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Goals for 2020!

5 years ago1,614 words

It's the twentieth twenty now, so here's a post about what I hope to achieve and change about myself by the end of it!

I didn't bother with a post like this for 2019, but I've been thinking for months about all kinds of things I need to do or change, and this seems like a good opportunity to BE A NEW ME and all that. So I've been looking forward to this new year, and to writing this post with all these proposed changes, for a while.

Too bad I'm already off to quite a poor start! I've been going to sleep at some silly early time like 9-10pm for a while, and waking up at 4-6am, getting work in before many people even wake up... I intended to wake up bright and early today so I could wander around the streets listening to a TOTALLY INSPIRING audiobook while everyone else was sleeping off their drug juice next to their loved ones. I've not left the house in ages, not because of any anxiety reasons, but because I have nowhere to go so it's much easier to just not bother. But I remember long walks with audiobooks did me a lot of good when I was working on Taming Dreams, and I've been meaning to get back into it for ages. Something always comes up though... I stayed up past midnight last night since it's not like the year change happens every night, and was so exhausted when I woke up at 6 that I just fell asleep again until 10am...

I'm sure this is so fascinating to read! It's annoying though, and I've been in a tired, bleh mood all morning because of it. Disappointing, after quite a while hoping to greet the new year with enthusiasm and excitement...

I suppose today's a Special Day though due to the unusual circumstances, so I'll let myself off. I'll plan the changes, then actually start on them tomorrow.

What I have in mind are more like specific goals rather than vague resolutions like "lose weight!" or "be a nicer person!", and they chain together, with the lesser ones hopefully eventually leading to the major ones.

Make Money

My biggest goal for the year is to earn a significant amount of money. I've been told that I need a minimum of £1000 a month to eke out a meagre existence in this out-of-the-way part of the UK. The pathetic amount I earned in 2019 would add to up to somewhere around £1650, which wouldn't allow me to survive for even a couple of months.

So my aim and hope for 2020 is to earn at least £12000 from my creative work. That's still a paltry amount of money - if you're reading this and you have a job, you very likely earn more than that unless you're in a country with a much lower cost of living - but I'm not aiming too high so then there's a chance I might actually achieve it. I mean, it'd be wonderful if I could earn millions!! from some runaway success, but aiming for the moon like that is more a long-term goal.

I'd also like to find a place of my own, but that all depends on how much money I'm able to earn this year.

I feel like I've had this on my resolutions for a few years, and have always failed to achieve it. This time feels different, though, since I've already got a Steam release behind me, so I just need to do the same again, but better. It's always going to be a challenge though, since it's not like I'm being paid a salary by an employer. All the money I make is what I'm able to generate myself. It's an unusual path, and not a secure or comfortable one.

I also feel like I lacked a clear direction for many years - bouncing between creative projects, going to university, assuming death from suicide or brain cancer (trite, I know) - but have a better idea now about what to do.

Finish and release at least one new game

This should be achievable. It's going to be the MARDEK Reimagining, tentatively called Divine Dreams for now. The first chapter shouldn't take too long once I actually get started; having it out within the year seems entirely realistic. There's still a lot to do, but I'll write a post specifically about that soon.

I'm intending to write posts revealing the character silhouettes, but I want to lay some groundwork before doing that so then I can have that build hype up to the Kickstarter. On that note...

Run my first Kickstarter

If I can get some money to start with, then the games development process would be a whole different experience. Would you be able to work on something for months in the hope it might eventually earn a few thousand dollars? It's quite insane, and it's why it's so hard to stick with things. But I'll need to research this thoroughly, and it's all about promotion, social stuff...

Networking

I learned from releasing Sindrel Song that success won't just come to me with no effort on my part. I need to get myself out there, find new connections, and new ways to find those connections. This is a vague goal at the moment, but it's going to be something I'll work on over the course of the year. The hope is that knowing I have to do a Kickstarter sooner rather than later might motivate me to really seriously dive into it sometime in the coming days.

I've been looking at Reddit regularly throughout 2019, but I never post, and I actually avoid indie games communities due to insecurity reasons I've talked about before. Just creating a Reddit account and viewing the work of other developers, supporting them and getting in touch with them, is one thing I can do for a start. I've also avoided following other people on things like Twitter, so that's something I'm going to gradually try to change, rather than keeping in my shell and hoping people come to me. Perhaps I should familiarise myself with some youtubers too.

It's sad that I have to think about it like this rather than just doing it naturally for fun like most people would, and like I used to on, say, deviantART, but, well, mental illness!

See a therapist

The mental illness has denied me so many opportunities and trapped me in a cage socially. I've seen therapists before, and they helped me deal with my anxiety enough to go to university eventually, so I do understand their value, but for a while I've been thinking they'd be useless since they wouldn't exactly be able to provide the social intimacy (friends and a partner) I felt I needed for life to be worth living. I've now had sufficient experiences with both of those to transform the painful longing into... something else, so I'm no longer seeking that. I have more specific goals, though, which I'd be able to discuss with them. "I'm avoiding this website! So sit there while I look at it in front of you because that's easier for some reason!" I am insane, you see.

It could take months to get a therapist though. I'll have to look into it sooner rather than later.

Play more indie games

I currently avoid them because of reasons I've talked about a few times before: as a currently unsuccessful developer, I compare my efforts to them and feel bad if what I'm making is different - "people like THIS, not what I'm making, why bother" - or if they're similar to what I'm making then that just makes me feel bad too - "if people like this, why don't they like mine??" - so there's a lot of (insane) motivation to avoid them entirely so then I don't get discouraged.

What I should be doing though is using them for inspiration, as I did with all the many games I played before I started making my own. I just need to shift my mindset. I'll probably start with Undertale, sometime this month, though I wish I found that thought exciting rather than terrifying!

Don't die of brain cancer

I'll try!!



I could come up with a bunch more, but I think the more goals you set yourself, the less likely you are to achieve them all. These all tie together, and my hope is that I'll be able to build each success on the previous ones. Playing indie games and joining indie games communities should allow me to network and improve my own work, that networking should hopefully help with a Kickstarter, and that should hopefully allow me to get the ball rolling on Divine Dreams (or whatever I call it).

I'm also planning to re-release some of my old games like MARDEK, though there are no real barriers there; the only reason I haven't yet is because I've been deliberately delaying. So that should happen without setting it as a challenging goal!! for myself.

It'd be nice to be in a comfortable position where I wasn't still trying to find out what I'm even doing in the world, but all I can really do is think of how best to climb out of this pit I'm in. Hopefully it'll go well.

How about you? Do you have any exciting plans for 2020??

(I notice that the last resolutions post I made, at the start of 2018, was brief and tagged with "Suicide". So that's lovely. I can at least say mentally I've come some way since then, even if I'm still a long way away from normalcy.)