Saint's Nights

Much to Think About

There’s a fun little challenge going on throughout the month of January called the Snowflake Challenge, meant to bring people in fannish spaces together and make some new friends! Though you don’t necessarily have to do anything fandom-related. I haven’t participated in this before (this is actually my first time hearing about it in general; I never really was all that big in LJ/DW sort of spaces), so I decided I’d do it this year! Strike while the iron’s hot, as they say.

Since it’s January 2nd, I’ll tell you that I skipped doing the first one, which was update your introductions and the like. Since I’m participating on the Fediverse, I found it redundant to do this for myself in specific, considering I had just made a new account two weeks prior to the beginning of the challenge. Nothing has changed!

The second prompt is as follows:

In your own space, set yourself some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

So, there’s goals to be made, and goals to keep in mind throughout the year.

Setting the Goalposts Close

Now, I’m really bad with self-set deadlines. I always think to myself, “there’s no consequences should I miss this deadline, since I set it myself, other than I’ll be, like, a little disappointed, so it’s not super pressure-inducing”. On the other hand, I loathe deadlines with actual consequences, not because I feel like I can meet them, but if I’m not having fun on a particular task or project, I feel like I’m being forced and my rebellious nature starts to cry out…

I’ve learned in recent years, however, that to maximize my efforts and reduce procrastination, I can do small goals or ones with lengthy time to complete them. Since these are all just for fun, I feel like they’ll be easy to complete—or, at the very least, easy to get one foot in the door. And what is more lengthy than a full year?

And… Go!

Without further ado, these are the goals I’ve set for myself. If I don’t complete them within the allotted time frame, I’ll set a secondary deadline as being “the end of 2024”.

There you have it. I usually don’t write out goals for New Year’s. They always seemed so cheesy for me… but there’s something to be said in seeing things written down and being concrete.

What are some of your goals? Make sure to let me know if you can~ Even if you don’t, I wish you the best of luck and all bits of support in doing so.

With love, Byleth

  1. So, this one has actually been a goal for a few months. I have had a game that I’ve been planning since probably around March of last year, maybe even earlier, that I’ve worked on and off on since then. However, the lack of solid progress has really gotten me down, so I’ve compromised by wanting to finish the first draft. Hopefully it gets done before July, but I’ve given myself strict rules to not worry about things like art, gameplay, etc and just focus on writing. At the very least, I’ve planned almost the entire thing out by now!↩

  2. I have had the idea for this in my head since 2018. The major points, including the end, have been planned out, so all that’s left is to write… I think it would work really well as a web novel, but maybe that’s because I recently finished Scum Villain Self-Saving System and felt inspired… I don’t necessarily want it to get in the way of the first goal, so I’ve set the “begin” date a little later.↩

  3. I’m already pretty fluent in Japanese, but that’s just not enough. My problem however is that I am struck with decision paralysis and can never choose what my third language should be, so I just… always… stop learning right after the basics. Sad!↩

  4. I’ve tried and tried to keep up with 30 Day Fan Challenges, especially with fanfics, but I’ve always just fallen off after a few days… Even if it’s a self-imposed one, I think it’ll be fun and satisfying to complete!↩

#SnowflakeChallenge2024 #general