What I've Done During Our Year of Dumpster Fire 2025

I keep saying I'm going to write this post, but so much of this year has been overwhelming and traumatic in ways that make me run and hide from having to look back. I also recognize that's part of why I need to write this post. I need to see the places where creativity and exploration grew through the cracks like dandelions in the sidewalk. Remind me to tell you the dandelion story someday. Not today, though. I've already got a lot to cover here. 

(Three very large piles of origami cranes in a variety of colors.)

I started the year with a commitment to folding one thousand origami cranes, and I did it! I'm thankful for everyone who told me how much they loved seeing the pictures each day. Each crane was folded as a prayer, but I don't know how far I would have made it if I hadn't had those little messages of joy and hope.

(Green cherry tomatoes growing on a plant with a red brick wall in the background.)

After too many years of not growing tomatoes, I grew cherry tomatoes from seeds this year. I used to grow tomatoes every year. This was taking a step back into doing it, and I hope to have more pictures of tomatoes than anyone really wants to see next year!

I also managed to save some plants a family member didn't realize they weren't going to have time for until half the plants were dead. The other half were so close to crossing that line that they were already being counted as functionally dead. It took several hours of hard physical work, a deal with a family of skinks, dues paid to a couple of vultures, but plants were saved! It looks like I'll be responsible for the vegetable garden next year. 

Many, many years ago, a much younger version of me made a promise to myself that I would be an author and have my writing published. The time on that was "someday", so I had a lot of flexibility. I finally kept that promise this year! I published Roll for Divination!, a guide for divination using polyhedral dice usually used for tabletop roleplaying games. I don't see as many books about dice divination out there as other forms, and I put a lot of work into developing my own system, so I was very excited about writing a guide. 

No, really...very excited! In fact, I decided to publish more of my writing! I had been writing short stories that take place in the same world for a while, and I had closed the Substack they used to be available on. It just took a couple more stories and some cleaning up for me to publish my six story collection, Forest Tales. While it's not set in that world, those stories did have some influence in creating a solo journal rpg, Art Grimoire. I made it as a game system of art and wordbuilding prompts. No two grimoires will come out the same, not even if they are made by the same person.

I thought that would be my limit for this year. Already having things written and mostly written made it easier to get started, but now I'm working from blank beginnings that take time to build. I've talked before about keeping more than one project going so that I can switch when I hit a wall in creativity. Something that started as a side project just for myself is my return to writing poetry. I've written a lot more poems than I've shared this year, and sorting through them led to publishing a collection of cinquains, Little Things. I'm enjoying this so much that I wrote one for this post! 

This year

is like my first

marriage. Yes, there have been

some good moments, but it still needs

to end. 

While I do write free verse poems, and I'm sure I'll share some eventually, forms that have a syllable count seem to be really helpful for talking to myself. It gives me tools to put little pieces of my soul into words. 

I've got a Lovecraftian Mythos story in the works, and I already have some ideas for a sequel because I don't think it would go well if I crammed it all into one book. I'm also working on something that I'm not sure yet if it will be one big story, or several related short stories. I don't see either of those being finished soon. Even if I can get one of them out next year, I seriously doubt being able to publish both of them in 2026. (Yes, I do know how quickly Fahrenheit 451 was written, but I'm not Ray Bradbury.) I'm still writing poems, feeling like they develop in the back of my mind and then take my focus away from everything else until I stop and write them. That might mean I publish another collection next year. Or it could mean I just keep adding to the collection nobody but me sees. Poems are the least planned part of my writing.

What else did I do this year? You know, in the Stuff I'll Be Happy to Look Back On Later category.

I took up juggling! I know, that doesn't sound like a wise decision for someone who once ended up in the ER with a dislocated shoulder as a result of a hula hooping injury. It's okay, though! I started with bean bags so nothing and no one would get broken.

(A clear acrylic ball, about the size of a tennis ball, resting balanced on the back of a white person's hand held up in the air.)

Okay, yeah... that's not a bean bag. I'm not getting any less clumsy as I age, and standard Rhythm of Tossing and Catching juggling just wasn't working. It led me to contact juggling, though. I understand why you might think this would also be sending an invitation and setting a place at the table for accidents. It turns out contact juggling is a very soothing sensory experience for me, though. Hey, I trip over my own feet, but I used to be agile and graceful on skates. It's kind of like that.

For the final thing, I want to remember that this is the year when I went back to knitting a special blanket. I'm determined to have it finished by March so it will not take longer than ten years. 

There is no erasing how horrible this year has been. I don't give up hope, though, and few have ever successfully torn it away from me. A lot of the things I did this year planted seeds for next year. I hope you'll be here with me to see what grows.