mistressofmuses

Looking back at the start of 2021, I realize that I didn’t actually set any firm “resolutions.” I had a few semi-tentative goals, but mostly avoided being too specific.
I wanted to try habit-tracking again, which I did! Successfully! For the whole year!
I wanted to actually talk to/interact with/stay in touch with people, which I’ve also done, largely here on Dreamwidth.

But for the more concrete resolutions, such as they were, the goals I did have were mainly “write more”, “read more”, and “move around more.”

One out of three ain’t bad?

But honestly, I’m very proud of the amount I got written for 2021. It’s absolutely the most I’ve ever written in a year: 213,939 words! Over the course of the year, I’d avoided figuring out any sort of year-to-date total, though I added up the wordcounts for each month individually. So adding the monthly counts up and looking at that total was an absolute shock!

Unfortunately, it didn’t translate to very many works that were completed/shared. Instead, I have several WIPs, in varying stages of completion, either partially posted or entirely on my computer.

Only one completed fic: Step Right Up

Plus two in-progress fics: Connections of the Heart and Island Territory.

The bulk of the wordcount went to an unposted fic titled "All Strange Wonders" (which I am excited to post, but want to wait until I’ve finished my other WIPs), and to "Lunacy", the original story I worked on for NaNoWriMo. Plus a couple other bits and pieces of stories, or versions from one of the above that wound up scrapped.

I didn’t read as much as I’d hoped to, though as I go back and look, it was a little better than I thought.
In 2021, I read about 10 and a half books: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, River of Teeth, Taste of Marrow, The House in the Cerulean Sea, Angel of the Overpass, Fugitive Telemetry, Imaginary Numbers, Calculated Risks, The Last Sun, Under the Whispering Door, and I'm about 2/3 of the way through Dark Rise. Two of those are novellas, but that's a little less than a book each month. On the upside, I really enjoyed all of them! (This also doesn't include other short stories and novellas, or any fic.)
[ETA: Actually, this doesn't quite do it justice, because I also read That Ain't Witchcraft, Imaginary Numbers, Calculated Risks, and have started Angel of the Overpass with Taylor, which adds four to my total (even if they're re-reads for me.) Alex and I are also about halfway through The Only Good Indians, and just need more long car rides to keep reading during, lol.
So that's actually more like 15 books for the year.]

My last real goal had been to find some sort of physical activity I enjoyed (aside from going out to clubs and dancing, since that’s a terrible idea during a pandemic.) While we did do a decent amount of walking and hiking, I didn’t really find anything else I enjoyed… but I also didn’t really try very hard. The exercise room in our apartment was closed for Covid, and only reopened for about a month before closing again. I can’t afford a gym membership or something, nor do I think I’d use one if I had it. So… my quest on that front continues.

But things I am happy with this year:

The writing. While some weeks (and months) were far more successful than others, and my productivity and motivation both ebbed and flowed, I always got SOMETHING written each month. It wasn’t quite the 500 words every day that I’d aimed for, but I still wrote a lot!

Habit tracking! I kept up with it for the whole year, and definitely intend to continue. I appreciate that it helps me to look a whole picture, rather than just how I feel on the current day. It’s nice to look back and see that a downswing or rough patch doesn’t mean I *never* did anything worthwhile. And it's given me something to look back at, to look at my writing totals, and what books I read, and things like that. It's kind of nice to hold a record (even a very narrow, abbreviated one) of my whole year in my hands.

Dreamwidth!
Livejournal mattered deeply to me as a teen and 20-something. (It’s where I met Alex, and we’ve been together for going on 12 years, now.) But as life got weird and complicated (and also really bad for a while), I stopped doing any sort of journaling. After that, I often WANTED to return to it, and just kind of struggled to actually do it.
I’m ALSO one of the people who deeply misses the more community-focused fandom that could be found on LJ. As tumblr goes through continuing cycles of disaster and misery and content restriction, plus all the general reactivity/polarization/dogpiling/prioritization of hot takes/etc. of most social media, I miss it even more. (And no, it was never perfect, yes there were always fights, but god, it was better than fucking twitter.)
While I doubt Dreamwidth is going to hit the critical mass required to truly become the new home of fandom on the internet (even if I wish it would) it IS at least home to a pretty solid group of people with similar, like-minded interest in the types of interaction I miss.

This year, I managed to post every. damn. day. That wasn’t a hard goal at the start, but the longer I went without breaking my streak, the more stubbornly I held to it.

Along with that, I for the most part didn’t procrastinate on posting about the things I wanted to share. It used to be the norm that I’d do a fun thing, have pictures from it, and then never ever share them. This year I was pretty good about doing so, and that makes me happy. This seems like a silly thing to be AS proud of as I am, but "just DO THE THING" has been a struggle for literally decades at this point, lol.

My relationship with Alex is good. I'm glad we have each other. I'm also still deeply grateful that we have a roof over our heads.

Cy, like all dogs, remains the best dog.

The year itself doesn't feel like a total win: We are STILL in the middle of a global pandemic, which at this point seems poised to continue forever. Alex has a looming health mystery. My job is often more frustrating than it is satisfying, and I wish it felt like the same company it was when I started.

But overall, personally, the good has mostly outweighed the bad. As always, I hope for better things in the next year, and hope to carry through the things I've learned and to improve upon them.

I know that the change between December 31 of one year and January 01 of the next is a completely arbitrary division, but I'll still take advantage of the cultural reset button. Cheers to everyone, and may 2022 bring us all the best. (Or at least less bad!)

I need a new fandom, lol.

Really, I just want some variety in what I get ideas for, and yet... the ideas all come for the same ship in the same fandom.

Well, that's not 100% true: sometimes I also get ideas for a DIFFERENT mostly outdated video game franchise that was formative to teenage me but suffered a decline in coherence and quality in later years and is well past its glory days of active fandom. :D

Some of the struggle is that while I've been *into* other movies/shows/games/books/etc. I'm more satisfied with most of those, so I don't really feel the need to wade into producing fanworks for them. I often consume fanworks in those fandoms, but don't really get the urge to make my own.

But Kingdom Hearts is INFAMOUSLY a mess in canon, so I enjoy throwing all of that out and not even pretending to understand it, and writing about the characters I loved and cared about in various AUs.

Alternately, I want to write horror stuff set in Silent Hill, utilizing the broader lore to explore the parts of it I find most interesting. But I also feel like very few people are interested in reading that, which makes it harder to want to write it, lol. (And there is that one Silent Hill fic I wrote way back in 2016 but never posted... that was about a mystery illness... which felt like Very Bad Taste to share once Covid happened, even though I'd written it years before. Maybe in another year or two it'll seem less tacky to post.)

This isn't to make it sound like I don't want to keep writing the stuff I'm working on, and I wouldn't say I'm exactly burned out on it... But it does feel like I've kinda explored the same dynamic as many times as I feel the need to right now... I just wish I felt like I had some well of inspiration to move onto after!

Challenge #4

In your own space, create some goals. Leave a comment saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I already did my pseudo goal-setting for 2021, with my habit tracker, and the stated writing goal of "500+ words per day, more days than not."

But here are a few slightly more specific goals that fall under the fandom header:

- Finish the rough draft of All Strange Wonders
- Write a second draft of All Strange Wonders (and post, if ready!)
- Finish watching Leverage and Hannibal
- Read at least 10 books this year (Like so many, I used to be the type that would finish a book in a few days, but now struggle to focus.) My actual hope is to get closer to 20, but 10 seems a fairer goal.
- Pare down my "saved for later" list on AO3.

Those are the five that I want to commit to. After I finish ASW, I'll examine what I want my next writing goal to be, but I generally have to focus on one ongoing thing at a time.

I didn't know about the Fandom Snowflake Challenge until a few friends posted about it. So I'm belated, but appreciate the low-pressure nature of the challenge making that okay! I'd like to get to know some more people who are active on DW!

Challenge #1

In your own space, introduce yourself! Leave a comment in the community saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Hi, I'm Katy. I'm queer, and I like to write.

In terms of fandom, I've been in fandom as a writer and reader since I was in high school, so... more than 15 years, now! Though to be honest, I was acting out fandom-related plots for as long as I can remember before I knew organized fandom was a thing.

Mid-2019 I "returned" to the creator side of fandom, posting an ongoing fic for the first time in more than a decade. While I'd written fic for myself in that time, I'd either not finished it, or didn't feel ready to share it. Last year I completed that ongoing fic, and participated in some other fic challenges!

The fandom I've been writing for is Kingdom Hearts, which was my jam when the first two games (plus a couple of the spinoffs) came out when I was in high school. While I've not played the rest of the series due to limitations on console ownership and time, I *still* get most of my inspiration for this fandom. Specifically, basically everything I write is for the Destiny Trio/SoRiKai OT3. What can I say: they're my faves, they incorporate lots of my favorite tropes, including... being an OT3, and I love endlessly reimagining stories for them.

The other fandom that I get the most inspiration for is Silent Hill. (Yes that is almost a literal night and day difference.) I haven't posted any of my work for SH yet, but it's mostly stories that utilize the setting and series mythology while focusing on original characters. I really like horror, and the psychological horror of the Silent Hill series (especially the series at its best) is some of my favorite.

( Cut because going on about my more minor fandoms feels like rambling: )

Outside of fandom, but fandom-adjacent, I also like writing original fic. I'm trying to devote more time to reading and video games, which are ostensibly my main hobbies! I play Equiverse, which is a silly horse sim game, but I enjoy it. I do some other art things, though not very often.

Not so fandom related at all, I work an office job, and I live with my partner of 11+ years (who I met on LJ way back in the day!), and our pit bull, Cy. I also love to hike, and when not in the midst of a global pandemic, I like clubbing (goth, 80s, or gay clubs, by preference.)