It's that time of the year when we're all making our new year's resolutions and some of us are tallying up what we did in 2020 to see whether we're happy with it. (ok, fine, it's actually a week or two after that time of the year, but what can I say? I had to perfect my Lebkuchen and Challah habits before anything else).
Things I did in 2020 that weren't very productive:
* fudge around too much with old stories (seriously. I'm trying to ONCE AGAIN edit my first ever novel series and I wrote that in 2015 so... probably not the best idea to re-paint something you did as a child).
There were probably a lot more but I don't tend to dwell on stuff that doesn't go well.
Things that did go well in 2020:
* My Master's degree from the University of Glasgow. There were some disappointing things about the program (about half of the lectures we paid for cancelled due to strikes and some would have been cheaper if I just googled) but there were good things as well. I wrote a story I'm quite proud of. It's good. I like it. I even had it edited by Justina Robson and handed it in as my Master thesis. This was good. I would not have written this story without the program. The idea came to me there and I ran with it because it was rad.
* hiked all across the Southern German Alps. I mean, I live in the Netherlands and travel was shut down for a lot of the year, so I went into the mountains where I was (mostly) alone and no one could get hurt from my germs. This was when it was ok to travel during the summer months.
Do you think there's actually a path in the picture below? BECAUSE THERE IS A FUDGING PATH. It just means your behind is sticking out over a 3000m drop while you climb!
*wrote some more short stories I like. The total number is 4. I am not finished editing all of them yet though. They'll still count as 2020 works when they're done.
The one I did finish is called 'When the Moon Was Still Young' and it's about a book mage who travels through different dimensions to collect/help/aid strange beasts. I really enjoyed the character and his assistant. The story is written by the assistant. I even (poorly) drew one of the beasts he encounters - a ghostly octopus-human maid!
(Let's not talk about her enormous head though. Please let's not.)
* I queried 1 story (When the Moon Was Still Young actually) to a magazine in 2020
This is worse than 2018 (9 queries) and better than the 0 of 2019. (I suppose getting a new day job did that.) I've already queried 6 in the last few days so I'm off to a good start.
* I'm on track with my fitness regimen.
I started squats at 15kg and can now do 50kg.
Deadlifts ~20kg to now 50kg.
Pullups are difficult to measure. I'm doing differently every day. I started at around 2-3 (which left me absolutely unable to do any for the next three weeks) and can now do 3-5 almost daily. Closer to 3 if I do them daily. Closer to 5 if I wait half a week and don't do any other lifts (pushups) in the meantime.
Pushups have seen great growth. I'm proud of this. I used to not be able to do ANY (ok maybe 2-3) in the beginning of the year. I can now regularly do ~14 difficult ones where my feet are up on the sofa/bed/other sofa. My max is 16 before collapse. I call that a win!
*I signed on buying a house. I'm not sure this is an achievement. I don't like the house that much in hindsight. However, there'll be a room just for me, so there's that.
I might edit this list once other things came to mind.
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