End Of Year Report 2022
I’ve got fuzzy feelings.
It might be because we’ve finished another year… and now we get to wrap up and dream about what comes next, or it might have something to do with the bottle of red wine I guzzled last night, or perhaps the herculean hours of God of War Ragnarök I played, or maybe the COVID-19.
It could well be the COVID-19…
Still, it’s the 27th of December and I just got back from a walk with my dog and now I’m warming with coffee and reading through all my previous year's reviews. There’s almost a decade’s worth now. If you’d like to read them, they now live HERE.
For me, reading through them is like visiting some shady AA meeting in which all the attendees are me from previous years. I read through and the yester-me’s voice their ambitions and concerns and I already know where they will win and where they will fail. I know the joy and pain waiting for each of them. And I can see the throughlines… the passions and hungers that connect them, even if they themselves can’t.
2014 was so young. 2018 so tired. 2020 so fired up. And now that each of them has spoken, it’s my turn.
I’m going to finish my coffee…
And spill my beans.
So…
2022…
THE TO-DONE LIST
I wrote 207,476 new words and edited 136,372 words. This includes:
Half of a brand-new novel
5 short stories
6-episode audio drama
100-page comic book script
Lots of story outlines, series pitches, newsletters, non-fiction audio scripts
Polishing up a 90k-word novel and a…
40k-word novella
I finally finished a big novel I’d worked on for five years and pitched the book to Meg Davis at Ki Agency. Happy to say that I now have an amazing literary agent!
I ran a Kickstarter for my book, My Dog Shits Cash. It funded in 90 minutes. I designed the hardcover and paperback, including the interior illustrations. I narrated and edited the audiobook, including an original music score with sound effects and ambience. Happy to say I’ve now 100% fulfilled the campaign
At the Hawk & Cleaver studio, we:
Hit 10-million downloads
Ran three short story writing workshops
Produced and published a Halloween audio drama called The Toy Factory
Published 71 episodes of The Other Stories
Put out a 12-episode series of short Christmas episodes
I read 61 books (a mix of novels, non-fiction, audio drama, and comic book collections).
I watched 13 TV Shows.
I watched 73 movies.
I played and completed 4 games (not including the many games I started but didn’t finish).
THEMES OF 2022
Every year I set myself overarching themes for the year. These are supposed to act as compass points, to guide me when I get lost… which I am wont to do.
In 2022, I was supposed to…
be unbreakable
I was referring to my mental health. In previous years I’ve been up and down more times than an incontinent man’s zipper. I’ve scaled the heights of elation one week only to find myself tumbling over the cliffs of despair the next. For the most part, 2022 has been much steadier, though there have been some trying times.
Is there some kind of emergency toolkit for people who find themselves falling?
Is there such a thing as being 100% unbreakable? Or do we break so that we can write stories about it?
I honestly don’t know.
not be a donkey
I’m the kind of person who can get excited about everything and anything. Specifically when it comes to creative projects. In the past this has led me to constant indecision, unable to choose between one project and another, like the figurative donkey… unable to choose between food or water.
I managed to nail this theme by focusing heavily on prioritisation. These days all creative projects get assigned a priority tag.
P1 - for the pressing and urgent. These are reserved for the projects that, if completed, might fundamentally change my life and the lives of others around me.
P2 - Similar to a P1, but it might not be urgent, or might have less potential impact.
P3 - Usually reserved for low-urgency, low-impact projects.
P4 - The someday, maybe projects. For example, wouldn’t it be nice to someday write a play? To learn how to draw? Someday, maybe.
fix my back
For most of 2021, I had crippling pains in my back and my legs. The pain sometimes got so bad it would wake me in the middle of the night. I went to doctors, chiropractors, and physios, and they’d offer painkillers and exercises but nothing worked.
Until… my friend told me about a YouTube channel called Foundation Training. They have a bunch of training routines all focused on building core strength. After a few weeks of these routines, I can honestly say the back pain has nearly completely gone.
find at least three more fans
I found em. They were hiding in the attic… cheering me on with secret whispers through the gaps in the light fixtures.
I’m always up for more fans, though. Fancy getting in my attic?
THEMES FOR 2023
get married
This is the year that I and my partner are supposed to get married. I proposed to her in 2015, but due to accidents, emergencies, and factors outside of our control, we were never able to. And as the engine in my car broke the other week, we may struggle this year, too, but… I want to make it happen. I want to marry the love of my life.
flow
I want to find the creative flow I had in previous years, gliding from one project to the next, greasily slipping from sentence to sentence. I want to disappear into my work again, lose hours at a time without even realising it. I want to rediscover my flow.
learn
Though I want to keep working on high-priority projects, I’d find it impossible to sit still. I need to learn new stuff. I need to experiment. This year I want to make more games, take online masterclasses, read more classic literature, watch criterion movies, cook new recipes.
find at least three more fans
At this rate, by next year my attic will be positively bursting at the seams.
STUFF I LOVED THIS YEAR
*a new all-time favourite.
Films
Dead Man
Deadstream*
Barbarian*
The Tree Of Life
The Lighthouse*
The Northman*
Everything Everywhere All At Once**
Prey
Nope
Avatar (IMAX 3D re-release)
Mad God
Black Phone
The Batman
Smile
Books
Piranesi**
First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August*
Territory*
Four Thousand Weeks
Novelist as a Vocation
Woom
Alien (Novelisation)
Atomic Habits
Neverwhere
Comics/Graphic Novels
House of X / Power of X*
X Of Swords*
Fantastic Four/FF
Hellions*
The Dollhouse Family*
Step By Bloody Step
Shade, The Changing Girl (2016)
Animal Man (1988)*
Thor: God Of Thunder*
All-Star Superman*
Invisibles Vol 1
Enigma
John Constantine: Hellblazer
Games
Outer Wilds: Echoes Of The Eye**
The Outer Wilds*** (possibly now my all-time favourite game)
The Artful Escape*
The Last Of Us Part II**
Elden Ring*
Pyre*
Inscryption (still playing)
God of War Ragnarök (still playing)
TV Shows
Archive 81
Primal S2*
Fiction podcasts/Audio Dramas
Wolverine: The Long Night
Sandman Act 1
Podcast
The Bestseller Experiment
The Fearless Writer
RedHanded
Casefiles
Script Lock
Software
ChatGPT
Notion*
Music
Lightwork
Jim Guthrie
The Atheist
La Panthère Des Neiges
Alex Melton
Endless amounts of post-rock
Endless amounts of The Strokes
***
And now… with that said… I get to sit down.
The yester-me’s look awkwardly around the AA meeting. They fidget, eat biscuits, and then look to the chair next to me.
It’s labelled 2023.
It’s empty.
Future-me must be on his way. He must be running late. He must be held up on account of all the traffic on the road, hours and days of it, weeks, months, an entire year of traffic that he’ll need to get through.
Still, the other Luke's and I can chat amongst ourselves… drink more coffee… reminisce… and wait patiently for whatever the Luke of 2023 will have to say.
With that…
Until next year,
Luke & Family
xoxo