This year’s annual review will look very different from years past. I’ve made several changes to my systems, and I’ve let go of many metrics that used to be important to me in favor of a broader sense of satisfaction with my output for the year. I’ve spent a lot of time over the holidays being very honest with myself about the things I put value on and the things I don’t. And while there is an annual review written in which I go very deep into my specifics for the year, the things that worked and didn’t, the numbers, the nitty-gritty of what I accomplished, what went right and what went wrong, and what I plan to do in 2022, I’ve decided those details aren’t vital to this particular post anymore. The specifics aren’t what you come for, anyway, I suspect. 

So here’s the topline takeaway. Because of a thousand reasons and more, I had a lower-than-usual word count year, and I’m resolved to increase that number next year. I did read a lot, though not nearly enough books of my choosing. I swapped out most of my day-to-day business email for Trello, stepping away from the hyperactive hive mind workflow into a better project management system, so it’s impossible to measure that aspect of non-fiction. That falls into the “metrics I no longer track” category. I didn’t achieve all I set out to, but I did finish 11 out of the 14 projects I’d planned. Not perfect, but not terrible, either.

Looking back on 2021 - The Year of Content (and Content)

It’s been a long time coming, but the level of contentment I feel in both my life and my career is off the charts. The work I’ve done over the past several years to revamp my world has paid off. Now it’s time to focus on new work, letting the words flow instead of trying to force them, walking away when the work is done. My approach to the Year of Content is four-fold: Reading for enjoyment, exercising for wellness, living with humility, and creating with intention, as the world slowly returns to its normal axis. 

So how did I do?

You know the saying, “Man plans, God laughs?” That sums up my goal setting and achievement for 2021. The written content was slimmer than usual, my focus was shot, the distractions were enormous. Almost insurmountable. This is my lowest word count year since 2009, when I started tracking my annual numbers. Physical resistance was very high after the great ankle incident, and trust me when I say painkillers, four months of twice-weekly rehab, and creativity do not mix. But I managed to get the standalone edited and sent off during that awful time, then buckled down in the Fall and wrote half of a new Taylor novel. I also published 6 titles, both new and reprints, from Two Tales.

The year had many positive moments. Launching the Joss Walker brand. Meeting and subsequently working with R.L. Perez. Hiring the wonderful folks of Aurora Publicity to help with the back-end of the business. Finishing what I believe is one of my best pieces of work to date, a profoundly emotional and exciting thriller. Getting Two Tales established and learning the indie publishing world. Discovering the joys of a stormy ASMR room to help me focus. Creating a regular and sustained exercise habit. Getting off social media and back into my own head.

Though I didn’t write as much as I wanted, I wrote/co-wrote enough to release three new novels over the next 13 months, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Nitty Gritty: AKA Nerdology

2021 Total Words: 251,267
Fiction Total: 145,000
Non-Fiction Total: 106,267
Fiction Percentage: 58%
Books Read: 91
Creative Projects as J.T. Ellison: 6
Creative Projects as Joss Walker: 4

The Year Ahead:  2022, The Year of Choice

I approached my creative planning differently this year, as well. While I’m doing all the usuals: breaking my projects out in a quarterly plan, scheduling my deadlines, etc., I’m keeping the specifics internal this year. But I will share my two overarching, non-negotiable goals for the year that supersede everything else.

• I want to write more. 

• I want to spend less time on things that take me away from that goal.

I’ve done a deep dive into what choice means to me, creatively and personally. This year’s choices must be in service to the two goals I stated above. On the front-end, looking ahead, this feels a bit selfish, but that’s what will have to happen to achieve what I need to going forward, both this year and into the next decade of my career. I have a LOT of things I want to write for you, both as J.T. and as Joss, and that means outside of A WORD ON WORDS and the new “Behind the Pen” series I’m doing with Jayne Ann Krentz for Poisoned Pen Bookstore, I’m going to be saying no to other things that come at me this year. And I’m going to try very hard not to create internal distractions—pursuing projects that aren’t necessarily in line with these goals. 

I’m very much looking forward to this non-creative sabbatical. I’m sticking with my Fridays-only social media, which feels like a great compromise (and hey, I like talking with people online!), and the remainder of the week will be focused on the deep work creative time I need to get the word counts up and the projects into your hands faster. We’ll see how it goes!

I’d love to hear what your plans are for 2022!

For the past several years, I’ve been doing annual reviews of my life and work, based on the format from Chris Guillebeau’s wonderful Annual Review on his blog, The Art of Non-Conformity. Chris’s system is exceptionally detailed, more so than I really need, but the gist is there. It’s a great system for those of us who are self-employed and want to do an assessment of our work for the year. Here’s the link to the actual post. Go on over there and take a read. I’ll wait. 

And if you're interested, here are the links to my previous annual reviews for 2009 (Too Damn Much), 2010 (Evolution), 2011 (Depth), 2012 (Simplicity), 2013 (Pencil), 2014 (Making Do), 2015 (No), 2016, (Lent), 2017 (Flow), 2018 (Joy), 2019 (Enough), and 2020 (Content).