2017 New Years Post

What's that? Oh, hey, a new year has started!

Welcome to 2017

• Looking back at 2016
  • Very few posts. I don't even have to click on a "Previous 20 entries" link to see posts from 2015.
  • I never even entered anything into my 2016 word count tracking spreadsheet. Oops. I did post a few short pieces so the word count is over zero.
  • Oh look, among everything else about 2016 it included my first car accident. Which thankfully included my insurance agreeing the other person was 100% at fault (speeding, ran a red light, ran on foot from the scene almost instantly; a good list of things not to do and also a list of things the other person did).
  • I continued the guitar lessons. I'm by no means ready to go out on stage or busk on a street corner but I am enjoying the lessons quite a bit.
• Looking ahead at 2017
  • Definitely continuing with guitar. In fact I'm hoping to get to the point I'm comfortable recording something and posting it somewhere.
    • Towards this I've made a list of songs I'm going to concentrate on this year. They won't be all I work on but I am going to keep them in the forefront.
    • More deliberate practice. Or in other words looking for specific things to practice. For my list of songs there are particular sections I'm working on. I'm also working on improving the use of basic strumming patterns with my right hand and switching more smoothly between chords with my left hand.
  • Writing, so many things I want to write, in 2017 I'm going to knock the cobwebs off my writing and get back to it.
    • I'm pondering some sort of serial flash thing. Something which I aim at regularly adding small amounts to even if just as pump-priming and only for myself.
    • Complete a row or column on one of my writing bingo cards :)
    • I should consider doing some more "X Days of _" those can be both challenging and fun.
  • Languages: I want to do more learning languages and playing with them this year.
    • I've completed the Esperanto skill tree on DuoLingo this week. This by no means fluent now but it's further than I've made it in previous attempts at a language. I intend to spend January reviewing, reading, and working on that some more and then starting back up on Spanish or German come February.
  • Lose more weight. This is going to be a goal for a while and probably into 2018 but I'm going to make an effort to have progress on this goal again.
    • More physical activity! Calories burned > Calories consumed = weight loss
    • Eat better! I'm a picky eater. A very picky eater. That said I need to get more fiber into my diet, more vegetable matter in general.
  • Conventions: This is a big maybe for 2017. If I do go to any they'll be local and most likely without getting a hotel room since that would put a strain on my efforts towards the next bit below
  • Paying down debts: I've zeroed out one and might be able to zero out another by my birthday (hey kid version of me, look at how exciting being an adult is, paying off a debt as a present). I'm not feeling all that excited for the economy which makes getting rid of debt rather a good idea. I want to be in the position to have everything (other than the new*er* car, thank you again person who hit my car) paid off by the end of 2018. The nice thing is you can snowball this. When you get a debt paid off the money in the monthly budget that would have gone towards it can be shifted to increasing the payments on another.
    • But as mentioned on the conventions line above, this also requires keeping an eye on spending. Conventions can be expensive if you aren't careful.
  • Giving: That said, when I get the next debt paid off I think I'm going to increase my Patreon budget. Either increase a few of my existing pledges or add a few more.
  • Non-writing-or-guitar-arty-stuff:
    • Pondering picking up pencil again and doing some more sketching.
    • Likewise I want to fire up Inkscape again and do more vector stuff.
      • One thought is sketching ideas for possible pins and then taking the ideas I like best to Inkscape for cleaning up and coloring.
    • Also looking at the beading supplies I have and pondering...
    • I want to get back into worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is fun.
  • I also wanting to get back into RPing. Either in person or more likely online.