2023 Report Card

It’s been a hot minute since I did a report card. Four years to be exact. That said, it’s funny because between this post and the last one, a pandemic has happened and a LOT of the goals I wrote in a blog post didn’t get done, even if several did.

 

Stuff I did get done:
The second volume of my Daydreams on the Sherbet Shore... and that’s it. Lol. If you want to see my report card for 2019 and the goals I had for 2020 that got absolutely derailed, check the post here.

 

If like me, you’d rather focus on the here and now, then keep reading.

 

So 2023 was a year with LOTS of ups and downs. The highs were wonderful with my first prose book in Spanish thanks to my dark short story collection: Penumbra. I also published Daydreams 2 and finished the first draft of Beyond Human. I went to the Puerto Rico Comic Con and had the best show in terms of sales I’ve ever had plus had the company of my brother from another mother, Mr. Joe Compton, representing Go Indie Now and allowing me the pleasure of showing him a bit of the Island though there’s still SO much to see. I did some live shows but then I hit a rough ole patch, lost momentum, and had to push through to get past several obstacles.

 

Part of getting past those obstacles was learning to say no to several events and even cancel some because I was in no shape to participate. In that sense, there were a lot of heavy moments, some of which I’ll talk about later, but rest assured I had to adjust a lot of things.

 

In October I went to Chicago for the first time on a trip with my oldest brother and I had an absolutely wonderful time and really enjoyed my time in Chicago, everything I shared with the bro, the Peter Gabriel concert, the food, and the sights. The only thing I didn’t enjoy was getting COVID, which truly ruined a bunch of plans I had for October, including properly celebrating my anniversary. To boot, I coughed so much that I got a nasty back spasm that put me out of commission further for several days and took me several weeks to get back to normal.

 

But I ended the year going to Puerto Rico and spending time with the family. The trip also came with its own sets of challenges, but rather than talking about that, I’ll focus on the last full week, how I was able to spend a lot of time with the family and go surf five times in one week.

 

I didn’t meet my Goodreads goal but I still read 32 books, which is respectable. I also used my time out of commission in October to recalibrate and refocus myself and have been able to do some writing every single day since mid-October.

 

As you can see, it was up-down-up-down-up-down and so on and so forth. Still, it was a good year. Had some decent sales on Amazon, was able to coordinate with a book distributor to have my books in PR, was able to coordinate to have ALL my books in the ex-alum collection at my alma mater, and saw a lot of friends. Two huge highlights are thanks to two friends and want to make a specific shoutout to Judyliz Díaz, whom I know from my college days. Thanks to her, a classroom in the states purchased and discussed my bilingual collection Twenty Veinte. Secondly, I want to give a shout also to my wonderful horror brother from another mother, Mr. Ángel Isian for being so kind as to invite me to give a poetry workshop to his students. These are two beautiful highlights that I didn’t talk about much because I got distracted by life, but I’ll be talking about these experiences and more soon.

 

Did I have failures? Yes. 

 

Are there areas of opportunity? What can I say? I’m Only Human. 

 

Will there be goals I’ll bring to this year? You can bet your top, middle, or bottom dollar.

 

Is this good or bad? Neither. It’s life. And life brings surprises. Some are great and some are rough as hell. But you keep moving forward.

 

I had every intention of participating in more collections, but things didn’t pan out. That said, I still submitted one story which I still hope will be picked up for a Spanish horror short story collection. And it’s up to me, whether I focus on the one I was able to submit to or the three others I was not able to. It’s a tendency to focus on the negative or let that drag us down.

 

But I refuse to only focus on the negative.

 

Some great things happened last year. That’s not me looking at silver linings. That’s not me being an optimist. That’s a fact. And I choose to celebrate the good more than the bad, because I can, and so can you.

 

As for a grade, being objective, I’d give myself and A- or B+. Hovering between those two, which still puts me in good shape for this new semester. 

 

 

Peace, love, and maki rolls