2018 WRAPPED
by
R.F. Gammon
- December 31, 2018
Can y'all believe that 2018 is already over? Goodness knows I can't. It's been a wild ride of a year, and while it's been fast, I'm still ready for another year. A LOOOOOT happened this year, and so in this post I'll be wrapping all that up. Next week, once I've got my list of resolutions and goals for 2019 written down, I'll be sharing them, so stay tuned for that post!
For right now, though, let's do
2018: A Wrapup
Music
Here are my top Spotify stats of 2018, according to their Wrapped feature:
According to them, I listened to 109 hours' worth of Fall Out Boy, which both astonishes me and doesn't surprise me in the least. I mean...quality music, y'all. I regret nothing.
In case you're even more curious (because this is the sort of thing I really love to see), here's my Top 100 Songs of 2018 playlist, generously made for me by Spotify:
My favorite NEW artists from this year, some that I'd never really listened to before the grandeur that was 2018, are (in no particular order):
-Zayde Wolf
-Zayde Wolf
-Sam Tinnesz
-Lorde
-Bastille
-Coldplay
-Owl City (shoutout to Lila Kims for screaming about him until I finally listened XD)
-Scott Mulvahill
In short, it was an amazing music year and here's to even more music and new artists in 2019!
Books
Here's some stats from Goodreads regarding my reading habits:
-I have read 121 books this year.
-Some of those books were textbooks or from English class.
-A lot of them were ebooks and ARCs!
-My average rating was 3.9 stars.
-I have read 43,757 pages (What the heck)
-My most common rating was four stars (What can I say, I'm good at deciding whether or not I'm going to like a book)
And I actually made a brief little vlog to talk about my favorite books of the year! It's pretty short (around five or six minutes, I think?) and I'm linking to it below ;)
Writing
Here it is: my most favorite thing about this year, the thing I can't wait to talk about.
I've always been a writer, always working on stories and weaving little worlds with characters I hope seem real. But I think that 2018 is the year I became an author.
The story of my heart, that I've been working on in one form or another, the one I'm constantly screaming about, the one that I love more than any other, finally fell into place this year. I wrote a story that I'm in love with. I don't mean the storybook kind of love, either-- this is a real marriage, guys. There's good days and bad days. There's days when I want to quit, when I want to throw in the towel, where I get sick of this story. And yet I will not give up on it. I love it.
The Pentegreen series is the saga I have fallen in love with, and it finally exists on my computer, the first two books in fully drafted and partially edited glory, the third book in progress. The fourth one still only exists in my mind, but it's getting closer. And oh, I am in love with it.
That's not the only story that claims my heart, however. I've been assaulted with plot bunnies on all sides for stories this year, and that's made me a very happy little writer indeed. There have been days when I've worried that once the Pentegreens are over, so will be my writing career. But there are other storie now, too. Stories about the Mafia meeting dragons. Alternate histories about World War II and what might have happened had Germany won the war. Dystopian stories set here in America. And one about which I will not be sharing details, as it's still very new, but it's huge and epic and I already love it.
But enough of all that. Let's not get ahead of ourselves and talk about stories to come, but stick with stories that have been written.
This year I wrote:
-First draft of The King's Daughter which came to 120,433 words
-Second draft of The King's Daughter which came to 123, 741 words
-Got said second draft alpha read (!!) by some absolutely AMAZING frens who gave me the best advice and are helping make the in-progress third draft fantastic
-Third draft of The King's Daughter is currently sitting at 46,196 words (I'm hoping to hit 50k by the end of December)
-First draft of The General's Children (Pentegreens book 2) which came to 130,481 words
-Second draft of The General's Children is currently sitting at 17,630 words (I need to write more but I'm too much of a wimp to write the next few scene because it involves badly hurting one of my sweet babies and I hate doing that to him)
-First draft of The Winter's Chill (Pentegreens book 3) is currently sitting at 73,946 words (again, I need to work more on this one, but it's just such a tough story for some reason)
-My NaNoWriMo project this year was Watched, the first in a different trilogy, and it's currently sitting at 50,015 words (eventually I'm going back to it, but for right now it'll probably be a while before that happens)
-I started another story that I will definitely be going back to once I have a bit more of a plan for what I'm doing, a Robin Hood/the Six Swans retellling called Hood's Arrow, currently sitting at 15,169 words
-I edited another draft of my Rooglewood contest submission from last year, Ink Storm (now entitled Sweat and Gold), at 14,249 words. (I'll have some news regarding this little story in next week's post! Stay tuned. ;))
Because I want to have it on record, I added this all up to see how many words I wrote in all this year (this doesn't count all the random little scenes I wrote in seperate documents, the scribbles on sheets of paper, or any of my blog posts or magazine articles for my school, which probably add up to another 20-30k easily).
I wrote 591, 860 words of fiction this year.
This has got to be a personal record for me. I've never accomplished ANYTHING like this, and just looking at these numbers makes me giddy.
And I want you all to remember: WRITING A FEW WORDS IS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT. Every word you write is a word the world has not seen before. Last year I poured all my energy into a little novella, which I had hopes would be my first forray into the publishing world, and yet I didn't win the contest. I've been writing and writing at this series of mine for YEARS now with no progress. Sometimes it all seems pointless.
But then it breaks through like this and you discover that you have characters you absolutely love, stories you can't imagine life without, and a world that makes you wonder how other people survive without their own little fantasy lands in their heads.
Also, I had a looooooot of free time the first half of this year. Most of these words came from the period between January and June. Having a job + junior year of high school didn't leave much time for wordsmithing.
Since y'all are my friends, I thought maybe I'd give you all a chance to read some snippets from this year's work. *hides under a blanket*
Snippets
Opening the door to her bedroom, Esma slipped in and darted into the adjoining dressing room. Shadows danced in the corners of the room, and she shivered and struck a match, lighting the candle that stood atop her immaculate dressing table. An orange glow danced around her. She’d never been afraid of the dark in the past; she supposed that she still wasn’t.
It was only that now she had an idea of what evil might lurk in the shadows, and she had no desire to be caught off guard by it ever again.
~The General's Children
The door to the kitchen flew open. The waitress, her bun flapping behind her head like it needed a few more pins, strode towards him. Will slid backward on the stool. Her hand went up and she pointed to him.
He cringed, preparing for her to yell at him to get out. The roaring in his ears was too loud. Time to get out of here.
He was just preparing to jump up off the bench when what she was actually saying filtered into his ears.
“Good morning, sir! And what can I get you today?”
~Hood's Arrow
“Why did you tie me to a tree?” Derek asked, in as calm a voice as he could manage. A girl this beautiful, this distinctive, this powerful, should not be fighting for Dauthang. He tried not to think of all the good that she could do for their side. He’d have to convince her as she was. She wasn’t going to listen to him if all she saw was someone determined to sway her to their side. No, what she needed was kindness and love and determination.
As long as she didn’t murder him before he could pull it off, he’d be fine.
“You tried to kill me!” she screamed. Now the tears glistened in the corners of her eyes, and she spun away from him quickly. Not quickly enough to hide the shaking in her shoulders or the slump to her stature, usually so straight.
“And then I saved you,” he said, still trying to keep up that calm voice. “I saved your life. I wouldn’t actually have killed you.”
“Really?” She whirled back to him, raised her right palm, and brandished the bandage that she’d tied across it. It was a messy job, and the healer within him cringed at the sight. “Are you sure, Captain?”
“Commander.”
“Whatever. You tried to kill me.”
~The Winter's Chill
As soon as we hear the door upstairs close, Jeannie shoots out of the kitchen, a cookie in either hand. “There’s more where these came from,” she says, holding them high above her head, “and also you know now why I’m fat. Anyways. Let’s talk politics.”
“Must we?” grumbles Bryce.
“Yes,” Jeannie says, shooting him an irritated look. “We need to make sure Lucas understands what’s going on in this new city of his. You came from the Northwest, correct?” He nods and she goes on, “He just needs to understand. The situation out there is just slightly different from here.”
I snort. “You’re telling me.”
“Sit down, Mel. Stop standing there awkwardly and embrace the fact that you and Lucas are friends now. There’s lots of space on the couch.” Jeannie points me to a spot on the couch. I ease myself down on the very corner of it, as far from Lucas as I can sit without making it look like I’m avoiding him. “And I will sit…” She looks around, sees that our mediocre seating options are all taken, and plops herself down on the floor. “I will sit right here! Now then.”
~Watched
Revitalized by this moment of silence and the chance to breathe, Briallen brought her pen down on the page.
She was never sure how it happened. Was a part of her ripped off from herself and sucked into the journal, or was the story somehow lifted out of the journal into her bedroom? Either way, she went spinning into the void, clouds and trees whirling past like she rode one of the rarest breeds of Spinning Dragons, with no indication as to whether she or they were stationary.
Her feet hit the ground.
~Sweat and Gold
Esma turned away and put her hand on her knife to steady herself. Even that simple action recalled the truth of what she was witnessing, and she struggled for breath. They were at war. This city— it was at war. The war had not left a single citizen of her city untouched, and the heat that warmed her core blazed furious to see it.
In that moment, Esma Pentegreen swore an oath:
She would not rest until she saw Dauthang’s attempts to bring her city down destroyed, and peace restored to her people.
~The King's Daughter
Movies
Best new movie of the year award goes to:
| via Rotten Tomatoes |
Best movie theater experience:
| via Rotten Tomatoes |
Most tear-jerking movie of the year:
| via Rotten Tomatoes |
Movie I'm most eager to see make the Oscars:
| via Rotten Tomatoes |
Best historical/drama/movie I will watch on repeat for the rest of my life:
| via Rotten Tomatoes |
Still my favorite movie of all time:
One thing that seems to happen a lot right now is that people are starting to look for that one word that summed up their year, a word to say everything that happened briefly. With a little reflection, I've found mine.
The word to sum up my 2018 is:
growth.
This year I did things I never thought possible, like raising money to go to Washington, D.C., and attend the March for Life, which is still one of my favorite memories of the year. I got my first-ever job, and was able to be a light in my workplace. I pushed through the struggles of, more than ever before, leaving my childhood behind for the sake of becoming an adult.
It's been a tough year in that regard. I haven't enjoyed giving up my Saturday mornings to go to work. I haven't liked the lack of sleep, the huge plate of things to do, or the fact that I get less and less time to myself. But I think it's been worth it.
My piano abilities have grown. My life is fuller, richer, and more full of meaning. I think I've been growing closer to God, and I definitely know what my priorities are now. This has been a year of experimenting, of trying different things and shifting my schedule and having a non-existent schedule. But that's okay. I've been learning. I've been growing. I've been preparing.
And I am ready for what 2019 has for me, and what God will teach me within that year.
(also I discovered I like coffee this year. Apologies to Catherine, Ivie, and the rest of the #CoffeeFree squad. XD)
In Conclusion
It's been quite a year. Not the hardest, not the easiest. Just another year.
But I'm so grateful that God allowed us to have it.
To 2019, friends. *raises glass of ginger ale*
How was your 2018, friends? I know you're all putting up your own posts, and I'll be doing my best to comment on as many of them as I can. But I'd love it if you'd talk to me about your year!
