Here’s What I Got Done in 2021

It’s been a long year, but it’s finally almost over….

That’s been my mindset for a while, since I’ve realized that I’m suffering from some pretty serious burnout due to taking on too much.  Thankfully, though, the year’s almost over, I’ve got a 2-week (!) break coming up for Christmas and New Years, and January on the Japanese university circuit is set to be pretty chill.  That means I’m almost out of the woods at last (hurray!!!!).

As such, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I did and didn’t accomplish in 2021, how things look differently now than they did last year, and where I’m set to go in 2022.  And there’s no better way to do that than with a year-end summary, both for those who may have missed my news, and as a personal reminder that things aren’t all doom and gloom ;-)

So without further ado, here’s what I got done in 2021:

 

MFA Thesis Novel is Prepped and Ready for Publication!

In early 2021 I did an email back and forth with Melanie Faith, my developmental editor for Vine Leaves Press, about some trouble areas of the manuscript of MFA Thesis Novel that weren’t quite working.  Getting her input on these chapters helped a LOT, and put me in better shape for the summer, when I went through the whole manuscript one more time in preparation for our full developmental edit.

Once that was over, the manuscript got passed to Amie McCracken, who handles the typeset and general interior design.  The two of us went back and forth about things like Acknowledgements, the About the Author page, and blurb quotes before moving on to the general typeset, which required a LOT of tweaking and corrections (more on this later!).  As of this week, though, the inside manuscript is done and ready to head to the printer :-)

And of course, the novel now has an awesome cover courtesy of Jessica Bell that’s made the whole process seem more real, both for me, and for a lot of people who follow me on social media, which has been pretty exciting too.

 

I Made a Lot of Progress on a New Novel, But Still Have a Ways to Go…

At the beginning of 2021 I also started a new novel, one I’ve wanted to write for literally years but just hadn’t been able to start.  I kept up a steady pace for those first few months, which helped me get nearly half of a rough draft written out.

More recently, though, work on the new novel’s been stalled, mostly because I’m realizing that in my current setup, I’m just too busy to set aside the intense mental energy it takes to work on a novel manuscript.

This has been really disheartening, but it’s also served as REALLY good incentive to change my daily life setup so that it’s more conducive to writing (more on this later!).

 

I Got a New Day Job and Taught at a Japanese University

Teaching English at the university level in Japan was something I’d wanted to do for a long time, and achieving that goal to the extent that I have this semester has felt really good.  I enjoy teaching greatly, and it felt good to be back in the university classroom for the first time since grad school, where I’ve been really happy with how my classes have turned out.

Leaving my previous job teaching elementary school with the JET Program also meant leaving a life I’d carved out for myself in Toyama—a temporary life for sure, but a life nonetheless.  Leaving that life for new adventures reminded me that I could still do new things and keep moving forward, which is easy to forget when you’ve been working the same comfortable job for three years.

Still, though, I’ve realized that the busy working conditions of my university Day Job just aren’t conducive to sustaining a writing career, and I’m glad I realized that for myself instead of just wondering “What if?”

 

I Expanded My Editing Side Hustles…By a Lot

2021 was the best year I’ve had in my editing business, and I picked up several new clients for both small and bigger jobs.  Other clients from previous years started emailing more often, and one even offered me a significant raise to work with them over Zoom for manuscript coaching, which was a huuuuuuuuuge confidence boost.

More editing work was partly why I stayed so busy in 2021, but it also brought in a ton of money and sent a clear message: editing is something I’m good at, and something that I can expand to bring in actual, sustainable income if I try hard enough, which brings me to my next point…

 

I Saved a Bunch of Money and Feel Ready to Leave the Day Job World

As of this month I have just shy of $50,000 saved—a significant number that to me means a ticket to freedom from the Day Job World (for a while, anyway).

The idea of amassing a whole lot of savings that I can live off of while I expand my writing and creative work is something I’ve been working toward since 2016 when I started planning what the next few years of my life might look like.  For me, over the past few years it’s made sense to spend more time earning income and less time doing creative work, though I now feel ready to reverse that equation and devote more time to my writing while still being able to pay my bills.

More importantly, though, is that I’m finally feeling mentally ready to make the transition away from a Day Job, partly because I have the money saved, partly because I have an actual novel being published as proof that my writing career’s going somewhere, but also because I’ve realized that at this point in my life, making the time for creative work is far more important than bringing in money.

 

Other Stuff I Did in 2021

I didn’t finish quite as many small projects in 2021 as I would have liked, but I did do a few significant ones I was proud of, namely:

• Two new Day Job Interviews, one with Sean Doolittle, the crime writer from Nebraska whose novels have won numerous awards, and one with Krissy Diggs, illustrator extraordinaire and former Youtuber who’s suffered through her own Day Job traumas.
• This for-serious literary article on sexual assault in the early novels of Joseph Heller, published in the equally for-serious European Journal of American Studies.
• Co-editing and publishing my final two issues of Toyama’s Random-Ass Magazine, the TRAM, and sharing some pretty awesome art and writing from creators both in- and outside Toyama.
• This Zoom reading back in March with a bunch of other Vine Leaves Press authors for the SMOL small press fair, where I read from MFA Thesis Novel and met some other great writers.
• The beginnings of a marketing campaign for MFA Thesis Novel, including social media hype, an actual marketing plan (!), and even work on a new website (more on this in the coming months!!)
• Finally adding the M to Ian M. Rogers for my author name

I guess when you spell it all out it looks like I did quite a bit this year, so writing this post was a pretty solid confidence boost :-)

If you haven’t already, you might try writing out your own list of what you accomplished in 2021, for both your own encouragement and to keep yourself on track.  Then, write out your goals for 2022 in a way that’s tangible and easy to keep track of so you can keep yourself moving forward.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a great start to the year—I’ll be taking a few weeks off from blogging to recuperate and catch up on other things, so I’ll see you in the New Year!