December Update: Welp

Hey team.

Protagony...

Yeah, didn't get it done. I brought all my stuff, and I got some good work done while traveling, but didn't get it over the finish line. One last bit of overpromising for 2022.

I only released a single video this past year. That's not my favorite thing to admit. I'm proud of the video I released, I'm happy to finally have a space to work and the medication that makes it possible again. I wish we had seen more fruit from that tree before the year's end.

Year In Review

I don't think anyone will benefit from a lot of apologies and self-flagellation right now. I am very disappointed and I'm sure many of you are as well. I understand I will probably lose more pledges over this, and I regret that. No judgments.

But, in the spirit of the new year and my upcoming birthday, I'm going to take stock of what we did accomplish. Despite releasing only the single video, I wrote over 35,000 words this year, which is about halfway to an Adult Contemporary Novel in length. Heck, that's most of a NaNoWriMo! And the video I did release was a pretty big success, and showed a lot of growth in my editing and animating chops.

But most of the accomplishments of the past year were internal. I had a lot of work to do on my mental and physical health. I have made it a full year without a relapse of sciatica (my spine doctor gave me 50/50 odds on that), gotten a new diagnosis and appropriate treatment, and finagled a whole lot of new ways of managing my mental health. For privacy's sake, I won't share the number of personal upheavals I went through this year, but they were substantive, and there is a lot more ahead, but I ended the year in a better place than I started it.

2023

My goals for 2023 are more open-ended than in previous years. The benchmark I'm aiming for is to release videos on a quarterly basis. I feel as though I can do much more than that, but the last few years have been so fucking ridiculous that I can't make predictions. I released three videos in 2021 and one in 2022, so four is my benchmark for 2023; I hope to go above it.

And I want to explore other things worth sharing on this platform. I have wanted to write fiction for some time. I have like eight ideas banging around in my head, so, rather than say "this is the project I will focus on," I'm just intending to write something narrative. Could be short stories, microfiction, a screenplay, a fanfic, whatever. But I'll share that here.

Similarly, I want to revisit the idea of exclusive content. We scrapped the monthly update videos because it seemed like they got the same engagement as a written update and took a lot more work. But what are ways of exploring more content in less work-intensive ways? I promised a podcast ages ago, and had this whole high-concept interview show in mind, and wanted to do it with the amount of dedication I give the channel, but was still giving that dedication to the channel and couldn't manage both. And for years I banged my head against the wall like I was trying to jam hours into the day with the impact of my skull. So now I'm asking: what conversations would I like to have with people? What people would I like to talk to? And would a podcast open up those possibilities? Low-concept, but interesting, and honest.

I'm not saying I'm going to make a podcast this year, but it's the kind of thing I'm interested in. Between Patreon and Nebula, I have a lot of places to put things I enjoy making, and, if I can keep from overcomplicating everything, it might give me the space to be creative in ways the channel hasn't provided. Plus it'll give you something to consume if videos are gonna keep taking a long time.

Langing the Syne

Folks, it's been a weird year. I want you to know how much I've appreciated you all for your support. It's so long since things have been "normal" at Innuendo Studios that we have to start rethinking what "normal" is going to be. But, whatever it is, it's all of you that make it possible.

Here's to the next one. <3

-I