2021 was not great. I think I can speak for many that on a global scale we’ve had issues. Our country was without a proper government for most of this year and the one that finally formed is not one I’m particularly happy with. Covid is still rampant and is doing a very good job at showing the worst that people have to offer. Both my physical and mental health hit impressive lows this year. Now that I’m writing this all down it’s looking even worse than it already felt.
So let’s take a moment to look at my positives. I wrote a novel this year, which was pretty cool. Now admittedly it’s still in an early draft version, but it’s the first time that I’ve ever written a story from start to finish. I’m hoping to start sharing more about this very soon. I also came quite close to my word goal for the year. 300.000 seemed to be a bit more than I could do, but before writing this post I’m clocking in at 271.836 words. That’s close enough in my book, going from the 100.000 I wrote in 2020. All things considered, I’m happy with this. I’m moving towards the 300.000 word goal next year. I have dreams of writing half a million words in a year, but I know that if I set such a high goal for next year, I’m setting myself up for failure. Let’s get the 300.000 done first and work my way up.
I also read more books than last year. I kept track and I ended up reading 5 books as well as 31 manga volumes. Not nearly as much as I wanted, but more than the years before. Slow and steady wins the race, and you need to look at the small victories if you want to get through years like this one.
Looking at my months in writing it paints a very clear picture. The first five months I wrote roughly 30.000 words a month, with May already seeing a bit of a decline as my health started to get worse. July and August saw a comeback at around 20.000 words a month, then September and October were once again not great. November was a massive success, with my first proper attempt at NaNoWriMo. Everything included I wrote 52.189 words. That is absolutely insane. That’s more than half of what I wrote in 2020, and more than what I wrote in most of the years before that. I don’t know if I’ll participate again in 2022, but I’m hoping I can think of a good story for it.
And on that optimistic note, let us say goodbye to the dumpster fire that was 2021, and hope that 2022 is a lot kinder to us all. I can get my booster shot soon, and hopefully finish up the uni assignments that are holding me back. Once that stress fades, I can focus more on writing and if I’m really optimistic I might even try and get my first novel published. I do still need a lot of work on it though, not to mention a title.
Happy New Year everyone, and thanks for reading my blog this year, it makes me really happy.
Opal Kaharis 