Snowflake Challenge #4 - Goals
In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.
I'm not really a goal-setter or keen on resolutions. Particularly over the last six years or so I've had to just -- let go, as gracefully as possible, of goals, ambition, big ol' to-do lists. For my experience of ADHD, the whole concept of goals is just fruitless and unhelpful: either the tasks and time associated with the goal will be too intimidating to get going, or I'll get anxious and depressed when something inevitably derails my ability to do stuff.
It's been a weird point of contention with my youngest sister and her husband -- they're both very methodical, dedicated, follow-through kind of people, and part of how they've grown together is by supporting each other in their individual and coupled goals. Many times they've tried to include me in this kind of goal-based planning, and every time I try to explain why it doesn't work for me neither of them really understand. They won't outright suggest that it's laziness or lack of motivation, but they way they respond hints at those reactions.
I can work on tasks on a small scale -- for work projects, or for errands. Sometimes for fandom things I want to do. Even then I can't always work through the executive dysfunction and constant inclination towards distraction to even make a list, much less follow through on one. But goals or resolutions, particularly quantifiable ones, just aren't realistic.
The other thing too that makes goals and resolutions unappealing is that I've effectively completed the bucket list I dreamt up as a kid. It was never a formal or proper list, but it was a clear set of things I was absolutely determined to do. And I did them! By the time I was 28 I'd either done the thing I wanted to do, or dropped it for something else. And while there's a handful of things that I think it would be fun or interesting to do in the rest of my life, those ideas have been substantially tempered by the realities of my physical capabilities these days.
At most I'll think something like, I'd like to go to the Opera this year. Or I'd like to devote more time to my spiritual devotions. Or I'd like to kick out more fanfiction than I did the year before. But those are sort of -- perpetual goals, you know? Things I'd be happy doing at any point in my life, without a quantity attached, that I won't feel inclined to beat myself up too badly about if my life is derailed by mental or physical health issues for a time.
All that exhaustively said, here's a couple of low-key, chill things that it would be nice to work on in 2020.
That's pretty good. Just the right level of intentional but not excessively aspirational.
§ In 2019 I added 13 fics to AO3, six of which were done for Yuletide during a write-in with
perpetual_motion where we picked prompts for one another. [It was super fun.] All together, it was about 17,000 words, and one podfic, though the podfic was for one of the fics I wrote in 2019.
In 2018, I published 1 fic; 2017, 1 fic, 1 upload of an older podfic to connect it to its story on AO3 and update the download link for folks; 2016 saw 12 fics, two of which were uploads of earlier fic not previously posted to AO3, one podfic, and ~18,000 words.
2015 saw 18 fics, ~27,000 words, no podfic. 2014, 12 fics, two podfics [both collaborations at Bitchin' Party that year], ~17,000 words. 2013, 8 fics, ~14,000 words.
It's interesting to see those stats this way, because I was unemployed and on disability between 2014-2016, which gave me more space to write. I started working part-time again in 2017, and the effort of working while still in recovery from health issues just flattened me completely, evident in 2017-2018's minimal presence. I started to really get back to baseline in early spring 2019, which coincided with The Magicians revving me up [before it broke my heart] and inspiring half of the fanworks I posted last year.
I'm definitely on my baseline now, for given values of being in my thirties and disabled in ways I wasn't 5-7 years ago. Hopefully this will lead to some follow-through on my fanwork production in 2020.
I'm not really a goal-setter or keen on resolutions. Particularly over the last six years or so I've had to just -- let go, as gracefully as possible, of goals, ambition, big ol' to-do lists. For my experience of ADHD, the whole concept of goals is just fruitless and unhelpful: either the tasks and time associated with the goal will be too intimidating to get going, or I'll get anxious and depressed when something inevitably derails my ability to do stuff.
It's been a weird point of contention with my youngest sister and her husband -- they're both very methodical, dedicated, follow-through kind of people, and part of how they've grown together is by supporting each other in their individual and coupled goals. Many times they've tried to include me in this kind of goal-based planning, and every time I try to explain why it doesn't work for me neither of them really understand. They won't outright suggest that it's laziness or lack of motivation, but they way they respond hints at those reactions.
I can work on tasks on a small scale -- for work projects, or for errands. Sometimes for fandom things I want to do. Even then I can't always work through the executive dysfunction and constant inclination towards distraction to even make a list, much less follow through on one. But goals or resolutions, particularly quantifiable ones, just aren't realistic.
The other thing too that makes goals and resolutions unappealing is that I've effectively completed the bucket list I dreamt up as a kid. It was never a formal or proper list, but it was a clear set of things I was absolutely determined to do. And I did them! By the time I was 28 I'd either done the thing I wanted to do, or dropped it for something else. And while there's a handful of things that I think it would be fun or interesting to do in the rest of my life, those ideas have been substantially tempered by the realities of my physical capabilities these days.
At most I'll think something like, I'd like to go to the Opera this year. Or I'd like to devote more time to my spiritual devotions. Or I'd like to kick out more fanfiction than I did the year before. But those are sort of -- perpetual goals, you know? Things I'd be happy doing at any point in my life, without a quantity attached, that I won't feel inclined to beat myself up too badly about if my life is derailed by mental or physical health issues for a time.
All that exhaustively said, here's a couple of low-key, chill things that it would be nice to work on in 2020.
- Kick something out for Psychic Wolves for Lupercalia. It's such a fun challenge and I don't think I've managed to get anything out of WIP and finished into the collection before.
- In general I'd like to follow through more on writing down the fic I come up with in my head, whether it ends up as drawerfic or on AO3.
- I'd really like to produce more fanworks as a matter of course. I particularly miss making podfic more regularly; there are artificial barriers I need to knock out to make decent recordings, so that would be a target. I'm hoping too that I'll catch up with my podfic friends at Bitchin' Party this April to do more collaborative podfic -- I *loved* doing that.
- I'd like to return to a frequent habit of journaling, both on DW and in my hardcopy notebooks. It would be a good practice to get back into.
- Recently I realized that a majority of the events I've been looking up were musical -- concerts, performances. I want to see more live music, make something of an effort to go out and experience it, if I can hack my body into letting me. I feel so energized after a concert, and that's a feeling I'd like to have more often.
- I'd like to continue my longstanding project of uploading the fic I've written over the last decade to AO3. It's been slow going, only a handful have made it, but it would be so nice to have everything in one place.
That's pretty good. Just the right level of intentional but not excessively aspirational.
§ In 2019 I added 13 fics to AO3, six of which were done for Yuletide during a write-in with
perpetual_motion where we picked prompts for one another. [It was super fun.] All together, it was about 17,000 words, and one podfic, though the podfic was for one of the fics I wrote in 2019.
In 2018, I published 1 fic; 2017, 1 fic, 1 upload of an older podfic to connect it to its story on AO3 and update the download link for folks; 2016 saw 12 fics, two of which were uploads of earlier fic not previously posted to AO3, one podfic, and ~18,000 words.
2015 saw 18 fics, ~27,000 words, no podfic. 2014, 12 fics, two podfics [both collaborations at Bitchin' Party that year], ~17,000 words. 2013, 8 fics, ~14,000 words.
It's interesting to see those stats this way, because I was unemployed and on disability between 2014-2016, which gave me more space to write. I started working part-time again in 2017, and the effort of working while still in recovery from health issues just flattened me completely, evident in 2017-2018's minimal presence. I started to really get back to baseline in early spring 2019, which coincided with The Magicians revving me up [before it broke my heart] and inspiring half of the fanworks I posted last year.
I'm definitely on my baseline now, for given values of being in my thirties and disabled in ways I wasn't 5-7 years ago. Hopefully this will lead to some follow-through on my fanwork production in 2020.