Ichigo’s MJ’s Resolve

Wow, it’s been a while, I realize. The holidays took over my life for a bit, but now I’m back into the daily grind. I worked a lot on the graphic novel over the past week, and things are really starting to take shape. I won’t have as much time, now that I’m back to work, but I’m trying to set some realistic goals over the next few months to keep myself motivated. I truly have never had an original project of my own that excited me as much as this one does, which helps too. I’m hoping to have a final script for the entire series completed by the end of the year, and possibly even well before then, depending on how demanding the rest of my life is. I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions, because I think they tend to set a person up to fail, so I’m not going to make one. But my desire to complete this project is strong, as is my resolve to do so.

I also did some reading over the holidays! With the help of various gift cards, and the recent manga sale at Borders, I’ve managed to read through volume 2 of Mushishi (so good), volume 10 of Bleach, volume 4 of xxxHolic, volume 5 of Death Note, volume 2 of Maison Ikkoku, and volume 2 of Banana Fish. I’d be further along in both the last two series there, but for some reason, it’s been nearly impossible to get the third volume of either of them. I have both on order from vaguely sketchy sources, and they are supposedly on their way, but meanwhile, I’m stuck at volume 2. All of these series have gotten more and more interesting to me as I go, so I’m anxious to continue all of them. I also picked up volume 1 of Basara, and volume 1 of Tactics, both of which I’m a bit iffy on so far, but it often takes me a couple of volumes to really get into a series, so I’m not passing judgement just yet. I’ll buy at least one more volume of each. The dork document has been updated to reflect all this, though I realize now that I need to move Tactics up to the top section.

It’s strange to think back on 2007, and realize that at this time last year, I hadn’t even considered reading or watching any Japanese fiction. 2007 was a strange year. In some ways, it was the hardest year I’ve been through in a long time, and there were challenges and difficulties presented to me then that I am still struggling with, and probably will be for a long time. On the other hand, my life has changed in ways that could never have imagined, and there are elements of that change that are so exciting, I can’t help but feel grateful for them. I suppose in the end, I can say that 2007 was a dramatic year, in both difficult and wonderful ways, and I probably could not have had one without the other. All I can do now, is try to shape 2008 in the direction of wonder. I wish the same for all of you.