2015 in Review
Back in June I announced a bogging hiatus until September. Obviously I have overshot that mark. It has been a very busy year, but not too busy to make time for the important things in life. Since we last spoke I have:
- Purchased a condo and moved to further reduce my commute.
- Moved in with my girlfriend. Technically she’s moved in with me.
- Gotten a promotion and a couple of raises, though that leaves me working more than ever.
- Made progress on my Ork army, but in general surprisingly little progress on creative endeavors as a whole.
The below chart makes the point pretty clearly.
The green slice is the one I particularly care about. That is where life happens. This year it should have been filled with hiking and hanging out and creative projects, but it in reality a lot of it was occupied by the joys of moving (House hunting, packing, unpacking, and cleaning) and with decompressing from work. Like coming up from a deep dive, it seems like every hour I spend at work passed the traditional eight is matched with another when I get home to avoid the bends as I come up for air.
It is hard to come up with a ballpark answer as to how many hours I spent half watching reruns or surfing reddit to recharge in these circumstances, but if I had to guess, I would say too many.
A week half ago I realized I had done almost nothing on my novel for the whole year. I started the year with roughly 32 thousand words in the bank, and after 11 months that is where I was as the end of December loomed. How tragic.
In just the last week I have completed another 6 thousand words. Just think of where that pace could have gotten me if it had been started in the spring. I gave up regular updates on this blog to get time back to work on more important things, and I fear I have not used that time well.
2016 is the year I work on improving that. What about the rest of you? Do you have back burner projects that have managed to spend the year without ever once becoming the priority? What are you going to differently next year?
My Orks wish you a Merry Christmas, or they will as soon as I finish them.
PS: If any of you have any interest in the spring, I will be looking for beta readers for the sci-fi novel I am once again hard at work on.
Caffeineforge 
Good to see you back. And congratulations on all of the life updates – it sounds like a good year, even if it wasn’t all that you hoped to accomplish.
As for me, I have a ton of back burner projects that I intend on making a higher priority. Here’s to a more productive 2016.
I still read your infrequent blog posts David – really you should probably become a youtube commentator. It would take you less time to hate on all the terrible Kickstarter projects and you would quickly develop a following.
Welcome back, David!
We missed you 🙂
As for me, I have a lot of back burner projects laying around… like my own ork army (or any other warhammer army I have…) or painting projects. Since the hiatus of monday miniature I didn’t paint much because of work, illness and other things… but I used the time to lose weight and to collect a pretty nice collection of star ships for Star Trek Attack Wing (now they “just” have to be painted 😉 )
For the next year, I’ll try to paint more (the few times I painted this last half year I really enjoyed it – I just have to push me to start…):
– Finish my Pit Fighter Warband (which I showed here),
– Paint at least one army (perhaps the skaven coming with the last mantic kickstarter)
– Start painting the Bones II (before Bones III reaches our door!)
And I want to keep our roleplay gaming group on a regular level.
My wife and I wish you, David, and all readers on this blog a merry christmas and a good start into the year 2016. May the (paint)brush be with you!
P.S. @David: we would be happy to help you out as beta readers, if you still need some! You can e-mail us or just post a short info here on the blog as soon as your manuscript is ready 🙂
Thank you for the kind offer Dirk and merry Christmas to you as well. Are you as excited by the rumors of a Necromunda rerelease as I am?
I’ll let you know when I get there. I am 45k words today, and I hope to hit 50k before the end of the year.
I´m excited to see that GW possibly brings back the specialist games, and I hope that Space Fleet Gothic also returns from the black hole it was left in (figuratively speaking).
I´m curious how the (new) Necromunda will be and hope that you can use the old gangs.
But I hope that it won´t be too expensive. There were so many kickstarters this year (Bones, Mantic, Conan, Raging Heroes, Star Trek Axanar…), that we should slow down a bit…
Hey David,
Good to see you’re doing well. Any idea on when Monday Miniatures will be back?
This job slams me in the winter. At one point Dirk or his wife volunteered to pick up the torch, but I thought I would be back soon, so I shot it down. If they wanted to pick up the torch for me, in the interm, I’d be down for the change of pace..
Hey David, we’re still up for the task 🙂 If you want us to do Monday Mini stuff for some time, just email us so we can discuss the details – I hope we get the time zone differences right 😀
I too completed a move this year! Shortly after you went on hiatus. Change of house, change of town, change of job. Needless to say my productivity hit a brick wall.
I totally empathize with the recharging after work. Far too much time surfing the web that would be better spent on other pursuits. Hopefully the new year, and some time acclimatizing to new situations will do both of us some good.
My intent this year was to clear off some back burner projects. One of them was achieved I believe. A bit of progress with some unintended backlogged work, but largely poor. I think I’ll stick with painting things that interest me and moving on when they don’t……higher producivity overall should reduce the lead mountain faster than procrastinating on a back project.
Sounds like a plan to me.
Hi all,
Good to hear everyone is alive. I painted a grand total of 1 mini (minotaur from Bones 2) since we stopped. My project this year seems to be mainly the three goblins (a 5 year old paladin, a 5 year old bard twin and a 1 year old barbarian) that ransack my house every time I clean up. They even paint themselves…with jam.