Well, we’ve come to the start of 2019, which seems totally
insane to me. Where did last year go? Christmas and New Year’s Eve were both
good, and probably the ones I’ve enjoyed the most in quite a number of years. I
worked in retail for many years, so I still get seasonal dread accompanying
this time of year, but it’s finally beginning to fade as the years go by. I
hope you enjoyed yours, too – or if you don’t celebrate, that you had a good time
nonetheless.
In last year’s roundup, I mentioned it was the first time in
a while that I had really begun to feel like myself again. That continued this
year, but there were still big chunks of 2018 where I felt I was pretty much
operating on autopilot – get up, go to work, go home, sleep, repeat. Things
were busy, busier than I would have liked at quite a lot of points.
In practical terms, this meant I read hardly any books, only
made it to the movies a handful of times, listened to an absolute bare minimum
of new music and didn’t watch too many new TV series. Someone I follow on
Twitter mentioned that they’d finished around 150 books this year, which is absolutely staggering to me.
You would have also noticed that blog has been pretty quiet
the last few months – but don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about it. Just the
overall busyness contributing to the autopilot factor, I guess. And to be fair to myself, most of this was
down to simple logistics; for the first half of the year I was devoting pretty
much every waking moment to Lost Tunnels,
while the second half saw me starting at a new job. Both of these are
time-consuming enterprises, and that means other stuff has to get left out by
necessity.
I should add that I had a pretty positive year on
the whole. My book,
Lost Tunnels, came
out –
please
buy and read it if you haven’t already – and I’ve really been
enjoying my new day job too. And I did watch a bunch of wrestling and listen to
a ton of podcasts, I guess.
So while I’ve never been a big one for New Year’s resolutions, as 2019 kicks off I find myself reflecting on some of the things I can do better
over the coming 12 months. So here we go – if you’ve got any of your own, feel
free to share them in the comments below.
1. Get better with
time management
Really, this is the font from which everything flows.
I
wrote an article earlier this year about writing, and I mentioned
that time management is an important part of ensuring you find time to write. But
you’ll notice I also said I’m a natural procrastinator, and unfortunately that
hasn’t changed either. So I’m trying to make a conscious effort to be more
judicious in my use of social media in particular. It will never cease to amaze
me how much time I can waste on it.
2. Get into better
shape
As I mentioned above, one of the things I have spent quite a bit of time doing
this year is watching wrestling. Your own feelings on that will vary wildly,
but I know that for me it’s been a bit of a wake-up call to start taking better
care of my health. I’m now in my thirties, and accordingly there’s been a
natural slowdown of metabolism – but it’s not all down to that, and I know
there are some lifestyle things that I need to take control of more
effectively. I’m overweight and that’s not going to change without a concerted
effort on my part. So 2019 is the year for change!
3. More targeted
collecting
The problem with being a collector is that it’s very easy to
buy something without necessarily thinking about how that thing will fit in
with your collection, or even within your house. I’m sure many of you can relate.
For example, in spite of not actually reading all that many,
I did buy a ton of books in 2018. Now
to be fair, I give a lot of books away once I’ve read them – they won’t be
taking up space forever. But for the meantime, there are quite a few just
lurking there both on my bookshelf and on my psyche.
In practical terms, this year I definitely plan to take a
longer, harder look at things I plan to buy before actually pulling the
trigger. And probably cull a bunch of stuff I simply don’t need. I don’t really
buy into the minimalism trend, but there is something to be said for doing a
bit of a spring clean every now and then.
4. More targeted
writing goals
One of my highlights at the end of last year was that I’d
finished the first draft of my horror novella,
Lost Tunnels. Well, I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I
self-published it in June of this year. And if you haven’t already given it a
read, you really should! Inspired by my old hometown and Lovecraftian weird
fiction, my sister called it “nightmare fuel” which is one of the highest
compliments I could have asked for. You can find it
here
for Kindle.
But where to now? Obviously I want to do another one. But
what will it be? That’s a big question, one that I’m still nutting out. I'll keep things updated on here as I know more.
In 2018 I wrote some stuff that I was really proud of,
particularly over at
We Are the Mutants
– I hope you enjoyed it too. There are plans for more into the future. But I also spent a
lot
of hours working on stuff that felt like, and probably was, a waste of time and energy. Believe it or not, I frequently get people asking me
to write things for them, and I try to be very selective when saying “yes”.
It’s easy to underestimate just how long things can take to produce, and the
temptation for greater exposure is often very hard to say no to.
There was one site I stopped writing for in 2018. I don’t
want to trash it at all, because it’s a good site and the people who run it are
nice and very professional. But the work I was doing simply wasn’t translating
into additional attention for me or my work, which was a stated part of my goal
in doing it in the first place. It would be a very valuable opportunity for
others looking to build a portfolio when they’re starting out – but given that
writing is already my day job and I have this blog, it simply wasn’t delivering
what I’d been hoping it would. It was time to cut the cord. If you’re a writer
starting out, don’t be afraid to do the same if you feel that the working
relationship isn’t mutually beneficial.
Well, that’s it for me. Hopefully you found something useful
in there for yourself, too. As always, keep your eye on
Twitter,
Facebook
and
Instagram to
keep up to date on what’s happening with me and the Lupine Book Club.
