Tag Archives: Music

Another year over…

31 Friday Dec 2021

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Each year I do a little wrap up post about the last twelve months and how they’ve gone for me. 2020 was, as I’m sure it was for many of you, a shit show. 2021 started out hopeful, I went back to working in the office sometimes, I saw a couple of Melbourne Comedy Festival shows and a few band nights and gigs around town.

I even managed to get through the year without testing positive for COVID which is nice; I’m not sure I’ll be able to say the same for next year. Our case numbers are in the thousands per day, but with over 90% of the population vaccinated, it seems hopeful that we’ll be able to stay open even with new variants.

I set my expectations pretty low, after 2020 I wanted to feel confident I would tick some of them off, even if there was another long lockdown. Turns out I was right to be sceptical that our freedom would last; from May until October, we were all stuck inside again and we’re only allowed out now because of high vaccination rates.

My goals for 2021 are as follows:

  • Publish Singular Focus
  • Finish manuscript from NaNoWriMo 2020
  • NaPoWriMo 2021 (April)
  • NaNoWriMo 2021 (November)
  • Keep up the blog
  • Paint more murals
  • Put on a third Melbourne Fringe Festival show (October)*
  • Wasted Monday performances*

I achieved all my goals, except for the Fringe Show. If I’m honest, I’m not sure I would have done a show this year even without lockdown. There is a lot of joy in putting on a Fringe show, but an enormous amount of work. I’m focussing my energy on my writing, music, and doing some painting as well. I have three murals in my apartment now and have moved on to smaller boards that can be kept or given away to friends.

I took up piano lessons late in 2020, online only at the time since we were still in lockdown then. After a little over a year, I’m enjoying playing and tinkering on the piano. I might even build a repertoire so I can do some open mic nights with the keyboard – although the keyboard’s pretty massive so transporting it will be a pain. My piano teacher has organised two small concerts in 2021 with her adult students, and I have really enjoyed having an audience again, as well as being able to play two or three gigs with Wasted Monday when we were allowed.

Five people pose, each giving a peace sign with both hands and smiling broadly.
Piano concert crew: Jaya, Andrew, me, Mizuki (teacher) and Ben, November 2021.

My work that can be done at home has been pretty consistent, I have drafted about 80k of a new novel, and I have two novels that will be ready for publication in 2021 (stay turned for title and cover reveals).

Though I did a 30k goal for NaNoWriMo, I’m counting it. It’s been a tough year and my writing practice is pretty solid, so I don’t need to rely on November to make up the lion’s share of my first draft output.

My ankle, which was smashed when I was struck by a car in January 2020, is largely recovered, though there is some long-term damage and it’s never going to be back to the way it was. The biggest issue I have nowadays is chronic back pain, likely a secondary injury from the ankle problem. I find it hard to work when I’m in pain, a sentiment I’m sure many of you share.

I’m pleased to say my relationships–with friends, family and work colleagues–have remained solid for the duration, I am so grateful to have so many fantastic people around me. Even when we couldn’t see anyone in real life, I knew you were all there, at the end of the phone or over text.

My grandmother passed in September, she was 94, so had a good run. The funeral was weird, because we were in lockdown and had only two people in the chapel, and a few more watching online. Most other things have ticked along, in some cases limped along during lockdown, but have largely survived. I feel hopeful that 2022 will be enjoyable, possibly going out of the house more often, perhaps I’ll even be able to have a holiday outside of Victoria.

I wish you all health, happiness, relaxation and fulfilment, for the next year and beyond. The next post will include my new year goals.

Café Gummo

01 Tuesday Jun 2021

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I stand on stage
Cables at my feet
Can’t move far
Lest I fall over the edge

Beats a bit out
The drums slow
The guitar fast
I’m in the middle

I look out at the faces
All turned to me
Some seem tired
Uninterested

Will they regret it
Too loud, too country
Too slow, too rude
What do they think?

Last week I enjoyed it
Being in front of people
Revelled in their gaze
Today I’m in my head

I can see more
And hear better
But my mind is not quiet
Shift my feet

A stranger approaches
After we pack up
Says he enjoyed the show
I’m glad, but tired, hungry

I head home
Get a burger on the way
Rest my feet and
Look forward to next time.

Sweat Shake Palpitate

24 Wednesday Feb 2021

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My band, Wasted Monday, has released our first album, Sweat Shake Palpitate. For once, I’m not spruiking my writing.

“It’s been a long and winding road but we’ve recently finished recording our first album; Sweat Shake Palpitate!

A lot’s happened along the way; our original drummer left, our replacment French connection had to go back to France, Lu pinched a nerve in her neck, we found Aaron our lead guitarist! Then Fleur got hit by a car, and it got even better from there, COVID-19 hit Melbourne and for most of 2020 we were in lock down.

In a stroke of good luck Lu’s new housemate off-handedly said they’d recored our songs. Lu didn’t believe them, but a few days before Christmas, in a psychedelic lounge room, we recorded 9 tracks and here they are.

Avalible now on our Soundcloud and Bandcamp.”

We’re looking forward to a few more gigs and open mics now we’re out of lockdown (touch wood), so watch this space.

Reflections on 2019

24 Tuesday Dec 2019

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Firstly, this is my 301st blog post! Wow! I completely missed the fact I’d hit three hundred when I published the last one. My first post here was 7 November 2011. It seems like a lifetime ago, although eight years is a pretty long time too.

I’ve done a lot of stuff in that time, completed NaNoWriMo eight times, self-published two books, co-written, co-produced and co-starred in two Melbourne Fringe Festival shows, left and started several jobs, become a life model and become heavily involved in running the Life Models’ Society.

My life is very different to what it was in 2011 when I started. We’re also approaching the end of another decade which has its own weird feelings associated with it.

As is my tradition, I take some time at the end of each year to reflect on the goals I set myself at the start of the year. I like to look at the things I’ve achieved the things I haven’t as a record of the evolution of my life over time.

Last year I published the following goals for 2019:

  • Publish ‘Discovery of the Franklins’
  • NaNoWriMo 2019
  • Finish manuscript from NaNoWriMo 2018
  • NaPoWriMo 2019
  • Sitcom
  • Top Secret Project
  • Wasted Monday performances
  • Blogging
  • Life Models’ Society Exhibition
  • Life Models’ Society 30th anniversary

Maybe/if I have time:

  • Self-publish one of my other manuscripts
  • Finish/rework shorts story/novella

I have achieved several of these goals, I published my second novel, I completed NaNoWriMoand NaPoWriMo, I project managed a successful art competition and exhibition for the LMS and helped to organise a lot of events for the LMS thirtieth anniversary year. And I’ve kept up this blog.

A couple of these goals weren’t achieved. I went back to my NaNoWriMo manuscript from 2018 but haven’t completed it. I don’t know whether it has what’s necessary to be an interesting book. I may come back to it later but for the moment it’s on the back burner.

For my collaboration stuff, the sitcom and top secret projects were worked on at the start of the year, but have fallen away in the later part of the year. Wasted Monday has gained and lost a drummer this year and with it some motivation. Lu and I are still keen so hopefully next year will be a good one for us.

A couple of things I’ve done this year were not on the list: I finished a first draft of a manuscript that was not a NaNoWriMo project, I also submitted a manuscript to my editor with the aim of self-publishing my third novel next year. The editor has encouraged me to submit to publishers (once I’ve made the required changes) so that’s an exciting opportunity too. And I travelled to Morroco and Spain in October.

This is, of course, not counting any of the stuff I’ve done for my day job. The day job has been a pretty intense year, in a number of ways. We’ve had a couple of restructures, and a lot of changes in the teams. I look forward to a more settled year next year, but who knows, maybe there is more change to come.

Do you have an annual goal setting ritual? Do you believe in New Years’ resolutions? Next year is shaping up to be a pretty busy year for me, I’ll give you the full run down of goals in the New Years’ post. I hope you all have a safe, fun and restful holiday period and I’ll see you back here next year.

Too busy? Me?

05 Monday Mar 2018

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I read an interesting article on the saying no to the Cult of Busyness yesterday. It advocates doing only one thing at a time, and I can’t say I’m completely on board with that, but I do think that our society undervalues down-time.

I’m particularly bad at this, juggling a few competing priorities; social contact, work, creative activities, outings and rest time. I have a bunch of projects on the go, including a couple of writing projects, two music projects, and one theatre project. I like to get as much value as I can out of my time, but last night as I lay in bed not sleeping I felt oppressed by the sheer number of balls I was trying to keep in the air. It doesn’t help that my day job is particularly busy at the moment either.

I will be able to take a bit over a week off around Easter, partly because I am working a bit more in the lead up to our big assessment. I’ve arranged to go to a little cottage near Lake Eildon for four days, just on my own. I plan to go for walks, get coffee, eat out, write in my journal, read a nice book, and possibly get some ‘proper’ writing done.

I will never be able to do one thing at a time, that’s not my style. I think I operate well when I can give things time to stew in the back of my mind while I’m doing something else. I can get better at scheduling in times for resting, and exercising.

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Here is a photo of one of my favourite bands, a local Melbourne crew called Destrends, who I saw yesterday at the Sydney Road Street Party. Apologies for the quality of the photo, they kept moving (and I didn’t get the drummer, sorry Nathan). I’m glad I went, but after a really intense Saturday I didn’t have the energy to hang around and soak up the atmosphere.

Once work is less busy, I’ll be heading to some Melbourne International Comedy Festival shows, and getting stuck into a week off! While I’m doing that I’ll practice saying no to (some) things.

Hello 2018!

01 Monday Jan 2018

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I’m writing this a few days early because I’m going to a music festival over New Years. If you’ve read my Reflections on 2017 you’ll know that I’ve had a pretty productive year.

There were some ups and downs, especially this last week around Christmas. It’s always a weird time when people go away, have family commitments and there’s sort of nothing to do. It sounds relaxing but I find it hard.

My family lunch was good, my grandmother was mostly inoffensive. I was given a hammock and stand which I’m taking to the festival – it’s books in the hammock in the morning and music in the afternoon.

What are my goals for this year then, I hear you asking. Well, here they are:

  1. Win NaNoWriMo 2018
  2. Enter 5 writing competitions
  3. Redraft ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ and publish it online (from 2017)
  4. ‘Fleur & Alexandra are Out of This World’ Melbourne Fringe Festival Show
  5. Edit ‘The Discovery of the Franklin’
  6. Submit ‘My Mothers Secret’ and ‘We Can’t Have Nice Things’ to publishers
  7. Perform with the new band regularly
  8. Two blogs per month

The big one in terms of time commitment is the Fringe Show. The show I did last year was a six-months-long intense project. We’ve already started work on the new show; we have a plot and we’re ready to start drafting the script. We’re already way ahead of where we were last time.

I’m also considering entering a self-published box set with a contemporary romance story of ~25k words. I think I could use the project I did for NaNoWriMo in 2017 for this, so that will be another job to put on the list if I commit to it.

I’m thinking of taking some evening acting classes. I’m a pretty confident performer and there is always room for learning and improvement.

On top of these goals I will do my best to make time for exercise, good eating, friends , live music and all that other normal stuff.

My blog activity over the last year has been a bit slack. I’m going to aim for two posts per month, but I also want to have good content. If I don’t have anything good to post, I won’t put anything up, but with all the projects I’m working on, I’m sure I’ll have material.

As always, 2017 had it’s highs and lows. It’s time to close that door, learn what I can and move into the next phase. I hope next year I’ll be in a more stable place and that stability enables me to create more consistently.

All the best for the new year. Bring it on 2018!!

 

Reflections on 2017

17 Sunday Dec 2017

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I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve done over the year even though there are still two weeks left of 2017.

If I made a list of what I did this year it would be sort of inadequate to express what I’ve achieved. I’ll try to make this an interesting reflection on the things that went well and the things that didn’t go so well for me in 2017.

Writing

My commitment to my writing this year has had a few challenges. I finished a manuscript that I started last year in NaNoWriMo. It was 104,000 words at the end of the first draft in July. I pitched the manuscript to three publishers at the Romance Writers of Australia conference in Brisbane in August. Of those three, two wanted to see it. I thought I was finally getting the hang of this writing thing.

Since then one has come back to me with a no, the other hasn’t yet replied.

I participated in a weekly workshop for much of the year. Unfortunately that workshop became something I dreaded and sucked the joy out of my writing. I suspect the other members didn’t like my style, and so looked for something positive to say, but it felt forced. As a result, I felt like a fool even when I got positive feedback.

I’ve also written about 50,000 words on a new story, this year’s NaNoWriMo project. I’m considering using it for a self-published collection coming out next year. The story is reasonably solid, and it will need a bit of work to get it into shape.

Finally, I entered three writing competitions. I had aimed for five, but it didn’t quite happen. Perhaps I could count my pitches as competitions.

I’ve learnt the valuable lesson that I can’t listen to all criticism all the time. Not least because it depends who you ask. Editing is a skill I’d like to improve however I became so disheartened trying to please everyone that I didn’t even want to read my own story. From now on I’ll try to be more discerning in taking on critique.

Music

I joined Hello Volume in September of 2015. The three band members and I got on well, we were great at improvising and jamming out new material and I really enjoyed the process. One of my goals for 2017 was to get Hello Volume performing regularly, as well as working on new material.

Unfortunately, as of last month, I am no longer the bassist for Hello Volume. My priorities for the band were not the same as the other members, and I chose to move onto another project which was more in line with my personal goals.

Hello Volume played a number of cool gigs while I was involved: the Bendigo Hotel and the Workers Club, and open mics at Cherry Bar and Mr Boogie Man Bar. Thanks for jamming with me.

I wish the band all the best for the future and I’ll keep you in the loop with regards to my new project.

Day Job

I’m slowly coming to accept most art creators have a day job. There are lucky humans out there who make their living from their art, and that gives me hope. Most creative people I’ve met over the last year have jobs in the ‘real’ world.

It doesn’t make me any less of an artist that I have a job. I keep telling myself that. Artists have to make opportunities for themselves, self-publishing or putting on an independent show, or finding music performance opportunities, for the love of the art. If there’s some monetary reward then that’s a bonus.

It saddens me the world is structured like this. We are a society who doesn’t like paying for art. I’m as guilty of it as anyone else. I work hard for my money and I often don’t value art with my dollars.

My day job has been going along pretty well since my new boss started in late July. It’s probably sadistic of me to say I feel validated she’s getting frustrated by the same roadblocks I was before she started.

 

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Relaxing with my backyard banana lounge and a book (not pictured)

Overall, I think I’ve achieved a lot and learned a lot this year. I’ve done many things I’d never done before. I coped with some pretty difficult life crap too, like being evicted from my home with three days notice (the building was unsafe) among other things.

I think I’m starting to get a handle on the things I need to do to keep myself happy. I’m allowing myself to sit with my feelings more, particularly anger and loneliness. After having four good friends move away from Melbourne last year I’ve been looking for new people to hang out with. It’s a slow process.

Next year is looking busy and exciting. I’ll be doing my annual New Year’s Goals soon so stay tuned!

Sixth Time Lucky

02 Saturday Dec 2017

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This year I finished my NaNoWriMo on 28 November. My final word-count was 50,336 words.

The working title of my new book is ‘The Discovery of the Franklin’.Cover mockup
I mocked-up this cover while procrastinating doing my words one day.

The story is contemporary fiction with romantic elements. The main characters are sisters, Sarah and Katie Franklin, hence the title.

It needs a bit of work to make it a proper book; I ‘pantsed’ the plot.

As well as NaNoWriMo, November was a time of moving away from creative endeavours which weren’t serving me. I decided it was time to leave the band that I’d been playing with. I’m  jamming with some new people, so we’ll see where that goes.

I also decided to stop going to my weekly writing workshop. The criticism that I got from the workshop group, and from the teacher, really demotivated me. I tried to take it on board and incorporate it, but it was never enough. Criticism, like art, can be extremely subjective.

I have a lot of creative energy which wants to get out, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to expend it on stuff which isn’t bringing me joy. Things don’t have to last forever, and I’ve changed as I’ve gotten older.

Now I’m going to work on setting my new year goals, and take stock of whether I’ve achieved last year’s.

Feeling Powerless

19 Sunday Nov 2017

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Last night I was at an event and I saw something I didn’t like. I was at a concert set up in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne. I know the woman who runs the ticketing so I get to go to the concert for free in exchange for scanning tickets. I get paid too, but that’s not why I go.

Content Warning: male violence against women

So I was stationed outside the (very poorly sign-posted) VIP area. My job was to give people wrist bands when they showed me their ticket and then make sure that only people with wristbands went into the VIP section. I had a security guard with me keeping an eye on things.

illy publicity shot

Illy, performed at The Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne 18 November 2017, and was not involved in the incident in any way. Image taken from Illy’s publicity materials.

It was between sets, Thundamentals had just finished and the headliner, Illy,  was due to start in about 20 minutes when I saw it.

A man and a woman, in the VIP area, standing near the fence. They were clearly having a fight, the woman was crying. Then the man grabbed her by the back of her neck and put his head close to hers.

It had now gone from watching a couple have a tiff to witnessing an assault. The security guard next to me, a 53-year-old woman of Macedonian descent (I know both of these things because she told me), saw these two and stiffened but made no move to approach them.

I watched as the man spoke in her ear for several minutes. He released his hold on her neck. She moved to stand a foot or so away from him, arms folded. He held her upper arm and continued to speak to her.

I was too far away to hear what was being said but it was clear he was belittling her. He then hugged her. The first time he tried to embrace her, she flinched away, he went in again and she let him, but made no move to hug him back. The security guard seemed to relax, we both thought that maybe the situation was deescalating.

About five minutes later the woman pushed him away. I heard him say something along the lines of ‘you may as well just go home then, you stupid cunt.’ She left the VIP area, and I watched her walk to the exit. I kept an eye out for her for the next half an hour, till  the end of my shift, and she didn’t come back.

‘It’s better that they should be separated,’ the security guard said to me.

‘I was about to go over there myself,’ I said.

‘Yes, but you never know when it will go up.’

I had chosen my own comfort and safety while watching another woman, a woman who was clearly accustomed to being treated terribly, being assaulted.

Later another woman, a punter, came up and asked the security guard whether we’d seen it and why we hadn’t intervened. The security guard gave her the same explanation that she’d given me; that we don’t want to escalate into something more dangerous for her and for us.

But that seemed wrong to me. How can I feel comfortable standing by as a man assaulted a woman, threatened her, bullied her, destroyed her self-worth and reinforced his insidious hold over her? How can I justify that my inaction with the platitude that if I intervene it might be worse? She thinks she’s alone; that people around her didn’t care, or worse, that they thought she deserved it.

The whole thing made me feel dirty. I was complicit in the perpetuation of male violence against women by my inaction.

That old saying that the behaviour you walk past is the behaviour you condone has been ringing in my ears today. I want something in my tool box for the next time this happens, because I know it will happen again.

What’s Happened: This Year in Review

18 Sunday Dec 2016

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Since I finished NaNoWriMo on 30 November this year I’ve done very little writing. I think my writing-brain has gone into hibernation, or possibly it’s just getting to the end of a pretty intense year.

I was looking at the goals I set for myself for 2016, here, and thinking about whether I’d achieved the things I set out to achieve. The goals I set for myself this year were split up into three groups: writing goals, concrete goals, and vague aspirations.

Looking at my writing goals, I’ve only really done one of the four: win NaNoWriMo. I have partially edited two of my previous manuscripts, but neither of them are in any kind of polished state, ready for submission. I’m striking the last one off, pitching a script for a sitcom thing. I don’t want to spend a whole bunch of energy learning a new set of rules and techniques to pitch for television. It seems to me that surely that would be an even more competitive market than fiction. I may choose to do some serious rewrites on the manuscript to sell it to a publishing house, but that seems less daunting.

I do have one of thing I can add which was not on the list, but which was an amazing achievement none the less: writing, producing and performing in my own Melbourne Fringe Festival show Fleur and Alexandra Save the World. This took up almost all of my creative bandwidth for six months, March-September. It was a massive project, and while my show partner had done it before, it still took an enormous about of work and energy to make it happen. In the end we didn’t quite make our money back, but we had over a hundred people come to see our show, and we were listed in The Age entertainment guide. I count it as a success, and who knows, maybe I’ll do another show in the future.

The next category was concrete goals. I’ve only done one of these as well; perform with the band. Hello Volume has been practicing almost every week for all of this year, and we’ve done a couple of live performances. I had hoped to get a few more lined up by this stage of the year, but we have plenty of time for that. Yesterday we went up to a recording studio in Central Victoria to put down some tracks possibly for an EP. It was a surprisingly painless (although exhausting) process. The sound engineer was knowledgeable and created a great relaxed, low-pressure atmosphere. We won’t know for sure how it went until he sends us the mixed and mastered tracks, but listening to the rough cuts I’m super pumped to hear them.

As my second concrete goal I had set myself the goal of planning another big trip. I haven’t done that, for a variety of reasons. A large part of it is because I have so much going on here at home that I sort of haven’t wanted to leave.

The last category is the vague aspirational goals section. The problem with this section is that they are, by nature, sliding and slippery. One, eat well, is so subjective that there is no real way to measure whether I’ve done it. I mean I have eaten a lot of good things, I’ve cooked healthy things for myself and been conscious about what I eat, but only some of the time. Other times, especially when I’m running around like a mad person doing all of the stuff I try to jam into a normal week, I occasionally have chips for dinner. When we were performing the Fringe show I was so nervous before hand I couldn’t eat properly and then afterwards I was so hungry I just scoffed huge handfuls of chocolate and muesli bars.

The same is true of exercising. If I looked at the number of times I actually went to the gym this year, as compared with last year, I’m sure I would have performed significantly worse. There was a period where I was sick for a month, and then there was the Fringe show, and then there was NaNoWriMo, when I prioritised getting my words done over going to the gym. I have tried to maintain a commitment to moving my body and being active, so I reckon I can count that one as a win.

The goal of ‘get a job’ can be ticked off, however I don’t know if I’m entirely happy with it. The job I have is working in an area of business where I haven’t had much experience. Granted, it’s mostly just a case of applying common sense, and having a consistent approach, but I still feel quite unstable in the role. Not to mention the contract I’m on is still a casual one, and I’ve had a new manager start about six weeks ago. Work is an area of my life I’ve found stressful this year. The creative projects I’ve worked on have been stressful in a sort of positive way, but my day-jobs this year have been full of uncertainty and difficult personalities. It’s not my favourite.

In terms of my social life, I’ve had some amazing ups and some lows too. I’ve started a relationship with someone I’m incredibly impressed by, who cares for me in a beautiful way I haven’t experienced before (and am therefore just a little bit freaked out by). It’s glorious and terrifying, and I hope that person knows how much they mean to me.

On the other hand, I had two very dear friends move away, and one more who is going at the start of next year. I’ve struggled in my adult life to create caring, reciprocal relationships (both romantic and platonic). I’ve ended up in situations where I play a counselling or parenting role, and these relationships are very one-sided. I’ve been consciously trying to seek out and nurture fulfilling, reciprocal and supportive friendships for a couple of years, and I’ve found it incredibly difficult. I guess it just means I have to keep trying.

I feel like I’m a person who is able to adapt to a lot of new situations. I like to take on new challenges and learn new things. In looking back at this year I feel like I’ve done a lot of really amazing things, I’ve done them pretty bloody well, and if I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and tired right now then maybe I should just go with that feeling and give myself permission to take a break. I have a tendency to set unrealistically high expectations and then be so stubborn that I try to achieve them anyway. Mostly it means I get a great deal of work done, but sometimes it means I beat myself up because I can’t do everything.

I’m thinking of what goals I want for next to set for next year. I think I’ll aim for stability in at least one aspect of life. I’ve had a lot of balls in the air this year and I think it would be easier in 2017 if at least one moving part was not moving quite so much. Maybe my day-job will actually be what I want it to be: a financial support for my other endeavours, and not such a drainer of my mental resources.

Once I figure out what I want to put on the list, I’ll do a post on my 2017 goals in early January.