Looking Back: Progress Overview 2017

Last year was the final year of my Bachelor of Asia Pacific Security Studies. I completed it with a Distinction average, two majors (in Asia-Pacific Security Studies and Middle East and Central Asia) and a minor (Chinese – Mandarin). When I started the year, I had already come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t go on to Honours due to the ANU requirement to sign over my IP for the Honours question (and all derivatives), or seek to do a PhD for the same reason. This was disappointing, but just the way things go. Without giving away my IP for a piece of paper that says I can do the research I know I’m capable of, I am now free to write and publish on the things that interest me, albeit without the approval or endorsement of academic gatekeepers, so I might think about that for further down the publishing track. 

Last year, was also the final year of planned study. Everything I started this degree to do was achieved, bar one thing—I could no longer use what I had learned to have a better understanding of the background against which I worked—mainly because I was no longer employed in that field, and, due the workplace bullying I experienced in that field, I will probably never be able to work in it, again. On the other hand, I am now better equipped to write thrillers, if I so desire, because I have a better understanding of international politics and conflicts, and their drivers.

The end of last year saw me begin to move towards writing full-time—although I’m not sure if I can make it work. I have given myself twelve months to do two things: a) see if writing and publishing full-time is something I want to do for the rest of my working life (or if I want to be a hybrid, having a job in a field that interests me, while writing about other things in my spare time); and b) see if I can turn it into a sustainable as a way of making a living for myself.

My writing goals for last year were simple: have one release every fortnight for the entire year.

I made that goal, and just a little bit more.

Here’s what I managed in the year just gone:

2017  Progress

• New words produced: 650,716
• Outlines and Notes: 39,651
• Works completed: 194 (2 YA novel, 2 YA chapter book, 2 novella, 76 flash fiction, 94 poems, 8 short story)
• Works edited: 33
• Covers created: 32
• Works published: 33 (29 for 2017, and 4 for January 2018)
• Works submitted: 0 (I think… not including assignments)
• Bloggery: 102,591
• Assessment and Study: 15,585 (that I remembered to record)