"Got a feeling '21 / Is gonna be a good year"

I've had this lyric in my head for weeks (from The Who's Tommy). As another line in the same song says, "I had no reason to be over-optimistic"; also true, given that most of the things that made 2020 such an unrelenting horror haven't really changed, and yet I can't help but be glad to turn the metaphorical calendar page anyway.

Another thought that's been on my mind lately is that January 20th is the real New Year's Day of 2021, and I have to say that it can't come soon enough.

Real posts with writing goals and otherwise closing the books on 2020, coming soon.

December and 2020 wrap-up; January and 2021 goals

Days written: 17/31
Words written: 4,953
Words of fic written: 2,024
Stories worked on: One
Stories posted: One (reveal in January)
Days written in 2020: 206
Words written in 2020: 50,734
Fic words written in 2020: 7,798
Fic words posted in 2020: 4,974

( Charts forgot to include Leap Day in the running wordcount, so it's been off by over a thousand words almost all year )

( Closing out 2020 )

With 2020 hindsight (I promise never to make that joke again... maybe), I can understand why I didn't hit my goals, either for the year or in almost any month. And I try not to beat myself up for it, but given that I still haven't figured out the balance, I'm not entirely certain where to go from here. But setting goals is important to me, so I'll put some bars out on the floor and do my best not to trip over them.

2021 goals:
1. Try to hit the 240 getyourwordsout Journeyman Habit goal. I considered signing up for the next goal down, at 120 days/year, and then having tighter rules for what counts as a writing day, but I know myself pretty well, and I think I would start cheating on those rules pretty quickly. So I decided to stick with what I've been doing, as a better bet for easing back into a writing habit.

2. Sign up for wipbigbang and use the challenge as an opportunity to finish the sequel to "Face the Music".

3. Once that's done, turn my attention to Wardens of Ivalice Part 3.

4. Write at least one post for ladybusiness every month (already have some plans for this in the works) and post Monday Media Musings at least three times a month.

Goals for January:
1. Get ahead of GYWO pace by writing an average of 6 days a week.

2. Finally start the Dragon Age: Inquisition game for my Mahariel canon. I should have done this long ago, but I've had a hard time motiving myself to play out the DA2 game (I'm stuck somewhere early in Act 3) because I just don't care that much about Sylvie Hawke -- I haven't discovered anything interesting or different about her. So I'll just make some decisions about how her canon would have played out, update the Keep, and move on to DA:I. (And then once that's done, go back and start a full canon run, beginning with DA:O, probably Tabris because that's the only origin I haven't played out yet.) This also will force me to take a break from Civ 6, which is probably a good idea in and of itself.

3. Begin a new fandom project that I can't really talk about yet, but I promise you I'm super excited about it!!