So long, 2012

I think I just want 2012 to be over already, which fortunately happens in another couple of hours. Clean slate, coming right up. Before that, though, I have to write one last blog post to say goodbye to 2012.


2012. Stuff happened. I went around in circles a lot trying to teach myself how to plan and rewrite a story. In the end I've cobbled together an approach that led to the writing of a second draft of The Frozen Tear. I hate the story, but it's still too soon to know if that's because I just finished it or because it's really crap. The approach seems to be valid, at least, and I'm planning on trying it again with other stories in the coming year.

This year I wrote 2 complete first drafts... no, make that 3. Books Three and Four of a series and an odd little extra in which Scott the Necromuse had to save Siana from a bunch of evil pixies who were trying to steal her creative energy. Yes, really. I also rewrote one story just to change it to first person and rewrote another after doing a whole heap of plotting and planning. I wrote a probably-never-to-be-completed space opera. I worried about what I was doing.

A lot.

Other things I did a lot of:

• Listening to metal. Top album of the year for me is Silverthorn by Kamelot. Other favourite things to listen to this year: Poisonblack, Dark Fortress, Scorpions, Masterplan, Dark Tranquillity, Black Majesty, Dream Theater and Devin Townsend. No, I don't have a favourite sub-genre. Good metal is good metal.
• Goat stuff. I work full-time in the family goat dairy now and this year has been huge. Working with animals is intense and often painful, but there's no way I'd switch it for an office job.
• Battling with software. I tried every bit of writing software I could find before finally settling with FocusWriter for writing, the Scrivener Linux beta for plotting and editing and Zim Desktop Wiki for pretty much everything else. Oh, and LibreOffice Calc for all my wordcount recording needs. The only think that makes me unhappy in my current setup is that Scrivener maintains its own look and feel rather than taking on my light-on-dark OS theme.

I also adopted a kitten and learnt how to make microwave brownies.

2012. I'm glad you're over... and I'm hoping 2013 is going to be better.