Carpe Blogiem: 2024 – A Year In Review

Here are how things went for me in 2024:

The Good (What I did well or that went well)

• My Patreon continues to grow and remains most of my monthly (steady) income. I’m sitting at 106 patrons right now and 76 followers (aka free members)
• GURPS Monster Hunters Adventure: The Face of Fire by myself and J. Edward Tremlett was published in October 24th 2024. Go grab a copy in either PDF or POD!
• GURPS Meta-Tech  was published on July 2nd, 2024. Go grab a copy in either PDF or POD!
• I started my dark fantasy aetherpunk GURPS campaign “Aersalus.” It’s been going very well.
• I took on a protégé. An aspiring game designer and writer who has shown some real talent and even more gumption. They’re a good kid and I’m hoping to do my damnedest to fulfill the promise I made to them.
• I did a complete redesign (with lots of help!) of the GURPS Discord Server. It’s the place to be if you want to learn, play, or chat about GURPS. Tons of freelancers are there, lots of veteran GURPSers, and more.
• I finally got the GURPS Group North America out of the limbo the previous admin left it (he died). I am not the main admin and that’s up and running. Stay tuned for that being revamped at some point too. If Facebook is your thing, check it out.
• I completely abandoned the Steve Jackson Games forums. I have set myself extremely strict requirements for even thinking about going back there and I doubt those will be met so…bye – and thanks for all the fish. My mental health is way better for it.
• I no longer have active profiles on any social media except BlueSky, Discord (I’m ravenpenny there), Mastodon (rarely checked), TikTok (same), Tumblr (ditto), and Facebook (I will not be adding anyone there who I do not have a actual relationship with. Sorry!)
• I created a GURPS authors and gamers starter pack for BlueSky and a GURPS feed.
• I wrote 278,255 words last year with a goal of 190,000 words or about 15,834 words per month with an average of 23,188 words per month. I failed to meet my set goals for 2 out of 12 months but made it up for it in other months. Still, I beat my projection by over 46% – given everything that happened this year (see below)? I’m surprised I did that much.

The Bad (What I could have done better or had no control over)

• I still didn’t publish anything in the fiction market in 2024. I missed my 2023 goal and went about another year without publishing anything. It didn’t change last year and I feel like no matter what I must do that this year.
• Posting was only 1-2 entries per week (at most) with most posts being session recaps – I really need to get back to steady output of game advice, mechanics, etc.
• Mental Health: My mental health was extremely bad this year. Some stuff I can talk about, some I can’t. But let’s see, my boyfriend of 20 years died in August (someone I had known for 30 years and was one of my constant companions), I lost my uncle at the end of December, and I had  a professional scare so bad that I don’t know how I pulled out of that nose dive. Those were the big ones. This year was full of tiny cuts to my psyche that left me with nothing but scars on my psyche and maladaptive coping mechanisms (as if I needed more of either).
• Physical Health: I had an extreme ear infection that turned into sepsis, got Shingles at the same time (on my left forehead, left eye, and left ear), oh, also cellulitis in the same spots, died twice (and came back), had a asthma attack so severe I thought it was a heart attack (I was literally turning blue), and finally caught COVID. All of that happened in the span of about 11 days. Broke my glasses and I was without them for almost two weeks. It was misery. My migraines intensified and I developed PHN (postherpetic neuralgia) so severe that for a while it seemed it would be permeant (sometimes it is. Look it up. Also, get your damn Shingles vaccine!). You can read more here.
• I lost one of the loves of my life. I feel rudderless – I and our girlfriend both do. We’re coping. Somehow. I miss him a lot. He was my partner in crime – now it’s just down to the duo. He got me into GURPS. He got me writing. He was my sounding board and one of the people I loved most in this world and he is now gone. The last book I wrote with his input is now published (the Face of Fire) and I hope somehow it didn’t displease him. We have a GoFundMe set up and even though the goal has been met, things keep piling up.
• My gig at Haptic went on pause until better times for all involved. It’s been worked on right now, but being out of work most of the year sucked.
• I didn’t do any real work on InDesign and that’s a problem.
• Out of my 17 clients at the start of the year I ended with…none. Not a single one. Just disastrous for me.

The Ugly (I don’t know how to categorize this or too early to tell)

Final Thoughts

This year there was a lot of bad. Just…a lot. 2024 was probably one of the worst years of my life and is up there with the loss of my grandfather, grandmother, and father. I am happy to see it gone and hope it stays the hell away.

I’m going to be gentle to myself this year. I might need time to recover. I might have months I can’t do anything. I don’t know. So this year this is all I’m after:

And here are some “bonus” goals that I’d like to do, but won’t feel bad if I don’t: