Another New Year, another new plan

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I’ve just looked back at what I wrote at the beginning of last year about my plan for this website going forward. (Here.) It’s always interesting to do this, year on year, and salutary. What have I achieved? What slipped between my fingers?

Blogging in 2024

In January 2024 I had four big creative projects in my sights, and one major plan for this website. I achieved two of the projects and the website plan – more or less. The plan for the website was to cut my publishing schedule in half to give myself time and space for the other projects. That worked – up to a point. I ended up cutting my number of posts to 20. Which would be a disappointing number if I didn’t also count the six other posts I wrote during the year and published on the website of my writer’s group (Pens Around the World). So I’ll do that!

Another new plan: Woodcut of person at medieval writing desk, apparently working on a crossword.
I will get on with the novel … just as soon as I’ve finished this crossword.

One of the problems with the best laid plans (as Rabbie Burns observed), they gang aft awry. One of the things that causes the awry ganging is health. Or rather ill-health. I was sick at the end of September and again at the end of October. Although my Swedish doctor pronounced me kärnsund (healthy to the core) at the beginning of November, my annual struggle with the Scandinavian winter was just starting, so a part of that month sank in the rain under dark and clouded skies.

YouTube for your consideration

The first part of the year, up till August was much more cheerful. That’s when I achieved the first of my creative projects: making and publishing a magazine of my writings: For Your Consideration. Inevitably it took longer than I’d expected and there were some twists and turns. The print-on-demand version was successful and I managed to take copies of it with me to the Stockholm Writers’ Festival in August. I even sold a few. Despite my best efforts, though, the e-version I’d envisioned ended up being not an e-pub but a PDF. You work with the technology you have available.

Photo-manipulated image of early TV camera standing on wheeled tripod.
Early selfie-stick

My other successful project in 2024 was my YouTube video channel. I launched the channel John Dudley, Author, with a first video in January 2024. I was able to follow that up with 24 more videos (or 26 more depending how you count) through the year. I’ve filmed an account of the year, and my plans for 2025, if you’re interested.

The two projects I did not manage to achieve were to advance the zero draft of my SF novel Luce in New Lundon to alpha draft, and to put together a chapbook/pamphlet of my poems. I’ve not abandoned either of them, but they are taking more time than I anticipated. (What can I say? I’m a time optimist.)

Winter, dark and mild

The novel and, in particular, the process it’s going through, are material feeding my YouTube channel. There are a couple of videos from 2024 that look at writing software I’m using to get a grip on the draft. The poetry collection is the least well advanced, but I have started 2025 by following a ‘writing reset’ programme on-line with the American-Scottish poet Marjorie Lotfi, which is bearing fruit. Or at least showing some buds. (It’s still winter, still dark, though mild.)

So that was my 2024. What about the year to come?

Aspirations – 2025

Another new plan: Sculptured lion with a startled expression and luxuriant mane
Lion startled by my plan

I’m not changing much in my New Year aspirations this year over last. I plan, again, to write 26-odd blog posts. Most to be published here. I plan to make another 26-odd videos for the YT channel. I have ambitions to start a podcast. This latter will lean heavily on the material in For Your Consideration – at least to begin with. I think I have the material I need to publish a second magazine; a winter edition. (The original was a summer edition.)

Betwixt and between I shall push on with the novel (aiming to get the alpha draft written this year). And the chapbook/pamphlet continues to be an aspiration.

So, that’s where I’m at. What are your creative ambitions for 2025? Do share in the comments!


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2 thoughts on “Another New Year, another new plan”

  1. You are so well organized with your writing that it puts me completely to shame, John. May you, in the new year, carry on thus. Even if it isn’t going as smoothly as you’d wish, trust me, it’s admirable!

    Reply
    • Appearances are one thing, Debbie, what actually happens is something else. But I do hope that if I keep planning, keep trying to keep the plans, and keep on remembering that if I stumble one day – or one week – that it’s always better to try again than to give up – (deep breath) – then at least there’s a chance I’ll manage to reach one or two of my goals. I did last year, so why not this?

      Thanks for your encouragement!

      Reply

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