Here we are at the Year In Review again! In attempt at consistency, I shall use last year's headers as a format.
Blog Life
I haven't been maintaining the blog, despite some attempts. I also haven't been very consistent at blogging my reviews, so they've been a little haphazard. I don't know if this is a priority any longer, but it's just nice to have a little (permanent) space for longer pieces if I feel like it.
The twelve-month stats DO show that people are still reading this little thing, though, so maybe I'll try to cross post reviews a little more often, and talk about my writing more.
I'm wondering about the July spike. WHAT did I do in July? HMM there was the AABA panel in KL on 29 June and I guess the PWW24 showcase on 6 July. OH I redid my overall website at the end of June and sent out an email about it, plus the Jurusihir links. I'm assuming that somehow sent traffic over, though I'm not sure how. Or why.
Top posts for the year aren't actually new posts, but old A to Z Challenge ones, which I guess goes to say that I should attempt A to Z again this year.
Hoookay. Digging further shows a strange number of hits from China, which probably means... that all that readership is suspect. lol.
But at any rate, I only wrote 26 posts in 2024 (2023: 54) so I should try to be more consistent in 2025.
Reading Life
I read 57 books in 2024 (2023: 59), which means I did keep a relatively stable almost one book a week (not really, I just did several binges to catch up at various times during the year). Though I did 'cheat' and read a series of short stories that were each published as separate titles lol. I also tried transitioning to StoryGraph, so here's the Goodreads Year in Books vs the StoryGraph Reading Wrap Up.
Crossposting reviews to this blog is still easier via Goodreads but the stats from StoryGraph are more interesting, so I'll see if I can keep up this dual posting thing.
I rated 17 books with 5 stars this year, but these are my top 5:
- Deplorable Conversations with Cats and other Distractions by Yeoh Jo-Ann
- The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge
- Tune in Tomorrow by Randee Dawn
- Queen of Fury by Natania Barron
- To Weave the Wind by Sharon Rose
Really easy choices this year - the other 5 stars were good, but NOT AS GREAT.
The 2024 TBR goal was to DNF with prejudice, but I guess I got lucky and picked a bunch of books I actually liked so I only DNFed maybe 2 books? I do not have a TBR goal for this year yet, except maybe I'll target specific shelves/boxes to read so I can finally clear those spaces.
Writing Life
I HAVE NOT BEEN WRITING. THIS IS ANNOYING. 2025 needs to be A Year of Writing because 2024 has not.
Then again... I did write a whole novel (albeit a short one) in 1.5 months that was published by Bookiut in May (omg those timelines were stupid, do not do this again) and we had a launch at the KL International Book Fair (!!) so I suppose I DID actually do something, even if half the time I forget that the book exists. I need to stop subconsciously meng-anak-tirikan this thing because it is actually the most commercially successful book I have written even if it's the weakest writing.
Glasgow 2024 (Worldcon) was a nice writerly thing I attended - after which Jaymee and I had a writing retreat where I finished a bunch of rewrites and edits on the Tea Novel. I was on a few sessions at Flights of Foundry in September!
So now I have started on that long, slow route of querying for the Tea Novel, but I am also thinking of... rewriting it again. At any rate, the goal for 2025 is to write something new so I might move on to a next thing before coming back to this one. (The next thing is a nebulous idea called Paskah, but which doesn't have a plot, only vibes.)
Publishing Life
Last year I merged the publishing stuff with the writing stuff, but I think this deserves a slot of its own, only because I realised that I slowed on the writing end because of the publishing end. This includes my editorial work, and possibly MYWriters stuff. SO!! In PUBLISHING (and here I am relying heavily on Instagram and my invoices because obviously I do not keep a viable log)...
June:
CLAP was launched in June! There's still some backend docs to finish editing, but the main bulk of it is up and accessible.
July:
PWW24 had its showcase in July, which means a showcase zine! I do not know when the 2025 edition will be but it will... possibly be.
August:
Petaling Street: Traditions in Transition finally launched after many setbacks. This has cemented my conviction NOT to apply for government-related grants, no matter how nice that money sounds.
Two short stories from Home Groan (2020) were selected for the STPM Literature in English component.
September:
I really loved editing Sins of the Fire, which was released in September!
November:
Launched two books for the Malaysian Writers Society.
NutMag is our flagship Penang zine, and this year's edition is special because it also includes the winners of GTLF's Muara Writing Prize! It's so hefty that I don't know if we should still call it a zine. It's like a proper book now. haha.
Tapau is the Society's second reprint anthology! It's also wildly successful by our standards because we've already moved almost 200 copies in just one month (ie: I received 240 copies in Penang, I have like maybe 44 left)
I cannot think of anything else to add to this post, so I guess I'll end it here. In terms of goals, we already have Milestones in the works, so I'm considering pulling back on everything else to focus on actually writing new stuff.
Maybe I'll actually blog more about Anna's Year of Writing, but I usually do one post and then forget, so no promises. At any rate, I'm slightly more active on BlueSky and Threads at this moment if you want to do the socmed thing.
HAPPY 2025!
