Follow Through

Of course a “Year of Eight” is not really a thing that exists in this world, but the writer girl part of me was tickled by the coincidence. It’s actually a direct reference boldly taken from my WIP The Girl who would be King, a fantasy novel based in a vague pre-Islamic, fantastical version of the Near and Middle East around the Late Bronze Age(ish), that I’ll be shamelessly talking about if not in this entry, an entry in the near future ^_^ However, GK (my acronym for it) is something to be discussed a bit later while I go into a bit of personal stuff for the rest of this entry.

With it being a new year, that usually comes with what people like to commonly call “New Year’s Resolutions” and, honestly, a good 90% of those resolutions are generally broken before midnight on January 31st. However, one of my besties mentioned something the she learned from one of her other friends called “One Little Word” and I’ve chosen to embrace that this year instead of writing down another list of resolutions I may or may not keep. For me, my ‘one little word’ is actually two words “Follow Through”, but it encapsulates one thing “Progress”. Why didn’t I choose “Progress” as my one word, seeing as it is actually one word? Well, in my head “Progress” feels like it’s a lot heavier weight than just “Follow Through”. Following through can mean something as simple as following through on a promise “Yes, I’ll watch that episode with you” or it can be something big like following through on a project you’ve been planning for literal years–or a manuscript that’s seen thirteen different iterations since your originally thought of it back in 2013 (I’m talking about a friend…not me…really–okay, yeah, it’s me…) that you’re finally planning to push to the point where you can actually write [THE END].

So this year I plan to Follow Through on several things I’ve had cooking on my figurative stove for a long time–in the case of some of them over a decade. I’m not sure I’m going to push all the way through to the end on them, but I’d like to at least try. I have a rough plan for the year and we’ll see how it goes. So here’s the plan.

1. January 2024: See The Girl who would be King through until [THE END]
   
   I met a fellow writer on a friend’s Discord and we’ve agreed to exchange novels on January 20th. This means I need to get ALL of GK finished before then and, to that end, I’m going to be taking a vacation from work and spending as many of the days as I can getting the rest of this story on paper. I’ve rewritten Part 1 at least thirteen times and the pieces of Part 2 that I have done at least 7 times, but I’ve yet to actually write the story for Part 3 (but I have a really nice bulleted list of what’s supposed to happen in it written down). If I can accomplish this strike that—WHEN I accomplish this, I will be able to write [THE END] on a novel-length story for the first time since I was about 18 (the story I wrote then will never see the light of day most likely).
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2. February-March: Myriai’s Myriad, get the YouTube Channel out of the dusty idea box it’s been sitting in and get it in order to make a debut. 
   
   I’ll probably be a bit sporadic about updates on it at first as I’m going to be feeling my way through it mostly solo, but it’s something I’ve planned since about 2021 and I want to see it through.
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3. April (~May) 2024: Finish Shade Tree Rest (Or Seventh Concord–the title’s kinda up in the air at the moment) for Camp Nanowrimo. I also have had this (or a variation thereof) plotted out since around 2016 or so and I’d like to finish that as it’s going to be a building block towards my YouTube Channel and its content. Plus, after the sweeping epic that’s going to be GK–I think it’ll be nice to kinda sit back, relax, roll some dice, and write some expansive descriptions. STR is part of Shadows of Kurelinn, which I suppose is an epic fantasy of its own as it’s a trilogy (the next titles are Forges of Lelna Dorei followed by Shadow of the Green Dragon), but since it’s roughly based around D & D I feel like it’s not going to be as big of a world building endeavor.
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4. June 2024: Launch a Twitch Channel (also Myriai’s Myriad) if things seem to be progressing nicely between now and then–this could get delayed until later, but that will be A-OK.
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5. November (~December) 2024: Ashigo’s Shadow is going to come out of the archives and my next goal will be to finish that one. The story was completely written, but like GK, this one has a lot of places where I kind of glossed over things and I intend to write them all out this time and maybe even write [THE END] on it too–it would be neat to go from zero things completed to 3 things completed (at least through the first draft version) then we’ll see where 2025 takes things from there ^_^

There are a few other things that I am looking to follow through on as well that were kind of left on the shelf over the course of the last three years or so (maybe four years, I’m not sure) among these include: get a passport, open an editing side hustle, and get more than two or three books read over the course of the year. I also want to at least check into some medical issues I may have, but those get a little too personal for things like this. This blog is also included on my list, I’d like to actually consistently post at least once a month over the course of 2024, and I also need to take more initiative in my social media posting over on my Facebook Page, on X and BlueSky, and probably on Instagram as well.

Also within that intervening time (as I know there’s a large gap in between a couple of the goals), I intend to write/finish a couple Star Wars fan fic pieces and get them up, likely on AO3. My nephew managed to drag me back into the Star Wars corner of the galaxy with Ahsoka–and, to be honest, if I can avoid parts of Ep IX and don’t get involved in any fandoms too deeply, I do still very much enjoy Star Wars ^_^

It’ll be interesting to see where this year takes me and look back on how this intention to “Follow Through” served me over the course of the next twelve months.

For now, I need to go get some sleep as my day job during this time of year is rough and tends to eat up large chunks of my creative spoons without me realizing it until I get home and find myself staring at a blinking cursor on a draft and see the word “The…” as the only thing typed in the past three hours.

♥ Myriai