My 2024.

Hello! Happy Holidays! We’ve got a few of them coming up! One of them happens to be the start of a brand-new year! Is that a good thing?

… It will be interesting, that is for sure. And scary.

But what about this year? This year was a similar deal, for less intense and detrimental reasons. But there are a lot of positives that came from this year. And I wanted to make some posts to appreciate the developments that came about this year and spell out some goals for 2025.

January saw me steadily DMing my first DnD campaign and creating several fun NPC (most of them are goblins.) We haven’t been able to do a lot of the DnD sessions. (I think there have been about six or seven this year) But the sessions were fun, nonetheless. Plus! Tort the Goblin is still the only character in the game who hasn’t taken a lick of damage.

I also did my first ever self-tape! I tried out for a part in a horror movie. (I didn’t get the part, but the recording and stuff was a lot of fun!)

February was a big month for me in a few ways. The most significant was that I left my job as a substitute teacher. It was a necessary change that actually has helped me quite a bit. I actually ended up finding a new job and starting by the end of the month. I am currently going on ten months at (unnamed, mostly Florida exclusive supermarket.)

The second development from February, is that I finished editing and assembling my collection. Nine horror adjacent stories that feature everything from zombies to gardening. The collection is currently in a Armoured Fox slushpile awaiting a pair of eyes!

In March, I started slowly rewriting Phantom Janitor. I have always wanted to do this kind of work for my debut book, and it has been a wonderful and healthy-paced process. I am most excited to revisit these characters again. I am currently sitting at Chapter Six on the rewrite, at a good 10k word count and thirty pages. (I also won second place at the fair for my s’mores cookies!)

“Happy Howlidays” was nominated for a Coyotl Award! That was an amazing thing to find out! Especially because there were so many talented authors featured within the pages.

I got sucked into the fun storytelling of the WWE. Yes. That’s why I watch!

In April, I got covered in fake blood for an author photo shoot! It was a fun day where my friend Jordan scooped fake blood onto me! It was very sticky, and cold. But gosh, the pictures look amazing!

I started a new blog back in May! (This one! Right here! You’re reading it now!) And I have been pretty consistent with writing posts for it! It’s been really nice, writing here and keeping myself on a flexible writing schedule. And it’s been wonderful seeing all of the nice comments I have gotten from people who have read it.

In Pride Month, I came out… Again. Because you can never come out too much, right? I really am happy I have it in writing somewhere, because my queer identity is a part of me, and is every bit as important as the rest of me.

Over the summer, I wrote two (You read that right!) TWO Spicy stories! And one of them was featured on Voice of Dog during their Ghost of Dog run of episodes! (Intense Research!) The other is currently in an anthology slush pile!

Besides all this, I also did a good deal of cooking and baking! (I baked seven batches of cookies for Megaplex! Very yummy stuff!) But I also made some chilis, loaded baked potato soup, stuffed peppers, and jambalaya.

This is kind of a last-minute addition, because I completely forgot about it. Which I shouldn’t have forgotten about it because you know it’s my story. Justice is Brewing is another story that I finished writing this year. And both parts should be out on Voice of Dog by the time you read this. Unless you’re reading this in the morning on Monday, then it probably is not out yet.

Also, I’ve had the opportunity to be a penpal with two of my amazing friends. It’s been so nice writing letters to them.

How was your year? Did you have a decent year? What are some of your plans for next year?