val's january newsletter - a brief 2024 overview and look ahead at 2025

It’s been quite a year! I did many, many things in 2024. A quick bullet point of the major highlights:

• Returned to college, took 5 classes—which was a mistake but at least I’m never doing that again AND got all As!

• Wrote two drafts of a novel, 175k words total, and am nearing beta reader stage!

• Went to my first big convention (PAX Unplugged)

• Worked on my perfectionism and self-deprecation struggles (therapy is so great)

• Performed in AT LEAST 10+ TTRPG Actual Plays (that I have to find and organize into an easy little reel for folks to find, oops)

• Wrote at least 6-8 new short stories! Holy heck!

• My short story “Emotional Resonance” was published in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024—the first story ever from Escape Pod to make it into that anthology, which is such an epic and huge deal

• Ended the year with an acceptance from Lightspeed (story is expected to be published second half of 2025)

That’s a lot of things. Like a lot a lot. Listing it out makes me realize just how much I did do in 2024. It can be easy to let mean brain goalpost past achievements so quickly, but 2024 was a great year for me. And, on a health level, I didn’t get sick once! No sinusitis woes, which is a major issue for me with chronic illness and allergy issues; I get colds and things very fast and they tend to linger enough to need antibiotics. It was nice not to have to do that particular dance number at all for a whole year.

Short Story Submissions, By the Numbers

 Sometimes, despite having dyscalculia and struggling with math, numbers are nice and important and help impart scope of everything accomplished! So here are my short story stats for 2024!

•  Submissions: 52

• Rejections: 46

• Pending: 4

• Acceptances: 2

• Publications: 3 (2 original, 1 reprint)

2024 Short Story Publications

“Sending Signals” - Translunar Travelers Lounge (February 2024, Issue 10)

“Emotional Resonance” - The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 (reprint, October 2024)

“On Lunar Magic and Gryphons: Sofia’s Edition” - Flame Tree’s Moon Falling anthology (November 2024)

Novel Progress

I wrote two novel drafts this year! After 3 years of worldbuilding, uncertainty, and learning how to write a novel properly, I finally figured out what works for me and took off. Hoping to have the third draft—largely editing and revisions rather than pure drafting—finished by end of February and then off to beta readers for March and April. Ideally, I want to begin querying agents in May-July. We’ll see what the spring college semester has in store, though.

No Lists This Year

I read 65 books, played many video games, and read what feels like countless short stories in 2024. Unfortunately, I’m feeling a bit burnt out and unable to recall everything, given the whole “took 5 classes and fried my braincells trying to do that and write a novel and short stories all year” thing. I also don’t want to forget anyone, and the anxiety of that has made end-of-year lists a bit of an unstoppable force (the desire to list things) meets immovable object (my anxiety about forgetting something).

Next year, though, I’m going to be so good at lists!

Short Stories I Read in December 2024 That Gave Me Emotions

¡Sangronas! Un Lista de Terror by M. M. Olivas (Uncanny Issue 60)

Gay vampire Latina angst, not sure what else there is to say about this one. I loved the formatting, I love how it didn’t pull any punches. I felt very seen and also sad and enamored and just mesmerized by the details and the inevitable end.

The Last Flesh Figure Skaters by Claire Jia-Wen (khōréō Issue 4.3)

It’s so sapphic, it’s so scathing about art and tech and profit and what even is art and just ugh, ugh, ugh it’s one of my favorite short stories of the year. Go read it, especially if you like good ol’ sapphic yearning, figure skating, and commentary on tech/capitalism in general and its lack of comprehending art’s true value.

Music I Listened To

This is just a space for Arcane season 2’s soundtrack to exist because I can’t stop listening to it and making myself cry.

But also if you’re interested, have my synthwave writing playlist as well as my K-pop writing playlist. These two playlists were the majority of my listening time in the year. I’m curious what it’ll be for 2025, since I will be (ideally) done with my space opera novel for a while (it’s a trilogy, so I’d love to get a book deal for it and have to finish said trilogy). I tend to need a specific playlist or vibe to write, and it’s amusing to see how that impacts things like Spotify Wrapped.

Looking Ahead to 2025

I made a rambling thread of goals on Bluesky about what all I want to do this year. My resolutions are less hard goals and more a combination of things I can control and actually work on, hopes and dreams, and wellness because I am far too hard on myself and am still learning to navigate my chronically ill/pained/fatigued existence (while having to exist under capitalism and pay ever-increasing rent…).

Very Broad 2025 Goals

• Finish novel, begin querying agents—this is The Big Goal of 2025.

• Draft at least one of the novellas humming around in my brain like loud, distracting wind chimes.

• Organize my short stories, revise older ones, and try not to put so much pressure on myself about the short story submission process (because wow is it agonizing)

• Improve my Spanish.

• Play guitar more and not pressure myself to make it content or be perfect at it; I can play the same four chords over and over if it brings me joy.

• Survive college by putting even less effort into college. The degree is for a stable dayjob, but writing is my true career; I don’t have to get perfect grades, Bs and Cs are fine if it frees up time to rest and focus on things that really matter.

• Make one interactive fiction (I have several ideas already).

• Make one solo or GMless TTRPG (I also have several ideas already).

• Perform in more TTRPG Actual Plays because they’re really fun and TTRPGs have been a joy to get into as a hobby and another side hustle.

• Enjoy community and reach out to people more instead of avoiding things because social anxiety. Community and helping local queer orgs are my big priorities going into 2025 given the political state of things here in the U.S.

• [Redacted secret writerly project, you’ll get to learn more about it later in the year]

• Don’t pressure myself to achieve everything in one year! ADHD brain please!

But most importantly: if I do none of these things and only get through the year relatively intact, that’s a win. This year and the years ahead are going to be tough, there’s no way around that fact. I’m trying to defiantly hold onto my joy, my major life wins, and be unashamedly here and queer even when bigots don’t want me to exist. That’s the best I can do, and will always do.

Ways To Keep Up With Me In the New Year

This Newsletter!

I will continue to put out my newsletter on the first week of every month. It will have a good roundup of all the things I’ve posted and where, so you don’t have to pay attention to every little thing.

Patreon (or Ko-fi)

I am offering microfiction once a week now on Patreon, and exclusive behind the scenes extras like drafting process, snippets of novel or short stories, and more to $1 patrons on Patreon or $1 and up members on Ko-fi. I use both just in case folks prefer one over the other.

Twitch Streams

I still stream on Twitch sometimes! With college, consistency has been an issue, but when I do stream it’s typically Wednesdays and Fridays @ 2:30pm Eastern these days. That might change depending on spring semester scheduling, so follow on Twitch for notifications if that is of interest. I co-work and chat as well as play indie games—and in 2025 I want to add indie TTRPGs to the lineup as well and do some solo or GMless games with chat.

Social Media (Bluesky, mostly, but I’m trying to get better at Instagram)

For someone going into marketing, I am awful at social media for myself. I get scared I’m nagging or over-sharing or spamming about my own work or being too arrogant—pick an anxiety and I am likely having it about being online! I am trying to improve at that in 2025. You can find me primarily on Bluesky and Instagram (more lately), and find a list of all my socials and links on my website.

Speaking of which…

Website Blog

I plan on blogging more this year directly on my website blog! Posts about narrative thoughts in games, shows, and more will go there as well as thoughts on TTRPGs I played and how they worked. Mini-reviews or initial play looks, basically. For a while I wanted to get more nonfiction essays published, but ultimately I am too informal (and unedited, oops) in essay tone and low energy to juggle all the things—I already juggle too much, so onto the blog these go

And that’s it for 2024. It was a solid year for me. I can’t hope 2025 will be better, given the state of the world, but I do hope it’s not as bad as I fear. I hope that for everyone.

What are your goals for 2025? The goal can be rest—and not having any goals or resolutions is also totally okay! Will I revisit this at the end of the year and question why I had such a long list of resolutions? Probably!