Snowflake Challenge #4

[malenkayacherepakha]

The 4th Snowflake Challenge is to talk about my goals for the year - luckily I didn't already make a post on this, as it's something I've been thinking about for a little while now. 

If I could sum up all my goals for the year, I think they would all relate back to the idea of <i>balance</i>. The past few years have been a bit of a whirlwind - graduating, moving around, moving between various jobs. Things have settled now though, I don't plan on moving (house or city) for at least a few years, I've now got a permanent job that I'm very excited about, and it feels like I can do more than just constantly move towards the next stage of life or focus on getting one thing sorted out before moving on to the next issue. So this year I want to find a balance between all the things I enjoy doing and have to do; a balance between work, socialising, rest, fandom, etc.

This is all quite vague and I don't quite know what it'll look like in practice but I do have a few more specific goals, both in fandom and real life:

• Do fewer fests. I spent almost the whole of last year under a fest deadline, and it wore me out. I hardly wrote anything just for myself, and I'd like to that more this year. I did enjoy pretty much all of my fest experiences, but it's not sustainable to do another year that way.

• Find a better level of engagement with fandom. This seems like a weird thing to say in a fandom space, and is no way judging people who can and do give a lot of time to fandom, but I gave too much of my time and mental energy to fandom last year. I started to care too much about petty things and got too competitive with stats and readership, and I just kind of didn't like the way I was interacting with fandom by the end? It got to the point where I thought about just leaving entirely, although I'm glad that I didn't (I just needed a break!). This all comes back to that balance - I want to find a balance where I can enjoy fandom and create things I'm proud of without getting too caught up in tumblr and discord and everything that comes with fandom. I also want to continue developing the friendships I've made, because I've met so many fantastic people. 

• Socialise more. I've struggled a bit with making proper good friends since I've moved here, and I'd like to start remedying that a bit. I'm not going to go as far as setting a goal of <i>make some friends</i> because I think that'll put too much pressure on everything, but I want to make more of an effort to go out after work and do things that will lead to chatting to people etc. 

• Move more. Last summer I got strong, and I miss that. The autumn term got so busy that my exercise routine slipped away, and I want to start going back to classes and to the gym, because I loved how it made me feel. This also links into the socialise more goal - going to a gym class totally counts as far as I'm concerned. 

• Rec more. I've read so many fantastic fics since I joined fandom, and I'd like to share the love a bit more. We all love when someone recs one of our fics, right? I'd love to give other people that feeling. I've already got a list started, so at some point the recs will start appearing on my tumblr and here. 

• Kick ass at work. I'm so looking forward to properly starting my new job (I've tentatively started it this week but will get properly stuck in next week), and I really want to work hard at it. My past few jobs have had long periods of down time where it was easy to slack off, and that's going to be hard to stop, but now's the perfect time to really focus on my career and give it lots of my energy (although not too much, I'm still very much about that work/life balance!)

• Cook one new thing every week. My boyfriend and I have got stuck in a rut of eating the same few meals all the time, and god we're bored of it. I got several new recipe books for Christmas and have already gone through and marked things I want to try, so this one feels pretty achievable! Plus I do enjoy cooking, so it should be fun too. 

Who knows if I'll actually complete these goals, but that's kind of not the point. Just having them in the back of my mind will be enough, and I'm excited to try and integrate both these goals and the general idea of a better balance into my life. 

Comments

[fadedwings]

Great list! Love the cooking goal. It's so easy to fall in a rut with meals. Good luck with everything ♥

[malenkayacherepakha]

It's so easy when you're busy and tired but hopefully having it as a concrete goal will make me actually do something about it! Thank you 😊

[gracerene]

Excellent goals!! I definitely feel you on finding fandom balance--it's pretty much a goal of mine every year, and an eternal WIP, but just being aware that it's a thing to work on helps. And YAY more recs! I'm a huge proponent of more people reccing so that we get a more diverse representation of people's likes out into the world. ♥

[malenkayacherepakha]

I'm hoping that just having it in the back of my mind and being more conscious of the time and energy I devote to fandom will kind of automatically lead to a better balance, but it's good to know that I'm not the only person who struggles with it! Ooh yes definitely, we all like different things so will end up with different recs which is great. I want to try and do lots of newer or less well known works too, as well as plenty of rarer pairings, increasing the variety of things that get recced.

[nachodiablo]

Balance is a great goal! Best of luck with all of these :)

[malenkayacherepakha]

Thank you!

[magpie_fngrl]

Balance is a great goal! It was one of my goals for the past few years until I realised that, being cyclothymic/mildly bipolar, I'll always struggle with balance and it's a lifelong goal rather than a New Year's resolution.

I feel you on the fandom front. It's almost like reading about myself. Finding the way to interact with fandom in a healthy, fun way is a great goal. Back in my first year/year and a half, fandom took up all the space in my life: 90% of my reading was fics, 90% of my free time was spent on tumblr and later discord exlusively posting about drarry, 99% of the people I interacted daily were drarry fans. It was unbalanced, and no wonder it made something like "who recced me or not" feel like the end of the world. I hope you find the balance you're looking for and that fandom becomes fun again :)

[malenkayacherepakha]

Your experience is so much like mine - constantly either reading, writing, chatting on discord or scrolling Tumblr, and just thinking about it all too much - when you're that involved of course hits and recommendations start to matter a lot. I don't quite know if I'll be able to completely switch off the part of my brain that cares a lot about that stuff but taking a step back from discord, Tumblr and fandom spaces has helped a bit already. I think I need to stick to the writing and reading and a bit of chatting, but not too much!

[magpie_fngrl]

I'd say, from my experience at least, that you stop caring when you've got something else on your mind. When fandom isn't in your life 90% like it was, or even 50%. At the moment, although I have a drarry fic I want to finish, the main focus of my thinking and my worry is the decision to self-publish a romance novel. Will I finish writing it? Will I be able to afford a good cover? Will anyone read it? Competitiveness is still there, but it involves the (future) professional sphere, so worrying about who recced my fic seems silly (not that it's silly for people to feel that way; I did for a long time. It's just the way it feels to me now).

[malenkayacherepakha]

I've noticed that too, and that's why I think my fandom goals and real life goals kind of work together - the more I add to my offline life, the less the small things about fandom life will matter to me.

Good luck with your novel!

[writcraft]

What fantastic goals I wish you every success with them! As others have commented, your posts about fandom balance really resonate. I threw myself into modding and fest writing early on in fandom and one year post holiday fest seasons I burned out so much I never wanted to write again. I was very focused on reception too - I remember I had this massive need to get mentioned in the big Snarry rec list way back when (I don't think I ever made it!) and it seemed so important at the time. It sometimes does take a stern conversation with yourself to redirect energies LOL. I personally found over the last couple of years playing with a few different characters and ships where I had very little expectation in terms of reception has been quite a freeing break from those huge ships like Drarry. I hope you find the right balance for you <3

[malenkayacherepakha]

Thanks!

It's good to know I'm not the only one who immediately got caught up in 'must do everything straight away and be amazing at it'! I totally get you about the rec list - I think I'm going to have to carefully ignore Tumblr around the time of the drarry awards because even though I don't expect anything from it, I know I'll still somehow be a little disappointed? I think being careful about my use of the social media side of fandom is definitely going to be key to reducing my competitive side.

There's definitely a different pressure when writing Drarry, and I'm looking forward to writing for some rarer pairs - hopefully that'll take me back to writing just for the fun of it.

[pauraque]

These are good goals! I also have a tendency to Do Too Much and burn myself out — something which I think is quite common in fandom. By definition, fans are passionate people, and that can be a double edged sword.

[malenkayacherepakha]

Your point about fans being passionate is such a good one - of course we're going to get potentially over involved! Burn out does seem to be a common problem in fandom, but it is nice to know it's not just me struggling with it!

[paulamcg]

Congratulations on really thinking about all that carefully and composing excellent goals! I also admire you for spelling out that experience of becoming too competitive and of giving too much mental energy to fandom. Sometimes I’ve felt I’m the only one and I’ve felt ashamed of caring so much about the reception of my fic. It seems that particularly at times when I don’t feel appreciated or otherwise happy in real life, I seek recognition in fandom, and it’s like the end of the world when my fic never gets recced, hardly commented on, perhaps not even read. I wonder if I’ll manage to set any wise goals like yours.

[malenkayacherepakha]

The more I post and talk about it the more I realise that a bunch of other people feel the pressure and the competition - it's definitely not just you. I always feel weird talking about it but maybe we'd al be better off if we did talk about it a bit more. In fact, I might do a post about it after the snowflake challenge is over - I'm sure lots of people on here would have some very interesting insights.

I definitely get what you mean about everything fandom related mattering more when real life isn't quite going well, and that's why as well as finding balance within fandom I want to concentrate on adding things in real life too - I think the goals go hand in hand.

[paulamcg]

Thank you for still giving such a wise and understanding reply to my comment! It’s been comforting to read other comments on your post, too. Also necessarian has written about the same issues in a fannish-goal post, urging people to join in and make 2020 a year of reccing.

[malenkayacherepakha]

It's always comforting to know that others feel the same way - I'm glad my post has helped a bit. Thank you for the heads up about necessarian's post too!

[bethctg]

Doing more recs is such a good goal. You can really make someone's day! :)

[malenkayacherepakha]

That's the aim! I'm excited to get started, and I've already got some great fics in mind.

[walgesang]

Sounds like a fantastic list! I hear you on trying to find a proper balance between being fannish and taking time for oneself. Best of luck to you as you navagate this!

[malenkayacherepakha]

Thank you!