A vague, sleep-deprived recap of 2022

*wanders in looking vaguely lost and sleepy*

Hello there, friends. If I’m not mistaken, I believe I’ve made it to the new year? *looks confusedly at map*

*muttering wait a second, what kind of map is this anyway? it’s just a bunch of boxes with numbers in them and a big picture of a baby giraffe…*

As is my custom, I’d like to say goodbye to the old year (shouting out the door after it because it’s already gone, oops) by giving all you lovely folks a bit of a recap on the things I did and the sights I saw.

But mostly the books. Let’s just talk about the books, okay?

Books

I randomly decided to make some pie charts. Because they are an incarnation of pie and therefore pleasing.

I did a fair amount of re-reading this year.

However, now that I have acknowledged the re-reads, I will proceed to exclude them for the rest of the graphs (and the post in general), to focus on the bright shiny and new books.

Mostly Middle Grade, which surprises no one. The number of Adult books was a bit of a surprise. I guess I’m…an adult? I read next to no YA, haha. Seriously. I read two YA novels. The only reason the percentage is that high is because I read a bunch of volumes of YA manga right at the end of the year.

I used to think contemporary was my favorite genre. HA. The past couple years, sci-fi/fantasy has come barreling in like a runaway train and it doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon.

….remember when I didn’t even read graphic novels?

Some highlights:

(I am too tired to go find nice pictures of the covers. Just have a list instead)

The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson: Peet the Sock Man, guys. I love Peet the Sock Man so much

Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver: There is charm and whimsy and Po and Mo

The Wanderer by Sharon Creech: Cousinsssssssss

Spaceboy vol. 1 by Stephen McCraine: More, please

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz: I simultaneously like and hate this book, hmmm

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger: The prose, guys. The prose. *running through the streets, throwing papers to the sky* THe pROsE

Assignment in Brittany by Helen MacInnes: Hearne deserves a nap and our love and admiration

So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger: Okay, but Hood Rivers being such a dear respectful young man

The Dam Keeper trilogy by Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi: Beautiful artwork and the dearest traumatized pig you ever did see

Network Effect by Martha Wells: Murderbot trying to pretend he doesn’t have emotions while being emotionally compromised

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke: Haven’t had a chance to talk about this one at all yet, but there are things to talk about. Namely Mr. Segundus

Enemy Brothers by Constance Savery: WHOLESOME WHOLSESOME WHOSLESOME

The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H. G. Parry: Well golly, would you look at that–a book about people who love books for people who love books, by a person who loves books

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman: Grumpiness will reach new heights. Endearment will follow

*squinting at everything I just typed* Eh, good enough. Let’s move on

Writing

I wrote things…. *nods decisively* Yes, I did.

I wrote a book (which I talked a bit about in this post). Here’s some random snippets with no context, because why not

Tune in next time for the companion novel about the random niece who becomes a concert pianist against all odds

I leave it to you to wonder what dramatic coat-whirling is required for

I still don’t know what a cinnamon cake is, but I want one

My boy Henry after some really bad decision making.

The fact that Henry appears in more of these snippets than Angelo (the actual main character) may be because it’s harder to find spoiler-free Angelo snippets. Or it may be because I just really like Henry.

I also wrote a bunch of Quirks this year. Seven, I believe? And at least two of them now need to be turned into books, help.

In December, I randomly decided I wanted to write Christmas specials for a bunch of my stories. So….I did. It was great fun. Some of them were characters I hadn’t written about in a couple years, and it felt like visiting old friends.

One of my favorites ended up being one in which the Janitor (from this quirk) has Christmas dinner with Marcy and her mom.

Have I mentioned how attached I have become to this Janitor?

Aaaaand everything else

Time to enter rapid-fire bullet-point mode, because too much happens in a year to discuss it all at length

• I read The Silver Eye and I have SO MANY FEELINGS
• I read seasons 2 and 3 of The Comic Space Opera and the amount of support I have for Jude and Christina is a far cry from my usual anti-romance-goblin-self (I love them so much)
• Also…I have generally been less of an anti-romance-goblin lately, what is this
• I listened to the Frankenstein musical, and what a jam it is. It’s a great adaption of a gothic novel in that I have generally the same reaction to it that I have to gothic novels: “You are so overly dramatic that I can’t help but laugh at you, but I can still take you seriously from time to time. And you’re just super fun.”
• …..I changed my blog. Somehow my brain can’t compute that that was this past year.
• I started getting into arranging music! I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, but I’ve always been too intimidated. It’s surprisingly not as hard as I expected? I mean, I’m not necessarily good at it, but there’s something exciting about being able to just DO something even without being good at it. (I like to watch the notes turn red as Musescore screams Abort! Abort! Baritones can’t sing that high! Descend, DESCEND!)
• Lots of anime. Spies and peanuts and farming and author-based superpowers and some character arcs that did NOT go where I was expecting *distant screaming*
• My sister got MARRIED (not the Sponge, a different one). She and her husband are very wholesome and I support them even more than Jude and Christina
• Rang in the new year with my family, drawing 10 second pictures of Tale of Two Cities characters. Somehow two of my sisters ended up drawing a Marquis that looked more like Princess Leia…

Eh, I’m sure there are other things I could talk about, but let’s wrap this up (since the year already wrapped itself up like…three weeks ago. We’re running a little behind here).

Thanks to all of you who read any of my posts and squawked about characters with me this year. It’s always a pleasure 🙂

Here’s to hoping for good things in 2023!

What were the highlights of 2022 for you? What good books did you read? (Or what bad books?) What did you write? Have you ever tried writing Christmas specials for any of your stories? (Good fun. 10 out of 10 would recommend.) Are you hungry for pie now? (Because I am.) Do tell!

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