Post holiday randomocity 2014

So, my xmas was quite lovely. Opened a gift from my best friend and my goddaughter which turned out to be an awesome Lovecraft/Dr. Seuss mashup tee shirt. People know me entirely too well.


Also spent some time going through The Sorcerer's Daughter and creating the synopsis. It wound up at eight pages--which is too long. No need to panic, though--I'm going through and cutting and editing over the next few weeks to get it down to no more than four pages. That's why I started working on it now, so I'll have plenty of time to get it right.


I'm still happy with it, too. There are one or two places where I took a bit of a chance, doing something that people may not get, but I think overall it works. I still love the ending. Hopefully, I won't be the only one.


I got myself a basic watercolor kit, too, and I've been using it to paint a still life today. So far it's okay. You can tell I don't know what I'm doing. But that's fine. I'm enjoying playing around with it, and it doesn't look bad, just a bit amateurish. Which fits, because I am most definitely an amateur.


I'm missing my goddaughter, and my best friend (who is my goddaughter's mother, if you didn't already know), who live on the West Coast. One day hopefully we'll all be together for the holidays. As it is, there is Skype and IMing, which is better than nothing.


Other than that it's been quite nice. Quiet, peaceful, and I've been able to focus on whatever I've decided I wanted to do.


One disappointment, and this is my own fault, is I haven't decided what I'm going to learn for the next year.


That's what I've been doing every year for the past few--I set myself some skill to learn, something difficult that will require some effort to master. Last year it was art, specifically sketching and painting. While I'll never be a professional artist I am far-and-away better at it than I was before I started. And I'm going to continue working on developing my skill, as long as I enjoy it.


I do this because I feel like it benefits me as a person. I strongly believe I can master pretty much any skill, as long as I devote time and effort towards it.


So, what's it going to be for 2015? I completely forgot to think about it, so I don't know yet. I've thought about learning another language. But which one? Spanish, maybe--lots of opportunities to use that. Mandarin or Cantonese? I think those are going to be useful languages to know in the coming years. French? Maybe. Or German, even.


Anyways, I'll ruminate on it a while and come up with something, I'm sure.


Have a happy post-holiday! What are your plans for the coming year?