2025
From 2019 - 2023 I did the Unravel Your Year journaling-project-thing, after Lucy Bellwood introduced me to it. It's a chonky workbook that gives you prompts to reflect on the year that is concluding, imagine what you'd like the coming year to contain, and keep track of what actually does happen each month of the new year. It's a equal parts thoughtful and practical with a pinch of ridiculous woo-woo thrown in for flavor.
Even before using this workbook, I'm a bit of a compulsive documentarian- the last 20+ years' worth of autobio comics I've posted online are only the most visible evidence of this compulsion. Not shared online are the pages of my sketchbooks and calendars that are filled with my notes about... everything. Every stupid* little thing in my life and my brain.
*("Stupid" used affectionately, to include the frivolous and the mundanely profound. And also the Genuinely Stupid, too.)
When the email arrived announcing where to download the 2024 edition of Unravel Your Year, I clicked the link and then... decided No.
Not this year.
Nothing bad had happened or was expected to happen. There was no Reason™ not to keep up my annual tradition, which I really do value.
I'm just gonna let this year wash over me, I thought. I'm gunna be a little bit of detritus floating on the ocean surface, rolling with the waves, just keeping my head above water while life happens and I'm not trying to make some overarching narrative out of it. Just let it happen.
So I did!
It was fine! It was another year. It was fine.
Now, here I am, just a couple days till 2025, and I'm thinking... Yes. Let's do it again. Let's print out that workbook again and recap the last 12 months and brainstorm my word of the year ("FULL") and write a letter from my future self and record all the ridiculous bullshit* that's going to happen on the formatted pages that are designated for each month. *(Again, "bullshit" said with nothing but affection)
Let's Unravel 2025.
Here is what I'm hoping for in the new year:
GOAL: Finish my pitch package for Space Camp by January 10th so my agent can send it to potential publishers. DREAM: A publisher buys it by the end of the year.
GOAL: Ride my bike in to the studio 3-4 days a week.
GOAL: Have a more-or-less workable first draft of my Magical Princess Bullies story (AKA: My Lady Lovely Locks fanfiction/secret memoir about the complexity of female friendship/bullying) by the end of the year.
DREAM: Collect my short comics into a paper zine????
GOAL: Get a therapist again (It's been like four years???).
GOAL: Scheduled dates and vacations that Matt and I have to go on, we have to actually take days off from work and go somewhere new-ish at least three times over the year. Can just be day trips, but overnights are ideal. DREAM: We go on a monthly date and get out of the city six times over the year.
GOAL: Revamp my home studio, or at the least refresh the art wall.
And a couple miscellaneous things I'd love to cross off the To Do List: Paint the baseboards, hang up the bathroom towel rods, add actual curtains to the stair windows, finish that fucking Coraline embroidery, make that Helioscope key homage piece, organize some part of the basement, finish the 2020 quilt, tailor my Jurassic Park t-shirt that my brother-in-law's best friend gave to me like three years ago, oh! And finish my stays!
So, wadabout you guys?
Got any hopes and dreams for 2025?
Comments (14)
Surviving sounds good.😬🤞🩷
Your post actually made me think about what happened in my life in 2024. My daughter got married to her long time fiancee, then we went to Japan two weeks later to celebrate with that side of the family, then finally took the plunge into the dating world, got lucky and dated a wonderful woman for four months before she realized I wasn't the one for her (in a good way), then started therapy that I should have started years ago, and ended the year with friends and family at our annual new years get together. Oh, I also signed up for (and took) art classes and actually painted a bust that I'm very happy with. oh oh, I also rode my bike for children's cancer research again after a break of only doing it on a stationary bike for the last few years. I met my milage goals, but not my dollar amount goal (which is fine, every penny helps). Holy cats that's a lot now that I look back on it. For 2025, I'm hoping to finally wrap up my mom's estate after lots of back and forth with probate court for the last two years, take more art classes, ride my bike more, start seeing a new therapist (the first one is fine, but I want to start talking to one about a specific area in my life), go on more dates if I'm lucky, ride my bike for childrens cancer again, paint more, and for the one house project, I'd like to replace the wood that goes around my deck.
I actually have some reflecting to do as what I thought was solid for work has transformed into not a great situation. This has shifted the goals and plans and I'm not super happy with it. I do have another work opportunity that I'm excited about, but it will come with a bunch of logistical juggling and a signature before it happens. This leaves me in a bit of a limbo feeling where I can't let myself get too excited but also I can't not prepare in case it happens. It's a lot of "ifs" and "buts" right now. So... I need to sit down and spread out some index cards or postits and a journal and try to make some order.
If you ever want a sounding board (who most likely offer any actual helpful advice), I'm happy to listen!
Do the monthly date thing AND a bi-monthly trip! Happy new year!
That is the dreeeeeammmmmm. Matt's been working seven days a week for the last four years :-/
Theme for 2025 for me will be "Creativity". I want to really delve into the arts, mostly drawing and animations, with a little script writing on the side. Maybe even a little bit of voice acting if I feel really ambitious. Or creating music. Not sure yet, a year is a long time! The context that brings these all together is creating indie games :) (Other people will do the coding, I do enough of that as a day job.)
Oo! That all sounds really fun! Someday I'd also love to learn how to animate.
I love these kinds of lists and things, even if the exercise portion always gets derailed 🤣 I'd like to try for one more original fiction getting published, even as I continue to play in the fanfic sandbox 🤣 Happy new year! ❤️
Got your eyes on any publishers?
I started doing this workbook in 2024 because of a past post of yours! My word in '24 was "Achieve" because I wanted to focus on concrete goals (which I did!) But going forward into 2025 I'm upgrading to "Accomplish", because while the goals I met were good, it was a handful of little wins across a bunch of projects. In 2025, it is time to see those projects through. Some personal, some crafts/arts, but most of all: getting myself to finish this dang novel instead of starting three new ones LOL Also your top image made me laugh, it is a big mood.
"I started doing this workbook in 2024 because of a past post of yours! " Haha, oh cool!! It's infectious- you see one person doing it and next thing you know, you're sucked in. Good luck with your goals! And "Accomplish" is a delicious word to aspire towards.
I am just so impressed with all of this, the planning, the goals (want to read the books you’re working on!), and how well thought out this is! My only goals so far are just “don’t buy ritz crackers” for each month. Gotta put some more effort in here, thanks for the inspiration!
I BELIEVE IN YOU. RESIST THE RITZ. (Unless you deserve a treat, in which case: INDULGE IN THE RITZ)