LET IT BEGINUARY.
For those unaware, Bloganuary is a daily writing-prompt…game, I guess??? in the style of your Let’s Talk Bookishes and Top Ten Tuesdays and WWW Wednesdays and similar, courtesy of our Benevolent Sovereigns at WordPress, whose dark, undreaming sleep we pray will never be disturbed. WordPress: The Shadows Will Bleed And The Locks Will Break.
It’s pretty straightforward! You sign up (by clicking here, for instance), every day in January they send us a prompt, and you write about it, however much or little you like. That’s it! The idea is just to encourage consistency and community, and in my specific case, yelling, lies, and jokes for nobody. Let’s get to it!
(Obligatory reminder to subscribe to my once-monthly newsletter here, which rounds up everything I wrote in the preceding month, grants access to a curated members-only Spotify playlist, and includes a piece of exclusive bonus collectible content I will NEVER repost anywhere else, ever! It’s free, fast, fun, and you’ll feel left out of the cool kids’ newsletter conversation at lunch if you don’t!)
January 1st:
What Is Something You Want To Accomplish This Year?
Okay, look, can we just agree that since 2019 or so the main, unspoken goal for the given upcoming year has been living to see it, and that attempting to plan any significant distance into the future has been…optimistic at best.
THAT SAID, goals can be helpful if we allow them to guide but not control us, and remember that we can redefine them to suit our needs or as circumstances change, so let’s set some stars to sail ‘er by.
Goals For 2023
- Post More And More Consistently Than Last Year
I published 86 posts in 2022, which isn’t bad at all considering I:
1.) Started in May,
2.) Had no idea what I was doing, and
3.) It’s arguable the use of the past-tense there isn’t entirely honest.
It gets less impressive when I break it down, and especially when I look at November, when I only had three posts the entire month. I don’t think setting post-minimums per week or anything similar is a good idea; life and inspiration are too unpredictable. But one of the best ways to keep my count and consistently up is Goal 2:
- Bank More Posts Ahead Of Time
I’ve been living–as I suspect many bloggers do–the equivalent of hand-to-mouth; writing a thing, posting it, and then finding myself in the same position I had just escaped. I’ve already got two posts done and scheduled for this month, and I’m gonna try to keep up at least that length of runway going forward. Nobody’s making me do this but me, and trust me, you do not wanna work for that guy, so everything I can do to keep him off my back is worth investing time and energy in.
- Engage More With The Community
Look we all throw Likes around in the reader like Tootsie-Rolls from an off-brand parade float, spreading the love and hitting many children in the eye because they weren’t paying attention to SpongyBill CubeShorts. And the Likes rule! They’re wee seratonin-fireworks and I feel like an internet demagogue of old when I get like three of them, usually from my bois Stuart and Captain Mike!
But an Economy of Likes–no matter how bustling–does not a living community make, and I need to and must and will become one of the known bugs crawlin’ around under this big beautiful log, a-wigglin’ about all the other bugs’ wee bug-thoughts. I’ve already been an intermittent participant in Let’s Talk Bookish, and now I’m hoping that, this, and other games will at least help me learn the language and where I should sit as the New Guy and similar. It’s a great community in my limited experience, and without being presumptuous I’m fairly sure everyone will be nice to me even though I cuss a whole bunch. Watch: *ahem* Diaper-biscuits. See? I must be doing something right if they tolerate that.
So I guess I’ll start commenting a lot more? I dunno if there’s a better way, I’ll look into it.
- Read More Non-Comic Books, Read More For Fun, And Write More Reviews And Articles
As I’ve discussed before, my stock and trade used to be my New Comic Book Day Hauls, which became…unsustainable for a number of reasons, and prevented me from working on almost anything else and from reading almost anything that wasn’t in preparation for what would be on the next haul. Now that I’ve emerged from that Kirby-dotted chrysalis and taken flight, I’m flapping around PRETTY ERRATICALLY, mostly subsisting on my Books Read Lists and Let’s Talk Bookishes, and I look forward to stabilizing and figuring out how to talk about what I want to talk about, and hopefully what you’ll enjoy reading about.
I could go on–am, in fact, known for going on–but I think this is supposed to be a light and low-pressure thing so I believe that, like the disappointing movie of the same name, this is where I leave you.
I’ll see you cats tomorrow, but a lot can transpire in such a span, so until then: Be good to yourselves, be good to each other, wear your goddamn masks, and let’s make 2023 wish it had killed us when it had the chance.
I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
–The Bageler
Don’t let go of my hand, now darkness has gone
This will be our year, took a long time to come