Der Feuervogel aufersteht.

I've got some ambitions for 2025. Not resolutions or goals, per se, but some things I would like to achieve.

First up, I want to get my own apartment. I think my roommate is getting tired of me, and tbh I'm tired of keeping half my kitchen stuff in my bedroom and trying to cook in a tiny kitchen. The biggest problem with that is that I don't make enough money to afford an apartment in Berlin, and the low-income housing is in extremely high demand. I've filled out the contact form for some two dozen apartments in the last month (basically everything where the warm rent is 1/3 my income) and received exactly zero (0) showings.

With the state-owned low-income housing, it's at least fairer than the general market, because they put everyone into the RNG and select the lucky $small_number who get to look at it by lottery, rather than "I stopped reading messages after the first 50."

To that end, my second ambition is to earn more money. I'm legally allowed to have actual employment now, but for complicated insurance reasons, I can only earn up to (for 2025) 590 € a month from non-artistic sources. So if I get anything non-freelance that isn't related to writing or publishing, like stocking shelves or whatever, it has to fall under that minijob limit. I've applied to half a dozen places and had one interview, after which I was turned down. Possibly because I didn't do the correct procedure for a German job interview (where you're apparently supposed to give a speech about yourself? wtf?). I looked it up and made notes about what I wanted to say, then ... blanked out. Like I always do when people ask me about myself.

(Apparently people with aphantasia often also have "severely deficient autobiographic memory," or SDAM, so I wonder if it's related.)

I still have 5 applications outstanding, so we'll see if any of them turn out.

I have a short-term gig copy editing a board game (which is funding my trip to Norway), and there's a possibility I'll be translating a German novel into English, maybe this year, maybe next. That has the potential to be very lucrative (at 10 € a page, which is less than the going rate by far, 330 pages is a fair chunk of money!), but it's uncertain.

Plus the money would be coming from a US publisher, so it doesn't solve the problem of "You need to earn money from German sources, or you don't need to live in Germany." But with that, I could at least work the angle of "It's much easier to read books published in German and meet German authors if I live in Germany."

My Kickstarter book is nearly done. I have the PDF ready to go except for the cover, which is mostly ready. (The designer was travelling for the holidays.) Once that's done, I'll upload it to Lulu and order my proofs. Then I'll send the PDF to backers while I sort out the epub formatting, then that'll go out, too. Then after the proofs are completed and corrected, as needed, I'll set up the drop ship order so the fucking thing will finally be fulfilled. God.

Then after that, I'll upload the book to all the usual sites (Az, kobo, maybe Thalia if I can figure that out) and have it up for sale. Then I have to do (ugh) marketing for it. At some point, I would like to make a site or a shared Zotero folder with all the references and other sources.

I'd also like to offer classes about linguistic worldbuilding (but, once again, the "don't need to be in Germany to do that" problem exists).

My third ambition this year is to rewrite the space diner book. It's going to be more substantial than a revision, because I had better ideas since it was beta read last summer. I'll be able to use chunks of the story, and maybe even some of the original text, at least.

I'm undecided whether I'll self-pub that or embark on the trad pub journey. I might send it to some digital-first imprints that respond quickly and decide after that. I just don't know whether I want to deal with Kickstarter nonsense again, but also the agent hunt is demoralizing as fuck. (Though idk, "Legends and Lattes in space" is a pretty strong hook?)

Either way, I want to start getting money from books sooner than later.

My fourth ambition is to clean up my fucking computer. I have so many duplicate photos, and they're all unorganized. I've basically backup-dumped my phone onto my computer multiple times ... and my phone had pics on it from previous phones, so it's all a huge mess. I have a photo manager app (it was free, and it's really clunky, but it works well enough), and I already spent half a day sorting things, but I'll need at least several more full days to deal with it. (Also my GPhotos, GDrive, and gmail...)

A smaller ambition, which is actually a goal, is to finish crocheting a baby blanket for my friend whose baby is due next month.

OK, it's about time for me to take a shower so I can get my paid work in for the day.

I set 5 goals for myself for this year. I achieved ... one, and a few partials.

Goal #1, to earn the red sash, was accomplished just before the end of Earth Rat. Since then, I've been a slacker in practicing Chen open hand, but I've learned three weapons

Goal #2, to work out & get in shape, was hit and miss; I had a decent routine going there, then holiday travel fucked it to hell.

Goal #3, to write 4 short stories & submit them for publication, didn't work out so well, though I submitted one piece 4 or 5 times, until it was bought.

Goal #4, to get NBR queryable, I punted in March. I might someday return to it, but I doubt it. In its place, I've been working on this space mercenaries thing since April. It's in its second version, vastly different from the first, and (I think) much better for it. Y'all have been subjected to my progress reports on that.

Goal #5, to stop feeling like a poseur when I call myself an SF writer, well, maybe. I sold a story, which helps, but I haven't finished this damned novel. I'm reading agent blogs & writer blogs & doing my best to learn both about the craft and the business. So, partial success.