End Of Year Report 2021
It’s here again, the end.
And as I sit down to write my now customary yearly review, I am absolutely riddled with coronavirus. I’m also high off all the brie and crackers I just ate and a little drunk from all the coffee I’ve been inhaling. Oh yeah, and the slipped disc in my back is killing me. Not to mention the strain in my neck from sleeping funny. And I stubbed my toe. Even so, I’m feeling pretty good.
Great, even.
Excited.
2021 has been my most productive year in a long time and I’m buzzing with what 2022 might bring, but as you may know, a new year cannot begin until the old one has been strapped down, dissected, prodded, and examined. We need to pluck out this thing’s organs and give them an exploratory squeeze.
“But why tho?” you ask. “Why go through all that bother of reviewing your year?”
Well, I think the Luke-of-2020 said it best when he quoted the Luke-of-2019:
“Every year I sit down and look back at the previous year and try to break it down, make sense of it. I think the Luke-of-last-year said it best: ‘Time, then, to hold on tight, nail down the days, and look upon what has happened and try to make sense of it. If we don’t then it may just end up lost in the endless sea of details, drifting further away from our recollection.’”
So… 2021...
Let’s crack this crack open this ribcage take a peek inside…
The To-Done List
I had my most productive year of writing ever
I’m not kidding. In 2021 I wrote 223,953 words. That breaks down into 1x 90k novel, 1x 40k novella, 6x short stories, 1x interactive fiction game, 1x article, 1x 58-page comic script, 1x feature-length screenplay, 1x 5-page game-writing test, and 3x newsletters.
I got to interview for several AAA game studios
The plan was to take all of my writing experience from the past decade and combine it with all the development experience from 2020, to see if I could make something happen in the professional world of making video games. Although I didn’t manage to land anything, I took several interviews, a couple of which would’ve been dream jobs. It was terrifying/fun.
I made (re-made) an interactive fiction game
In January 2020, I made a short text adventure game in three days. It was called YOU’RE GOING TO DIE! This year I remade it, polished it, and for my efforts got to see this guy playing my game. It kinda melts my heart at the end.
I put out a short comic book about a toaster
This year we tabled at the Thought Bubble comic convention. I caught up with old friends, met new ones, and was within smelling distance of some of my creative heroes. I wanted to do something special for the con, so I put together a short comic called TOAST.
I helped run a podcasting company for another year
1.5 million downloads in 2021 and a fancy new hardcover book. It’s a privilege to be the voice of that show, to get to speak to fans from all over the world on a weekly basis.
I made another season of my bizarro fiction podcast
My greatest audio production work I’ve ever done. Seriously, check out that jingle... that theme tune... those video game noises...
I revived a 6-year-old podcast
Luke’s Massive Storytelling Podcast Thing... back from the dead... here to fix my head...
I put out 4x newsletters
I lost an inch from my waist. This is big news for me
I broke my back (and got COVID)
I read 54 books
I watched 125 films
I played and completed 12 games
I watched 14 TV Shows
Themes of 2021
2021 was the year I was supposed to...
breakthrough...
I have to be honest, in 2020 I just wasn’t happy with my writing. Too many unfinished projects. Too many books hiding in the crevices of old hard drives. Too ‘busy’ without being all that productive. Too scattered.
Mostly, my mindset was fucked and my confidence shot to shit. I was... honestly... a bit sad. I was also oddly comfortable with that, which meant that any movement that felt too much like progress also felt like I was leaving my comfort zone.
2021 was the year I decided to break through that hard shell of sadness and started actively putting myself into uncomfortable situations. I took on more ambitious projects. I applied (and got in) to masterclasses with literary agents. As I mentioned above I interviewed for big jobs that in all honesty, kinda scared me a bit, but were incredible experiences.
turn pro...
More of a mindset change in the sense of my approach to the craft and the career. Instead of working on things willy-nilly I set myself actual targets. I bought myself a dedicated writing space. I only allow myself to fuss my dog after the writing was done. Unless she was doing something cute, of course. I’m not a monster
invest...
I think I meant this financially but now looking back it was more of a new approach to my life in general. See, I’ve always been drawn to shiny objects, always seeking new and interesting projects and usually jettisoning any hard work I’d done up to that point on other projects. Whereas what I’m coming to realise is that the more we put into our projects, our relationships, and yeah also our index funds and ETF’s, the more that comes back to us in the long run. So this year was about investing long-term in my projects and not dropping them whenever I saw something shiny on the horizon.
find some fans...
I believe it was my colleague and business partner who said this, but he told me that I need to focus on finding some Luke Kondor fans. So I don’t know if I’ve done this and it’s almost impossible to quantify, but what I can tell you is that I put out some work, I received some nice and positive feedback, and I found approximately 5 fans. They’re all extremely attractive and are much better than other peoples’ fans.
***
Themes for 2022
As I write this I’m still not quite sure where my head is at for 2022, but this is what I’m thinking about:
unbreakable
I’m referring to my brain. I’ve realised over the last few years that my brain is my biggest enemy. So this year I’m scheduling regular check-in’s with creative friends and partners to make sure I’m not burning out, losing my way or my confidence, and just to regularly catch up, set myself back on the right path.
don’t be a donkey
See also: you can do anything but you can’t do everything.
fix my back
This year I slipped a disc and I’ve not been the same since. The GP didn’t help. Trips to the chiro relieve the pain but they don’t seem to fix it. On a good day it feels like having a stone in my shoe, but it’s in my back, and on the bad days the pain is so bad I can hardly walk. It’s my most pressing health issue right now and something I need to resolve in 2022.
find at least three more fans
Apply here.
***
The Stuff I Loved This Year
*a new all-time favourite.
FILM
Dune*
Last Night In Soho
Titane
Spider-Man: No Way Home
The Suicide Squad*
Pig*
The Green Knight*
Godzilla Vs Kong
A Quiet Place 2
Come True*
A Scene At The Sea
The Wild Blue Yonder*
Stalker*
My Octopus Teacher*
Jacob’s Ladder
Justice League Snyder Cut
BOOK
Will by Will Smith & Mark Manson
Antkind by Charlie Kaufman*
Doom Patrol by Grant Morrison & Richard Case*
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Dorohedoro (Vol 1-3) by Q Hayashida
Zoltergeist The Poltergeist by Douglas Hackle
GAME
Oxenfree
Control*
Resident Evil Village
Days Gone (for the hordes!)
Abzū*
Mad Max*
Spider-Man*
Little Nightmares 2*
Death’s Door
Subnautica
The Last Of Us 2*
TV
Midnight Mass
Arcane
Invincible
The Office
Doom Patrol S1-3
SOFTWARE
Notion*
PODCAST
Next Level Authors*
Rebel Author Podcast
The Creative Penn
Creative Pep-Talk
MUSIC
Low Roar - maybe tomorrow...
Pig OST
Bonfire Peaks OST
Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain
Do Make Say Think
***
And that’s it!
2021 has been dissected and labelled and its bits and pieces tidied away into the filing cabinet of my life. Time to hang up this carcass alongside the previous years.
And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you…
Don’t think I’ve forgotten about us…
Let’s have an incredible 2022, shall we? Let’s have the kind of year that makes our family and friends froth at the mouth with jealousy? Let’s have the kind of year that ends in rapturous applause from the masses, ends with entire countries breaking out into song before erecting statues of our likenesses in their capital cities, around which they will dance, and at the most trying times in their lives they will go to the statues-of-us and rub their faces on them for good luck, because they desperately need some of the incredible success we had in the year that is about to happen.
Shall we?
Luke & family
xoxo