Wow, that was weird to type.

Anyway, Happy New Year to everyone. No matter how good (or bad) 2019 was to you, here’s hoping 2020 is much better to you and yours.

Last year was pretty good to me overall. There were highs and lows, like any year, but I’m going to focus on the positive in order to get 2020 started off on the right foot. So, with that said, here’s my 2019 in (brief) review:

• Writing-wise, I had a short story published in Dystopia from the Rock and Flights from the Rock, both from Engen Books, and a 100 word drabble in Apocalypse from Black Hare Press. It was also revealed that I’ll have another two 100 word drabbles in Black Hare Press’s upcoming collections this year, one in Love and one in Hate. And, last but not least, I managed to place third in a sci-fi writing contest hosted by WANL. So it was a pretty great year in that regard, and more that I can’t announce just yet for 2020.
• Reading-wise, I fell short of my goal of reading 25 books for the third straight year. I came close, finishing 6 in December and the 20th and last on New Year’s Eve (Sanctuary by Tanith Frost, if you’re curious), and I’m hoping to carry that momentum forward into this year.
• I played more guitar in 2019 than the previous year, though I didn’t use the Gretsch as much as I should have. Still, I’ve rediscovered my fondness of the instrument, even if I don’t play at the same level or frequency, and I hope to keep that up as well.
• On top of reading more and digging into older books I’ve bought, I made an earnest attempt to get through my way-too-deep collection of unwatched movies and unplayed video games as well. I’d like to think I made a decent dent into both, but I’m ashamed to admit how much more of each remain. I’m probably not alone in that (right?) but at least I’m trying to limit myself. We’ll see if 2020 continues that trend or if I dig myself deeper.
• Last, but not least, my wife nudged me into joining a D&D group with her in the city. I own a TON of the older books (they’re staring at me from a foot or so away as I type, mainly several unused 4th edition books), but she found a group looking to play the newest 5th edition in its own homebrew setting and we decided to give it a shot. I’m very glad we did, not only because we made some great new friends there, but because I’ve finally had a chance to really play the game after years of bad attempts and incidents, hah. Too many to get into here, but suffice it to say it was great to finally get a chance to play.

Those are the broad strokes of my 2019. There were other bright spots – our annual trip down south, seeing my father-in-law and his sister-in-law in July, getting to enjoy a trip to Boston with one of my best friends – but those are more specific, I suppose.

What I’m hoping to do, and what I’ve almost positively said here before, is to be better about blogging and talking about things like that in real time, or much closer to it. I’m not going to be so blindly ambitious to say I’ll do it every day, but I think once a week may be more do-able, so let’s go with that.

On that note, I think it’s time to go and get started on my 2020 reading challenge. Here’s to an outstanding year for us all.