{"id":619,"date":"2018-09-04T12:25:39","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T16:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/?p=619"},"modified":"2019-02-21T19:43:57","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T00:43:57","slug":"a-year-in-review-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/04\/a-year-in-review-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"A Year in Review, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the start of a new Feistner fiscal year! And as is tradition in these parts, I like to look over what I accomplished for the past twelve months. Because it&#8217;s too often that I get a panicky feeling that I am &#8216;not doing enough&#8217; and so it&#8217;s nice to have a list of bullet points as a reminder that, oh yeah, I am definitely giving this writing thing my best go.<\/p>\n<p>Writing accomplishments:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Wrote my first query letter (for <em>Creampuffs<\/em>)+ workshopped it<\/li>\n<li>wrote and finished <em>Blackout Odyssey<\/em> (NaNoWriMo)<\/li>\n<li>edited <em>Space Crazies<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Started the 100 Rejection Challenge (collect 100 rejections in a year, which I did in EIGHT MONTHS)<\/li>\n<li>wrote and workshopped a second query letter<\/li>\n<li>Began querying two novels at once (<em>Creampuffs<\/em> and <em>Ashes<\/em>)<\/li>\n<li>sold two stories (including my first semi-pro sale!)<\/li>\n<li>edited <em>Blackout Odyssey<\/em><\/li>\n<li>did a challenge month of double submissions in June (25 in total!)<\/li>\n<li>finished 5 new short stories (the most in one year for many many years, likely since I was a teenager)<\/li>\n<li>readied <em>Creampuffs<\/em> for PitchWars (including writing a new query letter from scratch)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>and of course<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>wrote a bunch on this here blag, including a series on <a href=\"http:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/19\/managing-priorities-1-project-managing-yourself\/\">becoming your own project manager<\/a>, and on <a href=\"http:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/28\/thematic-thursday-myst-riven\/\">soundtracks I love<\/a>. (I kinda miss Thematic Thursdays.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Along the way, I also:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Typed up all my journals from Japan<\/li>\n<li>drew a map of Japan with all our destinations on it as a gift\/memento for my father<\/li>\n<li>sewed a new dress and bathing suit<\/li>\n<li>dealt with family stuff of the &#8220;uh oh&#8221; variety<\/li>\n<li>decluttered the last and hardest category: sentimental items<\/li>\n<li>refinished two chairs<\/li>\n<li>painted the bathroom<\/li>\n<li>helped my partner renovate their office<\/li>\n<li>renewed my passport<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I started a new productivity technique last year which was picking a Priority for the month (up to three if they were in different categories). It&#8217;s really increased my ability to focus on a singular project until completion, and I recommend it, especially in conjunction with a bullet journal or similar tool. It&#8217;s too easy to have many dangling projects competing for a scarce resource (my attention), especially when the projects in question are tiring and boring (looking at you query letters and editing).<\/p>\n<p>36 was the year of setting a really good foundation for getting published. I feel a bit wiser and more prepared for the cycle of research-email-rejection-repeat that is querying. (<em>Blackout Odyssey<\/em> is next to be queried, hopefully in October.)<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s to hoping that 37 is the year of finally selling a book!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>36 was the year of setting a really good foundation for getting published. Here&#8217;s to 37!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[60,65,63,64],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal","category-writing","tag-querying","tag-review","tag-updates","tag-year-end"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1009,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions\/1009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}