It's just about the end of 2017, and what an interesting year it's been. For me, it's definitely been a busy year. I started two new podcasts, did a lot more paying comedy shows than I have since I started, and there have been a lot of personal struggles that have made this a tumultuous year. Overall, it's hard to say if it's been a good year or not. Most certainly it hasn't been politically, but creatively, it might be inching towards a net positive. Let me go through some of the accomplishments of this year:
- Co-Created and produced two new ongoing podcasts
- Produced a live comedy show
- Recorded 3 podcasts at a table in a comic book convention
- Spoke with an actor who played multiple roles in the Star Wars franchise
- Met personal heroes at PAX Unplugged
- Renewed my motivation for maintaining an ongoing webcomic
- Hosted mics at Comedy Works in Saratoga, NY
- Lived through the first year of Trump's presidency
That all is pretty good! But I'm not going to just coast on my coat tails in the coming year. There is a lot more work to do and a lot more things I aim to accomplish. This past year, regular updates for the podcast winded down to about once a month. Twice a month if things were good, but I was very disappointed in myself that the main podcast I created for this site wasn't being updated with the same frequency as my other shows. So, I would like to make a few resolutions for things to come in 2018:
- Weekly podcasts of The Write Idea Workshop, RADIOLEARY and Kaizen Komedy
- Weekly blog posts with updates of things around the Write Idea Workshop universe.
- Monthly writing challenges posted in the workshop exercises section of the site
- A soon to be announced webcomic with bi-weekly updates
Some of you may be asking ' Ryan, how the hell do you plan to do all this? We've heard this sort of talk from you before, and you dropped the ball like it was a flaming bag of shit?' Well, voice in my head, I'm more confident I will be able to maintain and get this all done because I have ceased imbibing alcohol for the foreseeable future, and I need a lot of stuff to keep myself busy. Previously, not to make excuses but, being drunk made it way more difficult to maintain any sort of regular schedule, because I couldn't remember what I had agreed to do. I missed all kinds of deadlines, birthdays, important phone calls, shows I had agreed to perform at... it wasn't a great time in retrospect. So now, having been clean and sober for a few months, I'm feeling confident I can maintain such a schedule. Additionally, I've already started on several of these aforementioned projects/additions to make sure I stay timely.
In closing, I just wanted to take a minute and thank you, dear listener/reader, for continuing to check out this podcast, this website, and all the weird stuff I've been doing for the past five years. As long as you keep listening, I'll keep making stuff.
Thanks, and have a safe and happy New Year
- Ryan
