Hey everyone!
Another year is coming to a close and just like last year, I want to use my final blog for 2024 to reflect on everything I’ve achieved this year when it comes to my writing and what I hope to get out of the year ahead.
It’s been a tough year
2024 hasn’t been the easiest, overall. Some really good things have happened in my personal life which are definitely worth celebrating! However, my writing hasn’t progressed anywhere near as much as I hoped it would.
There have definitely been valid reasons for this slow progress. Adjusting to the novel format over the screenplay format had been challenging. Overall, a novel is a lot more work! There are loads more words to consider and many extra details that need to be gotten right. The good personal life things also took up a lot of my time, which is fair. On top of both those, I’ve been working through a few things mentally that have slowed me down as well…
Even with all those valid reasons, I still come to the end of the year feeling down because I know I could have gotten more done and hit more of my targets. I know I could have done better. I definitely procrastinated a lot this year and wasted valuable time I should have been putting towards my writing.
Despite feeling down, I do want to try and put a positive spin on things and be proud of the fact I have completed the first draft of my novel. The first draft may be shit, but it is a start. And even though I’m not as far through the second draft as I want to be, it has been truly endearing seeing each chapter slowly evolve into where I want it to be as I work my way through.
This year’s blog posts
Despite it being a tougher year, I was pretty pleased to get out all the blogs I wanted to. I wrote a think piece about canon – discussing what I consider it to mean and my frustrations about how it’s treated in the creative world. Rolling with the ‘tough year’ theme, I also wrote a blog calling out the speed bumps of writing, many of which I’ve struggled with myself this year.
I was super pumped to complete blogs on all the remaining inspirations I wanted to talk about on Space & Lasers as well. The Expanse, Christopher Nolan and Superheroes. All done! This was a huge milestone for the site and something I’m very happy to tick off.
Novels are my future
Despite it taking a lot longer for me to pull a novel together, I without a doubt think they’re the future of my writing and am 100% behind keeping my focus here. The reasons are much the same as they were when I made the pivot in 2023: the novel is a better format for me to tell a complete story for people to digest.
Last year in my reflection, I mentioned that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go down the same novel route with Highton Heroes. I have now come to the conclusion that I do want to go down the novel route with this series as well.
Maybe I’ll still try to submit the Highton Heroes pilot to some festivals – you never know what might come of it! – but ultimately, I think it would be best to tell the story in novel form. I think I’ll need to read some books targeted at younger audience to get in the right headspace first though; I need to train myself to write in a simpler language and avoid complex words for this one.
Time to get stricter on goals
Reading through my plans for 2024 in last year’s blog, it was a little disheartening for me to recall I was already facing the hurdles I’ve been facing through 2024 back then. Not only that, but I had a lot of good intentions and plans to bring more structure to my writing schedule and better balance my home-writing life. I failed at that in 2024.
In 2025, I really need to go hard and push for better self-discipline. I need to set some goals to work towards and I need to seriously stop procrastinating so easily. By the end of 2025, I want my novel of the first Nash to be basically done and shareable. Now I just need to do the hard yards of carefully plotting out how reaching that goal will look over the course of the year.
Part of achieving this goal will mean going a bit quieter on the blog next year. While I love writing my blogs, taking time from the novel to invest in a blog post began to feel like a burden at points in 2024. So, until I can get my novel writing under control, I’m going to take a step back from the blog for a bit. I’d still like to try and publish some small thought pieces from time to time, but I don’t have a strict schedule or plan for these right now.
Time to connect more with the writing community
I’m an introvert, and I’ll be the first person to tell you I need time alone often to recharge and clear my head. I’m also just pretty awkward socially. Both of these things mean I keep my friend group and close family group pretty small.
However, I am at a point where I would definitely value some connection with other writers. Most of the people I’m close with aren’t writers and don’t quite understand what it’s like, or they live in other cities and talking with them about this stuff isn’t easy to do. So, I want to take some time to find more like-minded people and/or join a writers group in my home city. It might not work out of course, but I won’t know if I don’t try!
Well, that’s wrap up Space & Lasers for another year!
As I mentioned above, expect things to be a bit quieter on the blog in 2025 as I focus on my novel. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up on the blog – I haven’t! I love writing the blogs, getting my thoughts down into words and being able to share those thoughts with like-minded people. I just need to invest more time in my novel next year and get everything on track before I can commit more time to the blog.
Got any advice for getting on top of the writing process and better managing time alongside all the other things life throws our way? I’d love to hear more in the comments below!
Til next time (whenever that may be),
Dean
Space & Lasers 