Some things I’d like to do in 2025 (Snowflake Challenge #5, Fannish 50)

[aquietjune]

Since this is the start of a new year, this challenge will be e to set your own goals! Of course we can all make large or ambitious goals, remember that small and/or short goals are also good! (snowflake_challenge #4)

The new year is having a quiet and slow start for me: while I want to do many things, I feel that my enthusiasm for creating stuff is a muffled voice in the background while my mind is occupied with other things--obligations and business that I need to tend to or will hang indefinitely over my head for the next months, a bit of uncertainty on what I am to expect out of this year. Going back to work certainly didn't help.

More than that, I've had a few months of writer's block, or rather, lack of motivation that turns into deep dissatisfaction (or open, desperate struggle) when I end up writing anyway. Since I've had one such moment yesterday, I do feel a bit blue.

It is okay--I don't have to do anything, and it's also okay not to have writing goals for now. Last year went well writing-wise, and I reached my goals of joining fic exchanges and fan events and participating in them, and there I discovered that while it was great to get to the end of them, posting fics and receiving them and all... possibly, they're not for me in their ordinary mechanics. I get too anxious about the assignments; it's not fun anymore, it turns into a chore, and I don't get to write the other things I'd rather write.

I then told myself: do not sign up--rather, offer yourself as a pinch hitter. And this is what I set myself to do this year.

I accepted a writing challenge still, in any case: writing 50 posts on fannish things this year (Fannish 50). Why? Because I still want to participate and be present and have discussions in fandom... even if I have nothing to offer in terms of fic. More than that, I want to have a space to confront myself with these feelings--the failure I feel when I can't write! The failure, seriously?--and rationalize them, before they reach my closest fannish friends in forms of monstrous rants.

Especially because, as much as I want to improve my writing skills and all... I think it's okay not to write all the time. All in all, there's only so much juice in my head, and I also need time to recharge, and to be away.

So that's it: be more present with a self-contained activity, and at the same time, take the time to take (literal and metaphorical) trips somewhere else, absorb different inputs, and also just enjoy silence from time to time, and without feeling the need to "produce".

And that's even better thinking that there are more things that I want to do this year: play more ttrpgs and other games (both digital and analogic), read more non-fiction and literary fiction, trying to crochet more garments and learning how to make them fit well, continuing to learn sashiko while also going back to embroidery (I miss it! I haven't managed last year, in the end), and, possibly, crafting at least one paper-or-paint-adjacent work.

Free time is, after all, limited, and I'd better use it to have fun.

(A bit of a downer of a post? I hope not to much. To you who read, best of luck with your 2025 goals, and with being well most of all!)

Comments

[prisca]

Not a downer post at all. If this is how you feel about goals at the moment, this is totally fine. Have fun with your fannish 50 posts.

[aquietjune]

Thank you!

[sushiflop]

I enjoy exchanges but I enjoy them best when I am very careful about what I commit to doing. I’ve written the occasional treat for exchanges I am not otherwise participating in, and I think pinch hitting and/or commenting and/or reccing are all fun ways to play in the sandbox without necessarily writing in the exchange too.

Also regarding needing space for hobbies outside of writing: mood. I have an ambitious writing project in process and I’d like to release it in 2026, but I am debating that a bit because I would like to do some other things as well and not burn myself out on writing…

[aquietjune]

I think about writing treats often but I also need to disclose that I work better in emergency mode... so everything is conflict for me xD But I'll try more this year, also because sometimes I don't feel the "urgency" to write-I made my point about the ending of AoT at this point >.< I don't "need" to say anything else I fear.

Please take care, writing burnout is horrible :( Having had a similarly long-term writing project, I can say that while it's better not to lose momentum, when it's too long... you sometimes need a break. And doing things other than writing, or writing something else, helps!