A New Year’s Update: 2019 Review and 2020 Goals

2019 sure was something. Some days, it felt like the end of the world–other days, the beginning of a brand new one. All living things are both living and dying at the same time, and I guess it’s the same with the universe. Every breath in must eventually be expelled, and every light casts a shadow. Every beginning has an ending, and nothing begins unless something else ends.

For me, personally, 2019 wasn’t quite what I thought it would be. (But then, has any year ever truly gone according to plan?) I’m sure 2020 won’t be much more cooperative–but the point of planning and setting goals is to get things done regardless of the unexpected, yet inevitable, detours and distractions that will crop up along the way.

Here’s a look at what happened last year—and what I’ve got up my sleeve for the coming year.

Looking Back: 2019

According to last year’s post, I had some pretty big plans for 2020. I wanted to participate in my first game jam to finally dip my toes into the world of visual novels. I wanted to finish a full draft of my first non-visual novel, too—a project that’s been quietly in the works for years. I wanted to post more blogs, and I wanted to do some major work on this website.

I didn’t quite hit all of those targets. That novel draft I wanted to finish remains unfinished—though I did make good progress and still think it will get done. Eventually. I also didn’t beat my previous record of blog posts per year (only 13 published in 2019, compared to 19 posted in 2018), though a lot of other writing did get done behind the scenes. And, of course, there were other things that fell by the wayside as well.

But here’s what I did get done this year.

Developed and published my first visual novel (demo) using RenPy. I’ve been intrigued by VNs ever since I played Re: Alistair++ years ago and discovered a whole new world of interactive storytelling. While The Dragon’s Last Flight was never meant to be a large-scale project, I’m grateful for everything I’m learning from it—and excited to finally finish and share it with all of you sometime this coming year!

Wrote over 75,000 words of a game script. For just the dialogue in TDLF, I wrote about 75,671 words total this year. Many of them have already been cut, and more will likely be before the end—but just seeing that kind of progress tells me I’m moving forward as a writer, and that is encouraging indeed. (And this doesn’t include the several thousand words I wrote for my novel, or blog posts, or my day job…)

Rode one of the tallest ferris wheels in the world—alone. The Wheel at ICON Park Orlando, at 400 feet, is one of the ten tallest ferris wheels in the entire world, and third tallest in the U.S. (or so I’ve read). The ride is one long, 23-minute rotation, with a nearly unobstructed 360 degree view of your surroundings—and I am terrified of heights. To step on that thing all alone and survive the ride with minimal hyperventilating may sound trivial, but to me it was pure magic. Forcing myself to stand up and look around at the peak of the wheel was one of the high points (har har har) of 2019 for me.

Completed 10 MasterClass courses, including writing and design courses taught by great minds like Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Will Wright, Dan Brown, and David Sedaris. Interspersed between these were a variety of “curiosity” classes (on subjects not directly related to writing, but still of personal interest) on everything from business and science to acting and conservation, taught by the likes of Natalie Portman, Penn and Teller, Dr. Jane Gooddall, Sara Blakely, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. I learned so much this year—and I’m looking forward to learning even more cool stuff in 2020—this time trying out The Great Courses Plus!

*The view from 400 feet above Orlando. I was shaking by the time I reached the top. But it was worth it!*

There are probably more things I should list but am forgetting. Such is the way of things. As for what I want to do in the coming year…

Looking Ahead: 2020

As usual, I have big plans for this year. I want to:

Take a break. That’s right—the first thing I’m doing this year is taking a break. Not from writing—in fact I’ll be doing quite a lot of that—but from posting and from social media. I’m going to take this January to build a bit of a working buffer of blog posts and social media content for myself, so that I always have something interesting to share without having to constantly be fighting a tight deadline. My hope is that this extra breathing room will result in better content—and let me focus more on what really matters the most (my stories!).

Finalize and publish my first full-length VN, The Dragon’s Last Flight. Release has been delayed more than once due to unexpected changes in scope—what was once supposed to be a 30 day project is now almost a year old, with a much larger story and many more endings than we initially imagined—but never doubt that this game will be released sometime this year, come hell or high water (or dragonfire).

Begin (and perhaps even finalize and publish) another VN. Yep, brace yourself—more stories are coming! I have an idea for a SHORT visual novel game (and yes, dammit, this time it will actually be a short game) that I plan to pitch to a certain VN publishing project. Regardless of whether my application is accepted, the game will be made—and I look forward to sharing it with all of you, maybe even sometime in 2020 as well!

Better content. I’m always learning new things about blogging and what I want to do with this particular blog, and one of the things I’m going to figure out this month is what directions I want to try out this year. (Same goes for my social media posts!) In 2020, I tried to let more of my content be guided by keyword research (so that more of my content would be relevant to what people would like to see here), but I think some more fine-tuning is needed yet to get a good balance between what I want to write about and what people will actually read. Stay tuned for some fresh content beginning in February!

And along with all of this, I plan to have some pretty grand adventures, including attending my biggest convention yet—in a city I’ve never been to before! I have my reservations about this year, it’s true, but overall I’m feeling pretty optimistic about what’s in store for me—and what I have in store for you.

And so, friends, I wish you all a happy new year and a fulfilling 2020. May your goals be attainable, your triumphs be many, and your mistakes be worth learning from. Most of all, may you and yours be well. Thank you for reading, whether just this post or my games or anything else I’ve shared over the years. See you in a month!

While the cat is away, dear mice, feel free to play—you can check out both the first chapter of The Harbinger’s Head and the demo of The Dragon’s Last Flight for free right now!