My Plans for 2020

2019 has come and gone, and the year 2020 is upon us. That means, for example, that when we speak of the ’20s from now on, we’re referring to this decade,* not the 1920s.

But besides that, here are my goals for this year.

Work on completing the remaining three Shining Tomorrow novels. Last year, I had some difficulty writing a solid follow-up to Shining Tomorrow because I tried to tell a Gundam-style story instead of continuing the Power Rangers-like style of the first novel. Going that route would have fundametally altered the nature of the story world and made it difficult to tell superheroic adventure stories and explore the society of the North American Federation. Thus I had to start over.

A side effect of these difficulties was that I tried to start up other stories, thinking I could write them quickly. However, the process was never quick, no matter how hard I tried. Because of that, this year I will focus my storytelling efforts exclusively on Shining Tomorrow and nothing else. Any other projects I mentioned are on indefinite hold until at least four ShinTomo novels have been released.

Restart the Appendix N Review Series. I neglected my survey of Appendix N when the writing bug hit and never truly got back into it. However, perhaps as a consequence of the problems I had writing ShinTomo, I feel I need to get back into reading those novels and talking about them. These books are far too important to leave alone, and they really do offer a window into the fantasy genre.

Improve my Japanese skills. I will practice Japanese daily so that I can pass the Japanese Language Proficiency Test at the N2 level. I already laid the groundwork last year, so I’ll just continue what I’m doing and see how far I get.

Blog every weekday. I need to have the self-discipline to put up at least one blog post each weekday. Blogs need content, after all.

Here’s to a prosperous new year.

* Yes, I know that because there was no 0 AD, the new decade is supposed to start on 2021. However, I’m going on common perceptions of when decades begin.