It's silly fandom resolution time again! Last year was... kind of hilariously bad! In the interest of not wanting to be as ashamed of myself come this time 2014, I'm going to keep things a little simpler this go-around. As such, I resolve to...

Get nominated for something in Serebii's 2013 fanfic awards. This is less conceited than it sounds! I mean, yes, it's conceited, but it's also an interesting goal to set that combines a few things I'd like to fail less at into one fairly broad but concrete achievement. I don't especially care if I get any votes or win or anything, but if I can, at the very least, be nominated for one little thing then it means by default that either:

  • I have actually written something, I have actually posted it somewhere that's not here and someone actually cared about it enough to nominate it for something, or
  • I have actually read other people's fanfics, I have actually commented on/reviewed them and someone actually thought I was active and helpful enough to consider me a good reviewer.

Having both would, of course, be amazing, and I'll be doing my best to meet both points, but my standards are low enough and I'm so unproductive/lonely that I'm willing to settle for just one. This does become a little awkward on the off chance that the awards don't happen this year for some reason, but I think that as long as I can keep up with what getting a nomination entails then I'll still be able to count it as a check in the "congratulations you're not a total failure" column!

Finish up the "Big Project", preferably well before its two-year anniversary in June. This is it, you guys. No more effing stalling. It is a thing and it is going to happen. I've set myself a personal deadline for all of my major contributions to said big project (read: most of it, but that's more or less how it's supposed to be), and while I'd rather not reveal said deadline because Stuff Can Still Happen and I don't want to jinx anything, this is a thing and it is going to happen. End of discussion.

Post one new fakemon/line/other Phoenixdex thing every other week, with the caveat that I'm putting this on hold until the aforementioned Big Project is ready. Once every other week at a minimum is less daunting than last year's proposed "every week" and will hopefully be easier to manage... once I'm done devoting all of my time to the Big Project, which requires focusing on Phoenixdex stuff that already exists rather than on brand new stuff.

Update AO more often, for the love of all things holy. If I can, at the very least, do a better job staying on top of my daily writing stuff, this shouldn't be that hard. Ideally there'll be more than just 649 mini updates, though.

A short list compared to previous years, then, but the less I have to feel bad about then the less likely I am to be disappointed in myself when the year is out. There are other things I'd like to do as well, but either a) I don't want to call them "resolutions" for one reason or another, b) I want to be realistic about whether I can dedicate serious time to some of them, especially given that I'm currently doing some freelance work and still need to find an actual job, or c) they aren't really fandom-specific. Also d) I'm getting ready to go out for a New Year's dinner with my family and I'll probably be out late so I want this post to be done. :P

Here's to a more productive 2013, then, and a 2014 filled with a lot less personal shame!