It is customary and hypocritical — both — at this time of year to sit down and evaluate what has gone wrong in the calendar year, and also how to improve on it.
Now, of course, there is no particular reason that things should change on an arbitrary calendar point….
No, wait, there is. The reason is that we’re human, and we hang our change points, our realizations things need to change, our times of confronting reality on various arbitrary points: our birthday, the anniversary of an important date, and yes, new year.
How many people take stock of their marriage at a particular anniversary, or of their lives when a birthday rolls around?
Artificial? Sure. but there are no natural time landmarks, or at least none convenient to the human mind. (Sings sunrise, sunset.)
But to an extent making resolutions is fairly useless. At least for someone of my temperament. I just start feeling guilty immediately.
What I’ve been doing is the equivalent: Analyzing where I’m failing and why.
Now this year has been…. well, kids and I were tallying the deaths, near deaths, deaths of friends, deaths of families, deaths of pets. And death hanging over us, as some loved ones dealt with potentially fatal conditions. It’s been… yeah. It’s been “fun” for someone who is naturally depressive.
I can’t do much about that. Other than work on emotional regulation, and Lord, I’ve tried that and will continue to try.
In the same way, you know I have issues with our current… national situation. But that’s not something i can do anything about. I need to learn to carve a space where that doesn’t intrude. And that should be before I contribute to a (political-ish) aggregator blog, of course.
So, what I have identified is that I have to do my blogging the night before — waves from the 26th — and then stay off the political sites till night time, and count on my assistant to tell me if the world is on fire.
In the same way, I’m ADD (AF) and am having trouble working through the fact that this isn’t a moral failing. What is a moral failing is not staying away from opportunities to dive down irrelevant rabbit holes. So. Social media. Yeah, it helped with depression this year, but I need to stay off the social media computer all day, pretty much. I can get on it after dinner, when Im technically off.
Now am I going to be perfect on this? No. I’ll fall from the horse a few times.
But I’m hoping I can make it stick often enough that I can get on the horse long enough to gallop before I fall.
I do realize I’m not going to be perfect, but those are the things I need to work on, so I can write. And writing is important because it helps me be sane, so sanity is self-reinforcing.
Wish me luck. It’s going to be difficult.
But that horse that jumped on me and bit me must be tamed, and I must get control again.
Because I must. Or the stories will eventually drown me and then die with me. Both of which would be a waste.
Mad Genius Club 
28 responses to “The Horse That Galloped Over Me”
I haven’t done resolutions at New Year for more than 10 years, and I was weaning down for years before that (I would pick first 5, and then later 3 things to work on), so now I do a Word/Theme/Phrase for the year. Something to come back to, like a tetherball. I then do up the word/phrase in art and hang it on the wall above my computer, so I see it daily.
I’ve had things like (In no particular order):
Question the Stress
Breathe
I Choose to Live After the Manner of Happiness
Do, Rinse, Repeat
No Excuses
And this year:
Courage
Having a theme or touchstone, reminds me of what I’m working on, and I can slant some of my other work towards that. And I’ll often find that once I decide the Theme, that lots of things will come up around it to support it. Such as a number of blogs and YT vids talking about Fear and how to overcome it in our lives and careers, or how to not be overcome by the fear-mongering out in the world at large.
I also start all new projects/check in with old projects on my birthday, and consider that my “new year’s day” for life type things (and it gives me an extra 6 months!) So, you can choose your “New Year’s Day” for any number of times, Chinese New Year, Hebrew New Year, Fiscal New Year, pick what works for you.
So, as a New Year’s present, anyone who would like their own word “arted up”, let me know, and I’ll do it for free all the way from today through the end of January 2024.
I’d love to take advantage of this offer. Thinking about how to contact you…
an easy was is tiffbb (at) sbcglobal (dot) net
Or from my WP address.
One thing I need to work on is flexibility. With one major exception, the bulk of the stress and mess I dealt with this past year all came from outside – Day Job, other commitments, household, Life. Getting my head “outside of my own head” is also going to be critical for managing stress.
The writing? That’s the fun part, the relatively easy part.
It’s a liminal time. Watch out for ghosts and other liminal beings, while you’re at it.
Not at a point where I can delay “evaluate, adjust” for a calendar change… so, working towards crisis management until I get to that point.
Many years ago, I made a resolution not to make New Years Resolutions. 😀
That’s one resolution I’ve managed to keep.
The resolution to give up political sites for Advent 2023 was one I managed to keep fairly well, and I kind of don’t want to go back to them now. We’ll see how long I can keep that up. The last election year where I managed to swing that was 2016, and I feel like I got a lot done that year (it was the start of my self-publishing adventures).
For the rest, I need to work harder on being helpful to the extended family, and I need to get the two sequels to Upcoming Release written before I lose interest in the characters. All while staying on top of Day Job.
I am fighting the same fight with social media… I should be working now but here I am going through emails and the other stuff. One other thing you might try at year end is going over what went right as well as what went wrong, an inventory should include the assets and the liabilities or you get a very skewed result ….. Good Luck and Happy New Year.
So. Social media. Yeah, it helped with depression this year, but I need to stay off the social media computer all day, pretty much.
I think you may be the first person I’ve ever heard say that social media helps with your depression. For most of us, it’s the other way around.
I need to keep it from distracting me, but the truth is that it isn’t social media’s fault. The error in this case is entirely between keyboard and chair. Yes, I’m procrastinating getting a short story ready for submission right now by making sure I see every Twitter feed of every writer that interests me, but if I weren’t doing that, I’d be procrastinating by reading old reviews of the Twilight Saga or scrolling through the backposts of Mad Genius Club or something. Not procrastinating seems to be a much more difficult task than it would seem.
Social Media is probably 90% of my social life. So it helps *me* immensely. I just have to stick to people and groups that I’d like to hang around with IRL, if they just didn’t live so far away!
Definitely an antidepressive influence.
THIS
Absolutely this. There’s no one I can talk to in my immediate surroundings about The Scholar Who Walks the Night, Mongolian pearl tributes, or meteor hammers who wouldn’t… well. At the very least, look at me funny and change the subject.
For the terminally unscociable, social media is the safe way to communicate and connect with other people without the stress of actually putting up with them. Or them with you.
I’ve come a long way from punching my way out of problems. Rather not go back to it, to tell the truth. Dealing with people at a remove works.
Dealing with them at halitosis range does not, by and large, work. The no-punching rule still applies.
Oh no, not the End Of Year Wrap-up! ~:D
“But to an extent making resolutions is fairly useless.”
Yes it is. The notion that we can “resolve” to fix some issue that’s been broken all year, like resolving to quit smoking or lose weight as millions seem to do every year, is nothing more than a set-up for later guilt.
Like a try/fail sequence in anime where the hero brings out his hidden power by trying and failing to cut a boulder in half. I love watching it on screen. Trying to do it in Real Life TM I do not love. So sorry, Japan, you can’t do it just by screaming louder.
You do what you can do today, and you deal with tomorrow when it gets here. Planning ahead in a chaotic environment is a waste of brain cycles, IMHO.
The notion of staying off the Interwebz until after lunch is a good one. Mental hygiene is a thing. If I’m cranky the writing comes out weird.
2024. I will advertise.
Working on better covers, updated back matter . . . will get to work RSN! Honest!
Wanna talk to me about better covers? I’m slow AF but I’m also free 😉
Midjourney is making it pretty easy. “War god on a black horse” and voila! A big ass dramatic scene. With amusing moments when you have to move the tail so it’s coming out of the *horse’s* rear end . . .
Or remove the extra legs. Yes.
There are signs that Amazon may crack down on AI images for covers.
Good luck on them identifying even halfway decent ones.
Also, they are actually trying to crack down on AI calendars and picture books put out by the Chinese.
Why am I not surprised that it’s China that is making things harder for the rest of us?
Funny weird thing, I decided to go back and read what I’d written previously to see how bad it was and if I could find the groove.
The funny stuff was still fun. The dramatic stuff felt kind of bland. So I ended up reading Drake’s Ranks of Bronze. I’d read the first one, but hadn’t realized he had a trilogy. Weird thing is, the dramatic parts sort of left me feeling the same, even though it is far better written than my own thing was.
I think I’ve realized the issue is more, this year has simply been one of phenomenal levels of stress, so even David Drake’s level of stress and trauma reads as ‘Tuesday’.
I find that both reassuring and concerning in equal measures.
Yes. The stress and trauma were ridiculous.
Yes. ‘Oh, another nasty surprise, except it happened to someone else this time.”
Yep.
Coworkers always ask how I can endure the stress. I tend to get funny looks when “not been shot at or stabbed today” is the answer.
Other people’s stress is not my own. No matter how much they try to make it so.
Trying to get my life into working shape.
It’s not been easy-between Mom’s health issues and her dying, the lack of a job market that won’t have me breathing hot grease eight hours a day (if I’m lucky), the “joys” of a start-up business, studying for the full-time position with said start-up business, not a single convention that I want to go to, watching a lot of industries start to burn down or sell out their assets to AI-training groups before they lose all value, general ennui…
…yea, this year hasn’t been in “working shape.”
Hopefully 2024 will be a better set of circumstances.
Good luck, Sarah.