Snowflake day 12

[obstinatecondolement]

In your own space, set yourself some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

So... I have a very extensive Google Doc with my resolutions for the new year, broken down my category, which lists over 115 individual goals for 2023. Some of them are very personal and I wouldn't be comfortable sharing and including all of the ones I was comfortable sharing would be... um, a long post, lol. But here are my fandom resolutions for 2023:

• Write one and post 1K word story a month ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ (✔) ✅ ✅ ✅ (EDIT: 01/09/23 I've managed this every month except May so far, so I'll give myself that as a mulligan and allow myself to count a fic from another month where I posted more than just one 1K words fic for May instead as a one-time thing)✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
• Participate in Yuletide and write at least one treat in addition to assignment ✅ (✔) (✔) (Edit 03/01/24 I wrote two pinch hits, although I didn't write any treats, so I will call this one a qualified success.)
• Participate in one non-Yuletide fic exchange ✅
• Edit and post three fanvids (one festivids, one vidukon_cardiff, one other) ✅ ❌(Edit: 01/09/23 I didn't get it together for VidUKon this year, but I'll all myself to count this as a success if I post two more vids) ❌ (Edit: 03/01/24 I'm currently still working on my assignment for Festivids, but I didn't complete post any other vids in 2023.)
• Typeset and bind a fic ✅
• Record, edit and upload ten podfics (individual chapters count as one) ✅ (⅔) (I recorded some lines for the pod that the podficcer I worked together with for pod_together made for the event and I'll let myself count it for two thirds of one pod towards this goal, since I did have to edit the raw audio a little before I sent it off for her to edit into her Audacity project file)✅ ✅ ✅ (⅓) (⅓) (Edit 03/01/24 I recorded lines in two multivoices that I didn't edit when I went to europodfriends in October) ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
• Beta at least one fic ✅
• Leave more comments and kudos (kudos every fic that was enjoyable, comment on at least one out of three fics that were enjoyable). Always leave a short comment on a re-read, don’t forget to kudos if also commenting ❌ (Edit: 03/01/24 Definitely dropped the ball on this one)
• Update Dreamwidth once a week ❌ (Edit: 01/09/23 Categorically have failed this, lol, but I'll try and get back on the horse and not be too all or nothing about it) (Edit: 03/01/24) Didn't really get back on the horse, I am sorry to say.
• Look into bringing back trek-rarepair-swap could be an annual thing for now?) ✅ (Edit 01/09/23 I looked into it with my co-mod and decided it's probably a next year at the earliest thing)
• Write more image descriptions and at least look through the notes of posts to find if others have written descriptions before reblogging undescribed posts ✅ (Edit: 01/09/23 I've actually been doing really well at this! Obviously it's an ongoing goal rather than a fait accompli that I'm going to give up on now that I've technically cleared the bar of doing more than I was, but it's nice to realise that I've committed to this very consistently)

Some of these are minimums rather than "do exactly this and no more" goals, obviously.

Looking back at these now, some of these seem extremely doable (and, in fact, I have betaed a fic so far this year and signed up to a handful of non-Yuletide exchanges, so well done me! I am also on track with at least four other goals and possibly more?) and others seem very hard. Ten podfics! I certainly was ambitious when I wrote this list in December in some respects. But, you know, sometimes it's good for me when my reach exceeds my grasp. Gives me room to improve the next year.

It feels fitting to be revisiting my resolutions a day after Lunar New Year. Happy year of the rabbit, everyone! It's my sign's year and I'm not going to waste it like I did 2011, lol. Also, I found out the other day, Vietnam celebrates the year of the cat rather than the year of the rabbit! I'm very charmed by this.

Edit: 03/01/24 So, I did better at this than I thought I would, honestly. Particularly with the podfic! Although to be fair, most of that was a third act twist where I recorded and edited five pods for ITPE in late December. It's good to see a baseline for what was easy and what I struggled with.

Comments

[kavyina]

All great goals! I should have put down that I aim to bind a fic this year, too; more likely I'll bind an....er...sort of collection of one-shots? I dunno. At any rate, I want to bind my work!

And good job on already getting some done! Go you!

[obstinatecondolement]

Yes, I suppose by "a fic" what I meant was "a volume containing one or more fics" haha. I think that I'm going to bind my friend katiemariie's fic turn a little faster; the world will follow after which is one of my all time favourites. It's ~75K words, so I think that I'd fit that in one volume without having to spit it into two. Binding your own work sounds fun! I would like to give that a go at some point.

Thank you! I've got progress on a few more of them, but not enough that I'd feel honest having them listed checked off, haha. I'm aaaalmost 1/3 of the way done on my vidding goal, I just need to do a final draft of my festivids assignment and add some subtitles, which I hope to get done tomorrow. And some of them are more ongoing goals, like the kudos/commenting thing and writing image descriptions (which I have been doing a lot more than I was, but it didn't feel like something I could like, check off as "done" because it's something one keeps up with continuously).

[kavyina]

I'm glad you have a fic that brings you so much joy!! It's good to have fics like that.

I think ongoing goals are important. They may not bring as much satisfaction as some (I know that for me, getting to actually check a goal off is really important to the brainweasels, so ongoing goals just aren't as pressing on my mind) but they're frequently things that need doing, and I commend you for them!

[obstinatecondolement]

It's really great! Truly everything I could ever want from a post-canon DS9 fic.

Yeah, they're definitely harder to keep to, in my experience! I guess that's why I through some specifics in there in the kudos/commenting one, so that I had a way of knowing that I was more or less on track. With the image descriptions I kept it vague because being too strict with myself on that in the past has just led to being overwhelmed and not doing it at all.

Thank you!