So, 2013, we meet at last...

Tweet I asked the question on Twitter a few days ago about whether or not I should restrict myself to talking about writing, design and so on, or whether people would like to see more posts that express me as a person. I'm not very good at talking about myself on my blog, but I can't help thinking that solely featuring posts about writing, or arty things, may be a little 'dry'. A few people asked me to do both, so I figured now was as good a time as any to do a more 'personal' post, as I discuss how the holidays have gone!

It's been wonderful to have time off work, time that I've been able to spend relaxing (something with which I often have some difficulty), and doing work for my PhD (on which I've fallen behind a bit of late). I don't often feel that I have the time to sit and unwind, since I always have a lot of things I should be doing instead of relaxing. I also had a very good Christmas, receiving books that are both useful and interesting (Kim Newman's Nightmare Movies, a Boris Karloff biography, and a book on the English Civil War), DVDs, and Nintendo DS games that should keep me out of mischief. I even found time to do a spot of baking, producing one of my now infamous chocolate orange loaf cakes and a collection of ninjabread men for Christmas Day.

What are ninjabread men, I hear you ask. Well, they're gingerbread men made using my ninja cookie cutters! I had a lot of fun decorating them with icing pens as well, and I've included some photos below. Cool, aren't they?

The ninjabread men before...

After...

Close up!

They were also incredibly delicious and I'll no doubt make them again in future. I have some dinosaur cutters that I want to try so you never know, I might feature a gingersaurus or something within the next few months.

For New Year, I originally went to my best friend's house party but a killer headache (and a problem with my shoulder that makes it painful to breathe) forced me home early, so I saw in the New Year with my parents. I was also my family's First Foot for the year, which is a somewhat archaic tradition that we follow in order to welcome the new year. In Scottish and Northern English folklore, the First Foot is whoever is first to enter the house in the new year, bringing with them good fortune (allegedly). First-footers must leave the house before midnight, and return after midnight, bringing with them a collection of 'gifts'. In our house, it's a silver coin (to symbolise prosperity), a piece of food (to ensure continuing food), a box of matches (to bring warmth) and a drink (usually whisky though I've been known to toast the new year with cranberry juice. First footers are supposed to be tall, dark-haired men, but I've done it before, and I'm doing it again. Other countries, or even parts of the UK, have different traditions, but that's how we do things at Castle Sedgwick.

I posted last week about looking back over 2012, and looking forward over 2013, and I did say my main goals were related to fiction projects, my PhD and things at work. Having said all of that, I also decided to make some creative resolutions, and I've decided that my goals for the year are to;

• Read and review at least one fiction book every month,
• Go to the cinema and review at least one film every month,
• Write 100 words every day,
• Produce an image of some form every day.

It may sound like a lot to work through, but I've been reading more than a book a month for 2012 anyway so it is simply continuing that work, and writing a hundred words, be it on an existing project or just as a vignette, shouldn't be too difficult as again, I've been doing it anyway. Producing an image, be it a drawing or a photo, should be easy as I pretty much did that anyway for the latter half of 2012! As far as the cinema goes, it largely depends on what is released, but I let my cinema blog fall by the wayside last year, and I'd like to feature more content on it. Being a film academic should be incentive enough but I'm hoping to have more free time after April to make producing content a little easier.

So now I've said all that...how about you?

A New Year Dawns

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It is now New Year's Day, the first day of yet another new year, albeit one with the added bonus of an extra day. Of course, if you believe the conspiracy theorists, one extra day won't make up for losing most of the year due to catastrophe, but I tend not to subscribe to the peculiar cultural phenomenon of conspiracy theories. Therefore, the obligatory 'New Year' post beckons. It's almost de rigeur if you have your own blog to witter on about the new year at some point, with some devoted to ill-thought out resolutions, others dedicated to where the word 'January' comes from, and yet more considering torn between a discussion of what went on in 2011, and what they hope will happen in 2012. With that in mind, I thought long and hard about the content of this post, and I didn't particularly want to roll out a list of "this is what I did in 2011". It would be fairly straightforward, and look something like this;

• Got accepted onto a PhD programme, and began work on said PhD.
• Quit my job as an office manager in London and moved back home to the North East.
• Got another job teaching graphic design software on a part time basis.
• Had a book published, and had stories appear elsewhere.
• Took up ghost hunting.
• Started up my own email newsletter (subscribe here, if you want)

Dull, huh? Instead of doing that, but on a grander scale,  I decided to have a look at what I wrote at the start of 2011. It turns out that in my New Year post, I chose three words that I wanted to use to 'signify' the coming year. I chose Acceptance, Create, and Silence. Now, considering I had several stories published (both online and in print) and my pulp Western novella, The Guns of Retribution, was picked up and published by Pulp Press, then I guess you could say that superficially, I did quite well with Acceptance. However, I'm still utterly incapable of accepting certain things, both about myself and the human race, so I think that my mark for Acceptance should probably be "Good effort, could try harder." As for Create...well, that one is a no-brainer - I created stuff all year long, be it stories, knitting projects, digital artwork, etc. So that's a big green tick in that box. As for Silence, I didn't spend much time doing nothing, and I spent the latter part of the year running too close to burn out for my liking, so again, big 'Fail' for me on that front.

But I think I'd like to do the same again for 2012. I'll no doubt forget all about the endeavour by the end of the week, but at least I've made the effort, yes? So what three words will I choose that I hope will sum up my coming year?

Perseverance
I think anyone who's followed me on Twitter knows I have my 'off' days, and yes, I do have days when I consider throwing in the towel. But that runs so far counter to my stubborn streak that it borders on uncharacteristic, so I'm choosing Perseverance. No matter how many bad reviews I get, no matter how many times a story just won't come together, I'll keep going, even if it means putting a work to one side for a while and coming back to it later. I will just keep going.

Commitment
For someone so grounded in practicality, I can be terribly flighty, skipping from one project to another. I think it's the illusion that the more things I have on the go, the more I'm getting done, but all I'm really doing is using one thing to procrastinate so I don't have to do another. I need to start committing to what I'm doing, so if I decide to spend an hour reading a text for my PhD, then that's what I'll do - I can check Twitter or play Warcraft when that hour is up. Likewise I need to stop starting a project, only to start world building for the next one before I'm even halfway through. One at a time, please.

Calm
Silence didn't work for me last year, but I'm taking a different tack this year. I tend to overreact to things I think are going to be more problematic than they turn out to be, and I find it difficult to sit and relax. Naturally that makes it difficult to get anything done if I'm constantly wound up, so I intend to build a short portion of relaxation time into my life. Whether that's playing video games, listening to Mozart, or simply reading a good book, it's a time to let my brain unwind and my batteries recharge.

Anyone else got any words they want to use for 2012?

2010: Those pesky 'resolutions'

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2009 has slunk off quietly to crawl under the rock from whence it came, and now we're in a shiny new year.

Well, in time honoured tradition, I'm not making resolutions for the New Year. Why? Because it's intrinsic to my nature to break them. I'll resolve to lose weight while eating "just one more" mince pie, and I'll resolve to rein in my spending while compulsively surfing eBay. So in a potentially foolhardy endeavour to fool myself, I shall set myself targets. I like having goals to meet - it's a good motivator for me. So here are ten things I intend to do in 2010.

1) Spend more time with my other half. He supports my writing so he's already special.
2) Master teleportation. I realise this is unlikely but anything is possible in this day and age.
3) Finish redrafting my first novel and start getting it out to agents.
4) Learn Russian. I studied it for two years at school and as I've wanted to learn a new language for a while, it makes sense to do one I've already got some knowledge of. This also relates to Intention #1.
5) Annex at least a small portion of this planet as my very own territory. Sadly the name 'Iceland' is taken.
6) Read at least one novel every month.
7) Find and keep a new job.
8) Learn how to play chess. I refuse to be bested by a game.
9) Return to my second novel and finish a first draft.
10) Learn to play the harmonica. I've had one sitting in my drawer for five years - time to start giving it a go, methinks.

Wish me luck!