Snowflake Challenge 2022 - Challenge #1
Challenge #2
In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. [Unknown site tag]
As I discussed in my year-end post, I currently have a dubious relationship with goal-setting. It's not that I don't like setting goals, nor am I unaware of how valuable it can be to set goals, both personal and professional. For the first time in years, my company is asking each employee to set what we call OKRs (objectives and key results), which will be used to measure our performance. So, I'm not unfamiliar with the process.
Still, after my total creative meltdown last year, I'm a little leery of setting goals since I don't know whether I'm officially past the issues that caused me to fail to achieve practically all the goals I set last year. But because I understand that sometimes it's helpful to have the structure of goals and milestones to measure your progress through the year, I'm going to set some modest goals and hope for the best.
First, on the challenge front, I plan to continue to participate in Rough Trade. As I've done more and more of the challenges, I've become more comfortable with the format and requirements. I honestly enjoy doing them and look forward to them each year. I have solid ideas for two of the three challenge periods, and I'm actively poking at my idea folder for something I can work on for the third, though I'm not going to beat myself up if I'm not able to do all three.
I'm also going to do art for at least one big bang, though I'm not sure which one yet. I've never done art for a bang before, but over the last few years of doing my own art for RT, I've found I enjoy the process. This way I'll be able to do the bang without the pressures of writing and betas and such.
I'm also going to continue writing shorter works. I managed to write eight last year, so if I can equal that goal, I'd consider that to be a success. A stretch goal for this would be twelve (one per month), but again, I'm not going to beat myself up if I fail to reach that number.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, my goal is to have fun writing this year. I think some of the joy of writing was sucked out last year by all the terrible things going on. Too much stress and too many expectations on myself made for a toxic cocktail that really did me no favors. So, writing for my own enjoyment and love of the craft is top of the list this year.
Hopefully, when we meet again for Snowflake next year, I'll have good things to report on the goals front. Wish me luck!