Mid-Year Writing Reflection

It's the middle of the year and I’ve been reflecting on how things are going for me so far writing wise. I was thinking that I hadn’t written that much this year and feeling a bit discouraged about it but then I went back and actually looked at what I’ve written and it’s kinda a lot. I don’t keep track of how many words I write not did I set myself any writing goals this year. However I’ve been posting here pretty regularly about 2-3 times a week most weeks, which is way up from last year when I was posting maybe once a month. I guess the increase in activity around here due to the decline of Tumblr has been pretty good for me personally. I feel good about the amount of stuff that I’ve been writing and about the things that I’ve been writing.

It's nice to feel happy with my writing. I’m someone who doesn’t have a lot of interest in writing fiction and I’ve struggled a lot in the past with writing because of my learning disability. Both of those things have made me feel like not a real writer in the past. And I don’t really want to go pro in any sense. But writing is a hobby of mine -- and one that I keep getting better at. Ideas come more easily, and I’m better at revising too. It helps that I've made some friends who are great editors who are willing to read and comment on my essays too. However I’m glad I can get my ideas down and connect with other people.

This year I started doing regular Media Roundups of things I’ve been reading and watching and that’s actually been really fun. It's a nice low pressure way to talk about media. I’ve also written up a couple of longer reviews of some of the TV I’ve been watching. And I’ve been writing more posts about my daily life, travel and whatnot.

I think my favorite thing I’ve published so far this year is “So I Read Fanfic Now”. It may just be all the really excellent feedback I got on the post, but I was struggling to express some things I really wanted to talk about in there. It's just hard to talk about how I love this thing now but I also can see some problems -- it felt like I was treading a needle there.

I’m also pleased with ”Pals for Robots” a rec list of short SFF about robots and AIs that I wrote for ladybusiness. Not only do I love all the stories that included there but it's the closest I’ve ever gotten to having a thesis statement for a rec list. And writing it helped me articulate a thing I really love about a lot of recent robot and AI stories: they are about building community.

Oh and I got sucked into Guardian fandom and started doing and kind of obsessive food documentation project. Which is the kind of project I haven’t done in a long time and never in public before. But it's been fun! I have learned things about food! (I also ***whisper whisper** wrote and published my very 1st fanfic!)

So how is everyone else's writing going? What have you written that you are proud of?