How A Moment of New Year’s Rage Made Me Set Goals Every Year

This time last year, I blogged about 2020 being a shitshow, but that it seemed like ‘the tide was turning’ for 2021.

Fucken woops.

For many, 2021 was as bad as, or worse than, 2020. And it looks like 2022 is heading for a rocky start, too.

It might seem weird to do things like goal-setting, or writing, when the world is a tyre fire.

But doom scrolling on Twitter isn’t useful: it’s a huge sapper of creative energy and is best avoided. The world’s fortunes are beyond my control.

What is within my control is what I’m going to spend my energy on this year.

I find solace in escaping into writing, and setting goals at the start of a new year always motivates me to work hard.

Before I evaluate my 2021 goals and set my 2022 goals, though, I want to touch on a couple of things around goals.

Earlier this week, an emerging writer contacted me for advice. He felt plagued by self-doubt (as we all do) and said that since I seem big on setting and reaching goals, he wanted to know how I keep focused.

We chatted about it, but his observation validated why I do these blogs each year, because there was a time when people in my life had no concept that I actually worked hard.

Years ago, I remember sharing some good career news with a family member, and he replied dismissively, ‘Oh yeah, you’re always just so lucky. Shit just falls in your lap.’

I wanted to shout at him, because this was such a skewed perspective. That opportunity did not just fall in my lap: I had to get a degree, then an Honours year, then achieve a bunch of stuff, then spend years networking, proving my worth and actually asking for it.

I outlined this to him, but he just shrugged like ‘sure, whatever man’.

His mind was made up: to him, I led an unfairly charmed life, and my success was due to me being more cosmically fortunate than him. Dumb luck.

I think this is really misunderstood about artists. Our successes seem to happen miraculously, but there is so much unseen, unpaid work behind all of it. For every publication, years of toiling at a desk, full of self-doubt, with zero promise of any payoff.

Creative success is an iceberg: people see the single achievement, but not the years of ruthless determination and work that made it happen.

So, when emerging writers ask for my advice, I always say you need to first set clear goals: what are you trying to achieve, and by when.

Next, you need to actively block out the time into your calendar, every week of the coming year, to allocate towards working at each goal.

Your goals need to dictate what your daily life looks like.

I don’t think this can be taught. There just needs to be a moment where the desire to achieve your goals overwhelms your fear and inertia to act on them.

For me, that moment was New Year’s Day 2014.

That day, the dawning of yet another year as an unsuccessful wannabe writer finally broke me.

I felt like a supreme failure; all talk. Since the age of seven I’d been saying I wanted to be an author, and yet here I was at twenty-five with nothing to show for it. Where’s your book, loser?

I had a moment where I got so angry, I just lost my shit. I grabbed an empty notebook and cut sick, ranting and raging in a stream-of-consciousness style, page after page.

Me, drunk, in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2014.

What emerged in those pages was that I was fed up investing all my time, money and energy into stuff that only took me further away from where I actually wanted to be in life.

So, New Year’s Day 2014 was the moment I furiously decided to burn all of that stuff down.

I renounced trying to have a good full-time job and career.

I renounced trying to earn lots of money.

I renounced academic validation.

Just now, I dug that particular notebook out of my filing cabinet. It’s a Game of Thrones notebook with an image of the Iron Throne on its cover. Among the many hectic, rage-fuelled, ink-scrawled pages that day in January 2014, I wrote:

I ain’t no good little straight A’s boy getting an office job to make everyone proud and happy.

I am a fucking artist and I am gonna sing for my supper forevermore.

I will make my life happen.

That moment was when my whole life changed, and I became a dedicated artist.

I started calling myself a writer, got working on my first manuscript, and set a goal to complete it by the end of that year.

Since I had a full-time job at the time, my only chance to achieve that goal was to use my nights and weekends. I had to sacrifice all my spare time. I used to fill my down-time with studying various qualifications and drinking and socialising with work mates, uni mates, school mates.

I sacrificed that. No more studying. No more socialising.

I only had so many hours to use per week. If I wanted to avoid being in the exact same place come January 2015, I had to actively make changes in my life.

I dedicated myself to the hustle: evenings and weekends became writing time.

Some shit I wrote on my arm in early 2014 to remind myself what I was giving up and what I really wanted. May have been drunk at the time. 😐

I didn’t miss my old pursuits. Working hard at my dream was a joyous end in and of itself. Even if I never got a book published, I felt alive and happy.

I’m sharing this because whenever someone asks me about goals and discipline as a writer, I feel I can only do so much in the way of advice.

I reckon it’s up to each individual artist to have their ‘fuck everything’ moment, where they get so mad they decide to actually do something about it.

If you’re struggling with this, I encourage you to lean into that moment and embrace it.

Not everyone is the same, of course, but it worked for me.

I spent 2014 working on my first draft, and completed that manuscript in January 2015. Finally, a new year rolled around where I felt satisfied. I wasn’t published, I had no accolades and still felt like a failure – but I was working my arse off to change it.

I was unsuccessful but trying, and that made all the difference.

I have kept this approach ever since, which has helped propel me year after year to keep chasing what I want.

I did the same in 2021, setting ten goals for the year: four writing goals and six personal life goals.

Here’s how I went:

2021 GOALS IN REVIEW

WRITING

1. Sign a publishing contract for Book 2 and do further edits on it.

This finally panned out in 2021. I signed a two-book deal with Text Publishing for my second novel, THE BRINK (out August 2022) and my third novel (out late 2023, probably). Big thanks to my agent, Gaby Naher of Left Bank Literary, for securing me an incredible advance that meant I could be a full-time writer – a lifelong dream come true.

On the editing front, I spent the year doing edits and the next draft is due back to my publisher at the end of January.

RESULT: SUCCESS.

2. Complete the second draft of Book 3.

This didn’t happen. I scheduled September and October to smash a second draft, but some crap personal life stuff happened and blew this to pieces. I had a shit few months and couldn’t write anything real. I wrote a Pokémon fanfiction novella to distract myself instead.

My third novel is due to my publisher this April, so I’ll work on it in the first half of this year.

RESULT: FAIL.

3. Progress the TV Series adaptation of Invisible Boys.

This project moved forward at speed in 2021. We got funding from Screen Australia, held a couple of writers’ rooms, got the first episode script written (holy shit, it’s awesome!), and in November 2021, we won a grant from streaming service Stan and Screenwest to develop the show into a ten-episode TV series.

TV development is a long process, but the next steps during 2022 will be to seek more funding to make this actually happen. Stay tuned.

RESULT: SUCCESS.

The Invisible Boys TV series has received development funding from streaming service Stan Australia, as well as Screenwest and Screen Australia. L-R: Producer Tania Chambers OAM, Invisible Boys book cover, director Nicholas Verso.

4. Get 1 piece of short fiction OR journalism commissioned, contracted or published.

This one worked out. My short story, Rappaccini’s Son, was published in the book HOMETOWN HAUNTS (Wakefield Press, 2021). A second piece, a short memoir titled Territory, was accepted for publication in the forthcoming book GROWING UP IN COUNTRY AUSTRALIA (Black Inc, March 2022).

I was also commissioned by WAToday to write a media article about gay conversion therapy, which was widely shared on social media and led to me fronting other press and radio opportunities to speak on the issue.

RESULT: SUCCESS.

LIFE

5. Maintain an average of 5 workouts per week (between weightlifting, footy and cardio).

I managed to maintain this all year and actually exceeded it. On average per week, I did four weights sessions and two cardio sessions (footy training and footy game) – six workouts total. I pushed myself to stick to this even when my nutrition was bad or my energy levels were low, and I’m glad of that.

RESULT: SUCCESS.

6. Get nutrition sorted to shred up and reach goal weight of 75 kg by 30 June 2021.

I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. I failed this badly. I had a highly-disciplined first three months: by early April, I was down from 87 kg to 77.7kg, and it seemed I would achieve this. But my mental health nosedived in April, and I ate and drank heavily for months. By June, I was back at 86kg again, and by the end of December, I was still 84kg.

RESULT: FAIL.

7.Get first tattoos in 2021.

This didn’t happen either, and I’m getting mad about it. I wanna get my ink when I’m feeling good about my physique, so this goal is tied to me sorting out my nutrition. I also need money to spare for tattoos, which I currently don’t have as I’m living off advance and royalty income and need to conserve funds. Urgh.

RESULT: FAIL.

8. Train harder at footy and grow more confident and useful to the team in games.

I worked hard at this. For the first three months, I trained with an amateur AFL team, ECU Jets, in addition to the Perth Hornets AFL 9s team. I’ve always wanted to give full-contact AFL a crack. I enjoyed the training, but I felt badly out of my depth in terms of skills – sometimes, embarrassingly so – and I wasn’t able to make it work. The coaches and players welcomed me even knowing I’m a gay bloke, though, and I liked that. But combined with my mental health nosedive and years of crap self-esteem around sports, it became too much. I pulled out to focus on just AFL 9s.

I did become more useful to the team, and I was really proud when the Hornets coach awarded me the trophy for Most Improved Player last month. It’s the first time in my life I’ve won a trophy for anything sports-related. I’ll never be a natural athlete, but I was chuffed to be recognised for putting in the hard work. It’s hard to suck at something, in front of other people, week after week, but still show up and keep trying. I am proud of that.

RESULT: SUCCESS.

Receiving the Perth Hornets trophy for Most Improved Player in the Spring 2021 season was a huge highlight.

9. Do at least one guitar lesson.

After I failed my 2020 goal of doing a whole term of ten guitar lessons, I thought this was a nice, low-ball goal. Lol, nup. I didn’t fit in a single guitar lesson in 2021.

RESULT: FAIL.

10. Do some fun shit for pure enjoyment.

This was an odd goal, but I wanted to ensure I did stuff for fun. I went quad biking with mates, jumped on massive trampolines, went to concerts and went on a footy trip to Lancelin.

RESULT: SUCCESS.

Overall, I hit six out of ten goals in 2021. Not bad, not bad. I don’t stress about failed goals; they just kept me refocus on what I do and don’t want to keep trying at the following year.

My goals for 2021 look similar, but I’m simplifying down to just eight goals instead of ten. Four writing goals, four life goals:

2022 GOALS

1. Complete the final edits for The Brink and promote its release.
2. Complete the second draft of Book 3.
3. Work on the TV Series adaptation of Invisible Boys.
4. Get one piece of short fiction OR journalism commissioned, contracted or published.
5. Maintain an average of 5 workouts per week (between weights, footy and cardio).
6. Get nutrition sorted to shred up and reach goal weight of 75 kg by 30 April 2022.
7. Get first tattoos in first half of 2022.
8. Train harder at footy and grow more confident.

The first goal is massive, because the front end of the year will be preparing The Brink for release, and August onwards will be promoting it heavily with media and events. It will be hard to fit anything extra into 2022.

Because of this, stuff like guitar and fun shit will go on the backburner for a less hectic year. This year I’d love to go quad biking, go-karting or get out on a dirt bike, but I won’t set it as a goal. I’ve also left off full-contact AFL: I’m still interested, but it’s on the backburner.

I have a couple of more personal goals, too. I’m not sure if I’ll share them later or not, but I’ll be working on these quietly in my own time this year.

I’m keen to get started on smashing my goals now. The main joy for me is not necessarily being able to write ‘success’ or ‘fail’ at the end of each year, but just enjoying the dogged gut-fire I get that makes me work at each goal, week in, week out. It’s the most fun and rewarding way I know how to live.

In that notebook from 2014, I found a quote I wrote down from Paulo Coelho that I want to share here, to finish up. Coelho says, ‘Do something instead of killing time. Because time is killing you.’ I’ve always found that quote brutally motivational. I hope you might, too.

However you plan to spend your 2022, and whatever your own goals are, here’s to a year that, hopefully, has some good surprises in store for us all.

Holden

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2020 in Review & My Goals for 2021

Man. This year was a real shitshow, ay?

We’re all familiar enough with why 2020 was a giant tyre fire. Thankfully, it looks like the tide is turning. 2021 will hopefully (*touches wood repeatedly*) be a better year.

Every December, I reflect on the past year and plan for the one ahead. When I made my 2020 goals, I had no idea what was about to unfold. Consequently, many of my goals – like everyone’s – went to hell.

Weirdly, my career thrived in 2020. I don’t take that for granted. Invisible Boys landed a slew of accolades, culminating in winning the WA Premier’s Prize for an Emerging Writer in August. I also signed with a new agent for my next books, and sold the film and TV rights for Invisible Boys, which is now in development as a ten-episode TV series. This stuff was fucken awesome, especially against the backdrop of a heinous year.

That said, despite the luminosity of career highlights, this year was a bit of an annus horribilis for me personally. I started the year with an injury, dislocating my shoulder for a second time, which derailed my health and fitness for months. The gym and footy do a lot to keep my head above water, and losing both was a major struggle. After that was a two-month lockdown, financial strife as my income dried up for the year, the death of a family member, a car accident that injured my back, a house flood and insurance battles, then a very public legal quagmire. From January through to December, my mental health was the worst it’s been in ages. This stuff was fucken terrible, especially against the backdrop of a heinous year.

The mix of light and dark in 2020 was starker than in most years, and there was a chasm between people’s perceptions of how good my life must be and how shit I actually felt. But upon reflection after a strange year, I have my health, I have my husband, I have a career I love, and I live in a relatively safe part of the world. I am lucky.

And despite a year of thwarted dreams for many, people across the globe are arming themselves with the usual December hope that next year will be better. I share this hope. Setting goals helps me take stock of how far I’ve come and refocus my energies. Looking back and looking forward is how I stay motivated.

So, I set 10 goals for 2020, split between writing goals and personal life goals.

Here’s how I went:

2020 WRITING GOALS

1. Sign a contract for Book 2 and do edits for that.

Well, this didn’t happen. My first agent left the publishing business, and so I signed with a new agent mid-year: the brilliant Gaby Naher of Left Bank Literary. Gaby requested edits to the manuscript, and this led to an extensive rewrite. Technically, I did sign a contract with my agent for Book 2, and I did do edits for it. But the goal was to sign a contract with a publisher, which hasn’t yet happened. Book 2 will be pitched to publishers in 2021.

Result: FAIL (but PROGRESS).

2. Promote IB until it has been flogged to death (NB: may have already happened).

I reckon I did what I set out to do here. Despite the pandemic leading to the cancellation of loads of gigs, including events and festivals over east, I still landed a bunch of gigs, many of them online, to sustain myself and promote the book. There was loads of media to promote the book and heaps of good word of mouth. I worked hard on this one, and I achieved my goal.

Result: SUCCESS.

3. Get 1 piece of short fiction & 1 piece of journalism published.

My short story “Irreversible” was published in a special edition of Westerly in February 2020, so I got the first part done. However, the journalistic piece eluded me. I did have an offer of a commissioned piece mid-year, but I had to turn it down as the deadline was impossible given what I was juggling at the time. I enjoy writing articles, though, so I’ll keep this on the backburner for the future.

Result: HALF SUCCESS, HALF FAIL (note to self: don’t put two different goals in one next time).

4. Start work on Book 3.

This is one goal the pandemic actually made easier. I didn’t just start Book 3 – I wrote the whole thing in five weeks while we were in lockdown in April-May. I have hardly glanced at this manuscript since I finished it and I feel I’ve really benefited from staying away from reading it for more than six months. I’ll have a fresh perspective when I dive into rereading and editing it in 2021.  

Result: SUCCESS.

5. Super Secret Project X!!!

This referred to the adaptation of Invisible Boys as a film or TV series, which I was having conversations about last December but hadn’t yet signed a deal. In August, we announced these rights were optioned by Nick Verso and Tania Chambers, and earlier this month, we received development funding from Screenwest. I am so stoked the TV series is going into development in 2021 and can’t wait to see how it unfolds.  

Result: SUCCESS.

2020 LIFE GOALS

6. Maintain average 5 workouts per week (weightlifting and cardio).

Somehow, I actually managed this. For most of the year it was 6 days per week, helped by the fact that footy counts as cardio. There were some crap weeks where I only exercised two or three times, but overall I maintained a steady level of regular near-daily fitness this year and I’m proud of that. I want to keep going with this into 2021.  

Result: SUCCESS.

7. Shred up & reach goal weight of 73 kg by 30 June 2020.

Not sure whether to laugh or cry at this one. I weighed 86 kg when I made this goal. Despite exercising like a muthafucka all year, I also started comfort eating and drinking bulk alcohol during lockdown. By July, I was 87 kg – even heavier than December. I got my shit together in October, gained some muscle and lost some fat, and consequently weighed in at 83 kg last week. Considering the year I had, this is good progress, but still a far cry from my ambitions of major shreddage.

Result: EPIC FAIL.

8. Get tattoos – July 2020. 😊

This goal is also in tatters. The plan was get ripped, then get inked. I haven’t achieved the first so the second hasn’t followed. Bum-bow. I know I can get tattoos whatever my body shape, but my vain heart wants what it wants.

Result: FAIL.

9. Train harder at footy, get less shit & play at least 1 whole AFL 9s season with the Hornets.

Despite my injuries, I trained harder at footy than in 2019. I played a whole season of AFL 9s with the Hornets, save for a couple of games when I had work. And I ultimately got a bit less shit: I am still not a stellar footy player, but I’m better than I was twelve months ago. I can only try to keep improving and hopefully, over time, become a more useful and competitive player.

Result: SUCCESS.

10. Do 1 whole term of guitar lessons (10 weeks).

Okay, this one completely fell by the wayside. I was too busy to dedicate time to this every week for a whole school term. I do still really want to learn guitar, though.

RESULT: FAIL.

Ultimately, I succeeded at about half my goals and failed at the remaining half. That’s a pass mark overall, right?

I am not fazed by the failures. Every year, I set goals knowing I will achieve some and fall short of others. This is the nature of goal setting and life. It doesn’t stop me enjoying the process of aiming high and it helps me work out which goals I don’t feel passionate about and which I really want to work harder at next time.

2020 hampered a lot of my goals, so my list for 2021 looks very similar, with some minor tweaks:

GOALS FOR 2021

WRITING

1. Sign a publishing contract for Book 2 and do further edits on it.

2. Complete the second draft of Book 3.

3. Progress the TV Series adaptation of Invisible Boys.

4. Get 1 piece of short fiction OR journalism commissioned, contracted or published.

LIFE

5. Maintain an average of 5 workouts per week (between weightlifting, footy and cardio).

6. Get nutrition sorted to shred up and reach goal weight of 75 kg by 30 June 2021.

7. Get first tattoos in 2021.

8. Train harder at footy and grow more confident and useful to the team in games.

9. Do at least one guitar lesson.

10. Do some fun shit for pure enjoyment.

When I look at these goals, I feel strongly about making them all a reality. I’ll do my level best. I love having goals to chase and I can’t wait to get started on all of these.

What are your goals for 2021? Are they focused mostly on career, or on life, or a mix of both?

Here’s to a better year ahead for all of us.

Holden

END OF A DECADE – 2009 vs 2019

Dear mates,

There was no way I was going to miss posting a reflective message about the end of a whole goddamn decade. 🥳🥳

I chose these two photos to juxtapose because they exhibit the positive change a decade has wrought on me. 😁😁

The biggest change is not on the outside, but within.

The 2009 me on the left is smiling, but he has no confidence, no self-esteem and loathes himself most days. He thinks he’s not good enough. He cares what others think so much that he lets their opinions shadow, plague and dictate his own self-talk, words, and life. 😔😔

The 2019 me on the right looks a bit aggro, but he is confident, assertive and likes the bloke he’s become. He knows he is good enough just as he is. He is the captain and master of his own self-talk, words and life: he is his own. He also looks really fucken buff here. 💪💪

What a metamorphic, Saturn-Returny decade it’s been. 🤩🤩

And hell, what a wild year 2019 has been – marrying my beautiful husband Raphael Farmer and my debut novel, Invisible Boys, being released were the highlights. 😍😍 Thanx heaps to each of you for being a part of this massive year. Your messages, reviews and photos this past few months have made my heart incredibly full. Thanx for supporting (and sometimes tolerating) me, my book, my writing, my penchant for talking about my dick, my entirely healthy obsession with Alanis Morissette, my Witcher song singing, my runaway ego and my neuroses, and my shameless shirtless gym selfies. 😜😜😅😅

And here’s to the Roaring Twenties 2: Electric Boogaloo. Although sequels are usually worse, let us embrace the next decade with the same foolish optimism that I embraced Jumanji: The Next Level. It could be awesome, who knows? We should experience it first and decide later, right? 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

May this new year and decade bring you each growth, comfort, strength, opportunity, fucktons of fun, challenges, solutions, liberation, balance, and most of all, the doggedness and determination needed to build and live whatever kind of life you want. It’s yours and we don’t live on this planet for very long, so go on and do what you want before it’s too late. 🤘🤘🤘

Yours in unbridled fuckery,

Holden 😎😜🤙

 

After A Year Like This One I’ll Need a Good Whole 16 Months Alone

Nothing turned out the way I thought it would.

When I created my author Facebook page in September 2016, I wrote something vaguely aspirational in the “bio” section:

2017 and 2018 promise to be big years for my writing career, and I can’t wait to share this journey with you all.

I actually had nothing to back that up apart from hope and determination. I wrote those words because I desperately wanted 2017 and 2018 to be big years. I’d lost my job and I’d decided to really give my writing a go, so I thought “I am going to make them big years”.

But what I envisaged wasn’t what happened. I thought 2017 would be the year I signed my YA Fantasy novel to an agent and publisher and it would be published in 2018. Then I’d keep writing that series and be known as a fantasy author. Things took a different path, which I’ve spoken about before: that fantasy novel went in the drawer, I wrote  Invisible Boys instead, and the rest is history – although I guess that history is still very much in the making.

My point is, my 2017 and 2018 weren’t what I had planned. Most of what’s happened in my life hasn’t actually gone to plan. My career and writing plans only seem to come through about 50% of the time, and all the other times, they go off the rails spectacularly.

Taking a moment to myself in January 2018, before Sydney, and Varuna, and the rocketship that was 2018 took off.

And yet, every year at this time, I find myself in the same reflective, pensive, generally optimistic mood: ready to survey the trophies and carnage of the previous 365 days, and ready to foolishly make plans for the following calendar year. This year, I go in with eyes open to the fallibility of my plans, but who gives a damn – I have fun doing this, and it helps motivate me. Maybe the only reason I achieve those 50% of my goals is because I commit to them each New Year’s Eve? Who knows?

So, this is my reflection on 2018 and my look ahead to 2019.

And holy crap, what a year 2018 was.

This time last year I posted about how I was just proud to still be breathing after having exhumed past trauma to write Invisible Boys. The title of that post was drawn from Green Day’s 2016 song “Still Breathing”, which is about sobriety and recovery and staying alive, and I love it.

This year’s post title is also drawn from a song, because music is my go-to for processing how I think and feel, much more so than reading. The past few days, I’ve been humming (and occasionally singing, despite the pain inflicted on my boyfriend’s ears) a rare song known as “After A Year Like This One” from my favourite musical artist, Alanis Morissette. She wrote the song in late 1996 at the end of a phenomenally hectic two years touring for Jagged Little Pill, performed it live once and then to my knowledge never played it again, but the lyrics have been swimming to the forefront of my mind for days now:

After a year like this one I’m surprised I do not hate your guts

And, after a year like this one I’m surprised I still love music just as much

After a year like this one I’m surprised I did not eat my arm

And, after a year like this one I’m sorry if I’m not cordial to everyone

I think the reason these lyrics keep resonating with me is because I’ve never had a year like 2018 before, and at this point, I’m basically just permanently surprised about the whole thing.

In my experience, we usually don’t get a proper perspective on what’s happened to us until years down the track; when the storm is still raging, or the confetti still falling, it’s harder to make sense of anything. I expect in 2028 I’ll have a slightly clearer view of what this year really represented – but of course in 2028 I’ll be 40 (insert screaming face emoji) so let’s all do our best to not think about that, please.

What I do know, here in the present moment, is that 2018 feels like a breakout year for my writing career, and I think that will still be a true observation ten years from now. It was the year I forced myself to push against social anxiety and go to events, to meet people online and in person, to be a part of projects, to promote myself and my work more than I’ve ever had the confidence to. It was a year of holding my breath from March to November, while I waited to see if submitting my novel to the Hungerford Award would pay off or not. It was an incredibly lucky and elated moment when it actually won.

So, first, here’s the good shit that happened in 2018 – the highlights:

My residency at Varuna in January this year was a big highlight – pictured here in Katoomba, NSW with fellow writer and Varuna alum, Miranda Luby

• Varuna: I undertook a writing residency at Varuna, the National Writers’ House, in the Blue Mountains in NSW – which, as I wrote at the time, I will never forget.
• Sydney: Bf and I went there for the 1st time & celebrated our 10 year anniversary.
• Alanis Morissette: Saw her live for the first time; fanboyish blog post here.
• Acting: I acted in a play called “The Second Woman” as part of Perth International Arts Festival – an awesome experience that reminded me how much I love acting.
• Writer buds: I joined the Perth tribe of the #5amwritersclub on Twitter – it made me more productive as a writer and I count these people as my buddies.
• Bright Lights, No City: I told my story thanks to this Centre for Stories project.
• Journo: I had my first commissioned journalistic article published by Ten Daily.
• Rock ‘n’ Roll: Saw one of my favourite bands, Jet, play live at Metro City.
• I Turned 30: Actually not as bad as I had catastrophised.
• Wedding Plans: We set a date for our wedding in 2019 and starting planning.
• Griffith Review: My novella POSTER BOY was announced as one of five winners of the 2018 Novella Project, was published in Griffith Review and launched in Perth
• Festival: I attended my first writers festival – the ASSF 2018 – as a guest author.
• Hungerford Award: My novel INVISIBLE BOYS was shortlisted for, and then won, the 2018 City of Fremantle T.A.G. Hungerford Award.

It’s a bit staggering to see the weight of all these things lined up in a row, especially since there’s loads of things I missed off this list. No wonder 2018 felt so hectic all the time!

Seeing Alanis Morissette live in Sydney!

And there was stuff beyond the highlights that kept me busy. I don’t like to dwell too long on the bad shit – but at the same time, I want to acknowledge it. Reeling off a year’s worth of achievements is misleading and incomplete if I don’t also put in the context. It paints a picture that everything in 2018 was sunshine and blowjobs and the truth is there were big downs that came with the ups.

Despite being an amazing breakout year, 2018 was also really tough. I struggled to make ends meet and worked too many jobs, most of them casual or contract-based, so there was no job security or certainty and I was constantly stressed about money. I struggled to fit everything in. I felt burnt out a lot of the time and rarely made any time for myself. I got lots of rejections for my writing. I didn’t finish my next novel, which I had aimed to do by September. I had interpersonal ups and downs, plus some family relationships fell to pieces, which hurt a lot. My mental health had its usual ups and downs – I had anxiety and panic attacks, plus the bog-standard self-loathing that seems to accompany me everywhere, plus a couple of drinking relapses, and of course the constant self-doubt that every writer has (and I am learning that publication and awards do little to tune these doubts out!).

But I never get to the end of a year feeling defeated. Exhausted, yes, but defeated, never. 2019 represents a chance for lots more good shit to happen. Bad shit will happen, too, but I’ll roll with what comes. The good shit will make it worthwhile.

Winning the Hungerford was a massive highlight – not just of 2018, but of life! Pictured here with City of Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt.

And it’s hard to feel defeated when a lifelong dream is coming true. After years of hard work, my first novel is about to be published in October 2019. The year ahead is going to be incredibly exciting, and probably more hectic than 2018 was. But it’s the kind of busy that will be fulfilling and thrilling all the way through, so I’m pumped to get stuck into the year ahead.

My goals and major things to look forward to in 2019 are:

1. Finish the edits on Invisible Boys.
2. Finish my next novel.
3. Get married.
4. Go on honeymoon.
5. Launch and promote Invisible Boys.

That isn’t a very long list, but each of those items is enormous and will take a huge chunk of time – so that’s enough for now.

I’d also really love to push beyond my own comfort zone and try some new things in 2019 – what those will be, I don’t yet know, but I think it would be great for my confidence to do stuff that I am not good at, and just do it for fun. I’ll see how this shapes up as the year begins.

The final lines of Alanis Morissette’s song “After A Year Like This One” are:

After a year like this one I’ll need a good whole sixteen months alone

And, after a year like this one I think I’ll make the west coast beaches my new home

I seriously relate to this. After a year like 2018 – with both the ups and downs – part of me wants to find a quaint log cabin in an alpine forest somewhere and curl up in a ball beside a fireplace. Or maybe escape for a year to a little town on the coast of Mexico or Hawaii and just wake up on the beach each morning. A random fantasy, but enticing when I’ve spent so much time driving myself hard.

Alanis did end up taking sixteen months off, or thereabouts. She fled to India, cocooned herself in anonymity and later wrote a hit song about it. But of course, this was after she had done the album release and world tour.

I haven’t released my book yet.

I haven’t done the tour.

The hard work has to come before the rest. And this year, though it was hard work, wasn’t actually the job I set out to do. This year, and everything leading up to it, was really me putting together my CV, pounding the pavement, going to metaphorical job interviews. I’ve now landed my dream job, and the hard work begins on Monday at 9am.

Training for the hard work ahead.

So, despite my longing for a break, 2019 won’t be the time to slow down. It will be a year on turbo mode; feet on accelerators and sometimes arms out the window. I have a huge amount of work spread out ahead of me: a long, glittering, potholey road to run down that will be exhilarating and will keep me busy for 2019 and probably a big chunk of 2020, too.

So that’s my focus for now. In my wannabe rockstar terms, it’s now time to drop my album and do the tour. And once that’s done, some time in 2020, I’ll give myself a holiday.

But first, hard yakka. I think I’m in for another year like this one.

Here goes everything.

Holden

PS. Thanks to each of you for being a part of my journey this year. It’s been probably the most unexpected joy of 2018 to have connected with so many like-minded readers and writers and supporters. I’d love to hear what your goals and dreams and resolutions for 2019 are, too – let me know in the comments below or on social media! Wishing you all an awesome 2019 – full of ups and downs and everything in between. 🙂

2017 Is Done, And I’m Still Breathing

I always find it hard to sum up a year when I’m still living it.

Every 31st December, the prevailing sentiment for most people is that we are weary battlers who made it through another year of global spite and personal chaos. So often, we are quick to deliver the departing year a few quick bludgeons on the back of the head as it crosses the threshold from felt experience into history. I know I’ve shared more than one meme about the years lining up to beat the living shit out of me.

Sometimes it really feels that way, doesn’t it? We barely escape a calendar year with our sanity and hope intact, only to get clobbered by the next January.

This is just life, of course. With each passing year, I’ve come to realise that it’s the nature of every year that there are some significant highs and often some crushing lows. Even when I’ve had a terrible year – like perhaps 2010 and 2013 (not incidentally, years where I worked full-time in day jobs and didn’t write a word) – there were some really amazing things that I enjoyed about those years. Likewise, happier years like perhaps 2008 (when I hit my stride at uni) and 2011 (when I started my Hons degree and finished an important story) had their share of bullshit and pain, too.

As usual at this time of year, I find myself at a literal fork in the road.

2017 is no different. The year started horrendously: I had just been made redundant at my old full-time job, and the novel I had spent two and a half years working on garnered no interest from literary agents. At first, I fell into an abyss and gave myself permission to stay there for a little while.

But I always prefer to push on, and not wallow. So I decided to see losing my job and my first novel’s failure to get any interest from agents as a chance for a new beginning. I was determined to find a new job that I really loved. I would push on and work harder to get published. And dammit, I would try to change my unhealthy habits along the way, too.

If I could encapsulate this year in one image and one moment, it would be me sprinting and sweating on a treadmill at sunset while “Marry the Night” by Lady Gaga throbbed in my eardrums. Man, that song was a driving force behind me all year long.

2017 for me was a year of intensely hard work; and a year where I learned intensely hard work does not just apply to paid jobs or manual labour. I worked hard and sacrificed – day and night, weekdays and weekends – until I got bits and pieces of what I wanted.

In the work domain, I eventually landed a bunch of casual jobs that just barely allowed me to make ends meet. It was uniquely stressful trying to cram so many roles into my week’s calendar, but I did it. Often it was not enough money to pay for everything, so it was a damn tough year financially and I had to sacrifice and struggle, but I refused to give in and go back to full time work. That part of my life is now over. I am a writer, first and foremost, now, and I will take on only part-time and casual work to get me through.

In the writing sphere, I had the best year of my life, hands down. I released three of my short-stories as e-Books, and got to see one of them chart on iBooks in the US which was incredible. I became the Vice-President of my local writing centre. I wrote a significant and highly personal article on same-sex marriage for the Huffington Post which went viral and briefly tapped into the national conversation. I was interviewed a few times on commercial, community and AM radio.

And best of all, I wrote my second novel. This novel was birthed as a novella in February, and came screaming and kicking out of me in July and August. INVISIBLE BOYS was completed this year, and went on to win the 2017 Ray Koppe Residency Award. It also caught the interest of literary agent extraordinaire Haylee Nash of The Nash Agency, who I gleefully signed to in November.

I also kept working on my fitness this year: I lost another 20 kilos (bringing the grand total to 30 kg lost since 2016) but most importantly, I kept and maintained a dedicated fitness and diet regime, which continues into 2018. I also finally quit smoking (again) but this time it seems to have stuck: as of five hours from now, 2017 will be my first whole year without a cigarette since 2009, and I am very thrilled about this.

Often these kinds of “year-in-review” posts can be seen to be in bad taste. I see people on Facebook often mocked for showing off their achievements, or cherry-picking only the good stuff. I guess I see the humour in that (the Bell Tower Times had a hilarious post about this just today) but I also see the value in reflective thinking and summarising one’s experience in a way that starts to build a narrative for oneself.

And no, 2017 was not uniquely a good year. In fact, in a whole load of private ways, this year was one of the most painful and difficult of my entire life. I don’t dwell on these matters, or even identify all of them, because I don’t want to and it’s too painful. But I suppose I want to acknowledge that they’re there.

The only one I will cast some light on is that writing a novel like INVISIBLE BOYS was a total headfuck and required me to mine the depths of some very old trauma and pain, and this had an enormous effect on me. In fact, when I lived some of the experience that contributes to this fictional book, it nearly killed me. And when I first tried to write about it in 2012, it nearly killed me a second time. In 2017, I managed to revisit it and write about it with honesty and transparency and no sacred cows, and I am still breathing.

In fact, that’s my proudest achievement of 2017: that even after tackling my demons, I’m still breathing.

2018 promises to be an even more arduous year of hard work, dedication, sacrifice and courage (and probably spear-tackling some demons again, just for good measure), so I’m excited to dive in and keep breathing through next year, too.

Congratulations to all of you for surviving 2017, and I can’t wait to travel more of this road with you next year. Happy new year! 🙂

Holden