that, I’ll be satisfied with January.
Here’s hoping everyone has a solid running start to the year, whatever your goals for it may be (and even if you don’t have any)!