New Year's Goalolutions

That doesn't sound quite right.  But they don't really work if I call them 'resolutions', do they?  They're more goals, so maybe we'll stick with that.  I've butchered the English language more than enough already.

How did I do last year?

Welllllll...

1. Read at least 30 books this year.  I said last year I was trying to read more because I could remember when I didn't have time to read.  Well... in the end I didn't get much time to read.  I've read 19 so far, which is still pretty respectable--although a lot of people would want me stoned to death for considering something so low to be 'respectable'.
2. Write one story a week, or at least 20 stories for the year.  Thanks to Blogging From A-Z I actually managed this with 24 stories.  Admittedly they weren't one a week (to bring me up to 52), more one(-ish) a day for a month even with gross sinusitis, but I still sort of did it.
3. Finish outstanding projects.  Nope.  Additionally, I've quit writing with a view to publishing and am not intending on sharing any other stories.
4. Finish 5 computer games.  Before The Echo; Decay - The Mare; Digital - A Love Story; Tales From The Borderlands (sob); The Fall; The Room; DanganRonpa; DanganRonpa 2; Dragon Age: Inquisition; Gears of War: Ultimate Edition; Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3; Until Dawn and COD: Advanced Warfare.  Yep, I'd say I've done that... and I still have loads of games to finish too.
5. Handwrite more and practice calligraphy.  Between work and apparently all those games, this one fell a bit by the wayside, but I did do a little recently and found I'm nowhere near as rusty as I expected to be.  I really do need better quality paper for it though.  This really is one of those hobbies where the quality of your materials is important--poor quality paper just bleeds around the letters.
6. Make more jewellery.  Not in the way I was expecting, but I learned to sew beadwork and made more that way.  I also made some metal accessories for doll clothing.
7. Try to be better at advertising myself.  See #3.
8. Stop being a whiny self-pitying shite.   This is a losing battle and I may as well give up.

So, what are this year's resolutions?

Shorter than last year's, for a start.

1. Read at least 30 books this year.  Since I couldn't manage it this year it seems a good one to stick at.  With added bonus points for: finish two of the books that are/have become incredibly boring.  i.e. anything on my Goodreads 'Currently Reading' list that's been there for six months or more.  There's... at least three of them?  Probably more by this time next year.
2. Try to enjoy writing again and hopefully finish off some stuff that's incomplete, just for myself.  Turns out I enjoy finishing stories, I just never get around to it.
3. Finish 5 computer games.  Seems a good one to stick at.  Not least because I bought three on Steam this month alone, I've got a couple more from Games With Gold on the Xbox and the sales on the Vita are always horribly tempting (I've got a few games on that I haven't even started).  Hopefully I can manage to finish off at least as many next year as I did this year.  (And maybe finish Marathon 1 and 2 again, and actually complete 3 without getting lost/confused/more lost.  And when I say lost, I mean my sense of direction in that game is bloody awful.)
4. Take up more crafting.  It's not just metalwork and jewellery any more.  Now I have dolls, I'd like to learn to sew better and design clothes for them (but I'd like to make jewellery for them too), and Milos needs two faceups doing which involves pastels and paint, and he needs his elf ears creating, and...
5. And lastly, on the subject of dolls, limit myself to only one more doll this year.  And that would have to be a good Alex, because Milos 'needs' one.  He has no radiator in his room, after all, and who else will keep him warm?

So there we go, last year's goals accounted for and this year's set.  Has anyone else succeeded (or failed) in last year's resolutions / goals?  Or are you planning on setting some this year?

Assessing the Resolutions, and New Ones for the New Year

Happy new year, everyone!  I hope you kicked it off in style, whether that style is staying up and drinking or sleeping the event away (which honestly seems like the better plan--it's a lot warmer, for a start).

It's time for the obligatory retrospective and wild delusion that characterises... you guessed it: new year's resolutions!  Well, it's more a case of looking back at last year's pitifully short list, seeing what I missed by miles and making much the same list that I'll again probably fail miserably at.

So, in short, a standard list of resolutions!

This is last year's list (if you want to read them in their rambley entirety, this is the post):

1. Read at least 20 books this year.
2. Write one story a week.
3. Finish some of the story arcs I've left hanging.
4. Finish five computer/console games.
5. Try not to be such a whiny and self-pitying shite.

How did I do?

1. Well, according to my Goodreads page, I managed a fairly respectable 82 books last year, though that does include graphic novels.  It does however knock the spots off the year before, where I pledged to read 10 and managed 22.  Ebooks and having ereaders on basically every device and computer I own certainly helped there.  Overall conclusion: success.

2. This did not go so well.  I wrote about 13 or so, if you include my flash fiction pieces, but very few longer pieces.  Whether you count them or not, it's still a long way off a supposed attempt at 52.  To be honest, I'd entirely forgotten I'd made the resolution in the first place.  Overall conclusion: dismal failure.

3. The story arcs I specifically mentioned in my previous post were Spectrum, the Unravel AUs and the last chapter of The Destruction of Kirill.  To date, I've not finished Spectrum or either of the Unravel AUs, but writing later scenes about Niko and Kirill did get my arse into gear over the last chapter, which finally got edited and released mid-year, so there is at least a partial success.  Overall conclusion: slightly better than expected.

4. I've honestly lost count on this.  Ever since I got Echo I've been getting more PC games, because all those memes that went over my head about the Steam sales because I couldn't get and play any games on it?  I understand now just how dangerous Steam sales actually are...  Add to that 3DS, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games and it's a losing battle.  What doesn't actually help are the games I play that don't have defined finish lines, like Melody's Escape, Audiosurf 2 and Minecraft and I'm a little doomed.
I have finished: Octodad: Dadliest Catch; Transistor (twice); Analogue: A Hate Story (three times), Kentucky Route Zero (up to the newest release); Halo 1 (a week ago); Castle Crashers (yet again); and I'm totally claiming Melody's Escape despite it being a rhythm game because I've maxed out all the achievements.  So... Overall conclusion: success.

5. Overall success: crashing failure.

So with what seems like a 50/50 success/failure rate, we move into the new year and new resolutions which... for the most part look remarkably like the old ones.

1.  Read at least 30 books this year.  Yes, it keeps going up incrementally but I always live in fear that I suddenly won't get the time to read (like the year before last).

2.  Write one story a week, or at least 20 stories for the year.  I've been talking about actually doing this one now, so hopefully this time I'll actually remember I'm supposed to be doing it, but if I don't I'll shamelessly borrow from one of my NaNoers, FrankieDWrites', resolution to write 20 short stories in a year.

3.  Finish outstanding projects.  This year those include The Palace, The Reconstruction of Kirill (which I have no excuse on, I will freely admit), The Rose Queen and Dust & Ash.  And who knows, maybe even Spectrum and the unfinished Unravel AUs...

4.  Finish 5 computer games.  Eh, I've had it as a resolution for years.  It's the only one I can remember off the top of my head any more.  Maybe this year I'll even finally finish Borderlands 2 and Virtue's Last Reward...

5.  Handwrite more and practice calligraphy.  Pretty self-explanatory, but I began to learn to write with dips pens this December and I'd like to not be so terrible at it.  I'd also like to get more use out of my gorgeous fountain pens and inks beyond making notes.

6.  Make more jewellery.  I started doing this around the launch of TDoK and I've learned a whole lot, like various chainmail techniques, making jump rings, wire wrapping.  I'd like to expand my skillset a little.  Who knows, maybe I'll even invest in a soldering iron.  Maybe, unlike my childhood, I'll realise prodding metal that refuses to melt with my little finger is not the best way to find out why.  (It was a paperclip fragment, for the record; the scar finally vanished from my fingerprint in my very late 20s.)

7.  Try to be better at advertising myself.  I need to figure this one out though, which may take some work.  Ultimately, I think 3. might help as much as anything else here, so maybe tying them together will help.

8.  Stop being a whiny self-pitying shite.  Self-explanatory really.

So, have you guys managed to keep your resolutions?  Are you making any this year?  I'd love to know, particularly if it's been a struggle for you too.  What can I say?  I'd just like to know I'm not alone.

The Obligatory New Year's Post

Happy new year!  I hope 2014 will prove prosperous and full of joy for everyone.

I have a habit of making resolutions, some of which I stick to and some of which I miss by miles--and then there are the ones I completely forgot about until after the event.  I can't tell you what last year's were, because I can't actually find them.

This, too, is pretty normal.

So in an effort to keep my resolutions somewhere I can find them (seriously, I'm sure I wrote them on Tumblr last year but I'll be damned if they're there now), I decided to write them here.  There aren't many.  There never are.

   1. Read at least 20 books this year.

I managed over 20 last year (it feels weird writing that on the 1st January, when last year was only yesterday), although it was partially with the help of the Goodreads 2013 reading challenge.  I signed up to read 10 books in a year, which I hoped was manageable.  In the end 22.  So hopefully, if I resolve to read 20 I'll manage 30.

   2. Write one story a week.

I already try, but I have this terrible habit of writing stories in my head that never end up on paper--I already imagined them from start to finish, why would I write it?  But that doesn't get anyone anywhere, does it?

   3. Finish some of the story arcs I've left hanging.

Related to 2., but slightly tangential.  In particular it's both parts of the Unravel AU, the spectrum Three Graces arc, the second Unravel NaNo Present Day arc and the last chapter of the Steampunk novella.  I should make a plan of attack for those.

   4.  Finish five computer/console games.

I say this every year and I'm pretty sure I didn't succeed last year.  I've got this awful habit of never actually finishing games, either because I lose interest (I have a week's window to get things done or it'll be put off, possibly indefinitely) or because the game in question is enormous and I have to stop playing it or I will get absolutely nothing else done (Borderlands 2).  Let's see if I can finish some this year.

   5.  Try not to be such a whiny and self-pitying shite.

Pretty self-explanatory.  Although to be honest I think I failed that one with the simple resolution.

Let's see if I can check off any of these by the end of the year.