Well, lookie here! It seems to be resolution time again! Last year was a pretty spectacular failure in this department—I think all I managed to do satisfactorily was finish all of the artwork and data for New Logora's regional pokédex, and maybe updates to Altered Origin weren't as sporadic as they have been in some years?—but that won't stop me from trying again!

So! New list for 2012! It's got some of last year's resolutions and a few new ones as well, so read on under the cut if you're at all curious as to what I'll be beating myself up over this year.

  • Write a chapterfic. No, seriously. Pick one and effing write it. It doesn't even have to be posted right away (in fact, the thought of posting a chapter of fic when the next chapter hasn't been drafted yet terrifies me and I don't know why everyone does it), but when 2013 rolls around I want some significant first-draft progress on something. This is getting ridiculous. As for what that fic will be, well, I dunno; I have all my previous NaNos and quite a few other ideas, for starters. I might ask for an opinion on which one to try later. We'll see.
  • Write more in general, including getting 649 back on track (and those edits to the oshawott story aaaaaa). Right now I'm still way behind on some other things, fannish and otherwise, but when I get those settled down (non-fandom resolution: and I WILL, dangit, one way or another!) I'd like to try and get myself writing smaller things on a semi-regular basis. Again, this? Ridiculous. If nothing else, there's a WIP 649 story that is short and should be easy to finish and if I can't get that done by the end of this year then well I don't even.
  • Complete at least one new pokémon a week for the Phoenixdex. Progress, I need more of it, and one a week shouldn't be that hard. (This doesn't necessarily mean stuff you can see—the ‘dex is like an iceberg, man, you guys can only see the tip of the giant Titanic-slayer I'm working on—but hopefully it will!)
  • On that note, complete and hopefully reveal at least one character/location/significant thing a month for the Phoenixdex. It shouldn't be hard to do this more often, too, but apparently it is so I've giving myself a little more time.
  • Read stuff. Look at more art. Actually comment on it. Why so hard.
  • That ASB over on OI? Yeah, that didn't stop being a thing that will happen.
  • Draw/color at least one big fancy picture a month. I don't practice often enough. Preferably at least half of these will be fakemon-related; I need to do more than just pseudomori art for those guys.
  • More drawing practice in general, specifically with regard to humans and probably backgrounds. I think I might pick a few characters from something (just some pokémon, some canon people from something or other, fic characters, I dunno right now) and draw them as often as possible, because that should help overall and also with this apparent problem I have with getting the same person/thing to look right more than freaking once.
  • Make some more fakemon friends. At least on dA or something. A lot of people seem p. cool and I mostly just sit in a corner collecting dust and forgetting to participate in the groups (do you see the italicized word there, Phoenix) I joined. Oops.
  • Oh, and make some non-Pokémon-fandom friends for real this time. I am feeling very Golden Sun ronery right now.
  • Make at least a little progress on some big things I'm keeping hush-hush. I will say that they're sort of Phoenixdex-related, just so there's at least a vague thing people can point to when nothing is happening for the third month in a row. (There is also an additional secretish thing I want to do, but in light of the resolution below it is probably not something I should emphasize working on until other stuff is closer to being done.)
  • Super important one: don't take on any more big projects without a good reason, and try to take it easy with what I'm already doing. This is something I have trouble with in general, not just in fandom, but the "ooh shiny let's do this next" and the "oh sure I can do this for you guys can't be that hard to squeeze in alongside other stuff" has got to stop. My sanity and ability to not disappoint everyone ever kind of depends on it, I realize now. (The drawing exercises and things don't count; I mean don't try to devote extensive planning time to twenty new chapterfics that won't happen anyway, or join a mess of RPs or whatever, or commit to helping five other people on top of everything else.) This may also mean cutting back, at least temporarily, on some of the stuff I currently do, such as TCoDASB and a few other things, though I don't intend to outright abandon said things. It's just that feeling overcommitted is not fun, and what with getting closer to graduation and needing to look for work and... uh huh.
  • hey hey listen listen update your website more often! This shouldn't even be that hard if I manage just a few other things on this list!

C'mon, Phoenix, you've got like a whole year before the world ends! Let's actually make something of it this time!