In With the New

Well, here we are: the first day of a new year. Hard to believe that 2016 is officially over- but so it is. It was a good year, and a long year, filled with new things. As a brief recap, in 2016 I managed to:

•  Write 113,241 words in various projects, including Monster in the Castle and Mechanical Heart, both of which I finished this year, and Fight Song, which is almost done, as well as various flash fiction and miscellaneous projects.
• Participate in two Camp NaNoWriMos.
• Not participate in the November NaNo for the first time in several years.
• Edit 57,389 words, mostly in Destinies and Decisions.
• Get my first-ever internship in the corporate comm department of the place my dad works, which was actually really cool and pretty enjoyable for the most part.
• Crochet a dragon (albeit a small one). 
• Buy a new Kindle (otherwise known as the Llyfrgell y Lleuad, which is Welsh for Library of the Moon)
• Participate in White Sulpher Springs Summer Staff for the second time.
• Realize that I'm not publishing anything this year . . . or probably for a while, unless I buckle down and edit a lot. Or unless a certain thing that just came up a few days ago works out . . .
• Survive my first semester of college.
• Watch the entirety of Firefly and most of the first season of Merlin.
• Make a Mistcloak (pictures and instructions coming soon, I swear!). 
• Get a new phone (which doesn't have a name yet, though the Kindle app on it is entitled "Pocket L-Space," which Discworld fans will understand and no one else will).
• Read over 133 books.

At the moment, I'm not certain what 2017 will bring, but I'm pretty sure it'll involve fewer totally new things (though there might be just as many changes as the last two years have contained). A few things that I hope to do:

• Finish, edit, and post Fight Song. Obviously. As I stated yesterday, the draft is close to completion. Not sure how editing will go, but it should be more straightforward than most of my current editing projects. Speaking of which . . .
• Finish editing Destinies and Decisions, Between Two Worlds, or both. Both would be awesome. I don't think it'll happen. I'll be pretty happy if I just finish one of them. But, hey, you know what they say: shoot for the moon and you'll land among the stars.
• Complete at least one Camp NaNoWriMo. I'm not sure if I'll manage both; it depends what April looks like. But I definitely want to try to do July, even if it's only a small goal. (Actually, small goals or otherwise going rebel is kind of my tradition for July . . . not so much for April, but I'll do what I gotta do.)
• Continue to exercise regularly. One of my classes this past semester required me to exercise 4-5 times a week, which was actually kind of awesome. I'd like to keep it up if I can . . . though it might be harder this semester, since exercising means braving the cold to get to the gym.
• Learn some kind of self-defense. My college actually offers a "self defense for beginners" program through the gym, so I'd like to take part in that. I can't do it this year because it's at the same time as my Bible Study, but maybe next year . . .
• Survive my next two semesters of college. Obviously. But it's worth saying anyway.
• Try tabletop RPGs. I said this last year too, and I almost managed . . . but I couldn't find a group. I know at least one person who might be interested in starting one, though, so if I can find enough people and someone to be the GM . . . 
• Actually learn one of the things I say I want to teach myself. I keep thinking "Hey, I should try to learn how to-" fill in a variety of things: play some kind of instrument, speak another language (or even just better German- or even just with a variety of accents), do various survival-skill-ish things, computer skills, lockpicking (for story research only, I swear), and so on. Maybe this year I'll actually follow through and do the thing.

What about you? How was your 2016? What are your plans, hopes, and goals for 2017? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)