Odds And Ends (random book)

2025 Year In Review

At least I accomplished what I primarily tried to do last year, which was write better. I didn't write any fiction beyond my NaNoWriMo and the snippets in the guide, but I did rewrite the whole Specialized Writing Guide. I really like it now. I am aiming for adding one or two sections a year now that it's all neat and has standards for how it should be written. Plus the old guide was borderline counterproductive and gave some awful advice. I'm just being harsh on myself, of course, since the guide did help those who read it. But now it's even better. It took way longer than I thought because it'd been a while since I'd done any writing like that. I also didn't fire from the hip as much when writing this version as I did the last two. But one thing didn't change: the cover took over a month to get the way I wanted (not working on it consistently and sometimes just minutes at a time).

I didn't get any faster at actually making art, but I did get faster at moving through the idea phase and I got way faster in execution. Once I actually have to make something, I can move pretty quick. It's that pre-production and arbitrary decisions that get me. But what I found was setting standards from the start or shortly afterwards helps keep it in line. Usually, I'm agonizing over trivial things. For the SWG, it was whether to do something fancy in 3D or not more than actually making what's up there now. Now I've basically relearned most of what I lost over the years not doing anything artistic and that's not a waste. Next up is outlining and editing fiction with more professional methods like I did with the guide. And once again probably agonizing over the decision to write my next Warriors fanfic as a novella or a novel.

When it comes to writing, I want to write more but shorter works. That should give me time to do other things like finally getting better at animation. I might post copies from tutorials or basic stuff just to have it out there, as I've also been posting more old stuff. I think it's all up on my Deviantart page now. The only thing I've done and never posted was a Christmas-themed Warriors short story where everything was written in rhymes for a contest that was cancelled several years ago. Never finished that. I have an idea spreadsheet full of things I want to do (just like everyone else out there) and I feel that using more structured systems to create would let me do that stuff. At least in the idea phase and editing phase. I still do whatever I feel like when actually making the stuff.

As far as plans, I want to absolutely finish another Warriors fanfic by the end of the year, once I decide between novella and novel. It was originally going to be a novella, but the story I want to write might be too long for that (which might be better suited to being aggressively cut down to a novella since that's the point; I'll figure that out as I start writing but I'll plan it as a novella). The nice-to-have would be another section or two in the Specialized Writing Guide and more MLP fan art (that stuff is really good at keeping me in practice with tools I otherwise use constantly but sporadically). The stretch goal, just like it's been for the last two years, is animation. I will practice it, but putting something up isn't planned. I'm still going to try since it's something I really want to do. Assuming people still make MAPs in a few years, I'd like to make some of that. Plus I have some ideas of my own I want to get to. The dream is to have a cat. It's not going to happen and there's no plans or means for me to have one, but it'd be nice to have a cat sitting on my computer when I'm writing or something.

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Songs of the Year

1) Golden - HUNTR/X, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI, KPop Demon Hunters Cast... Need I say more? It's everyone's song of the year. Catchy, upbeat, optimistic, simple, unmistakably pop, things I usually hate when combined. But not this. For everyone who hates that this is all I've been playing, you're all wrong. The whole masterpiece of an album was just as infectious as the Wicked soundtrack in 2024, but I actually didn't mind it being a earworm. No one did.