Wowsers, this has certainly been a year. Arguably even more of a year than last year, but only barely.
Obviously, I did not visit the Salar de Uyuni this year, either. But eventually.
I did get to travel a bit in October, even adding a new country to my list of ones I’ve visited (fourteen!), and I got to add another year to my age last week. I got to meet a friend I’ve known since middle school for the first time in-person. I finished not one, not two, but actually three more novels in 2021, including two I only started this year. (The power of fanfic and chapter-by-chapter validation!)
I’m still not really a big believer in New Year’s Resolutions, and I am also a big believer in making safe bets. So yeah, I did write a lot this past year. (I broke my personal NaNoWriMo record at a sweet 73k!) I did not work out more, and my diet has been… itself. I did finish the novel I most wanted to, and even have a pretty nice query letter draft… that I haven’t sent out yet.
So you know what? I’m going to send out my queries in 2022. Nice safe bet on a New Year’s Resolution.
In addition to a bunch of other stuff. Travel more, that’s always on my list, and my Japanese is improving by the day. I doubt I’ll take French back up, but who knows? I want to eventually. I may want to change day jobs. I may want to look into self-publishing again. I know I’ll be in a fanzine as a special guest, writing a murder mystery story, so that’ll be a fun new horizon.
But still, 2021 has been a year. Another traumatic year for the world. (Global trauma is a thing. A terrible, terrible thing.) It’s probably had more downs than ups, but all the more reason to think about some of the ups we’ve had the past year. New Year’s is supposed to be about retrospection.
And more importantly, hope.
It’s about looking forward to the New Year with hope, excitement, and joy. Let’s focus on that, even if there are the cynics among us who point out that we’re still in political turmoil, a global pandemic, worsening climate disasters, and late-stage capitalism. Yes, that’s all true.
But time marches on. A New Year can still be a fresh start for each of us, personally. Take things one step and one day at a time, and work toward a better future.
And drink a lot of champagne. Just in case.
