The end of another year. And you know what, it was a pretty fucking good one. It had some rough patches, but stepping back and looking at it as a whole I'm happy with what I accomplished this year.

Which makes me pause. In my 2024 retrospective last year, I talked a little about how I wanted to stop framing everything I do in terms of "accomplishment", especially as I try to detangle myself and my creative output from my income. This year has been pivotal for me in realigning the direction of my career, and even though I'm currently in the midst of still ironing out that realignment, I find myself continually going back to this idea of success and achieving and then having to yank myself back like a dog on a lead. On one hand, its unhealthy to want everything I do to be productive in some way, or something I can tick off a list. But on the other, I like doing things; I like having goals and plans and projects, and I like finishing them, and I like ticking off lists. One of my goals for next year will be to balance this sense of needing to do with the idea that it's okay not to do, or to do with less return - something I'm sure I'll come across as I take a step back from Quindrie Press and focus more on small-scale personal projects with my partner.

Anyway. All that to say, I did accomplish stuff this year, even if I feel iffy about that word. I've got a lot of thoughts about what I did in 2025 so let's get into it.

Personal accomplishments

  • I got married! :)

  • I continued my Japanese lessons! I have a lesson every two weeks and even though I fell off consistent personal study (including Wanikani) I stuck it out. These regular lessons have been really good for building my speaking confidence, even if I'm still struggling to use complicated grammar, and I'm pleased myself for doing it for over a year at this point.

  • I exercised more! I got myself a treadmill for under my desk and while I haven't used it consistently, I have used it (in fact in the middle of writing this I realised I could be using it right now so I stopped and set it up to walk while I type) and that's the important thing. Even if it still isn't better than actually going for walks, it's better than nothing. I also took part in a medical study tracking back pain which involved doing exercise in a pool 2-3 times a week for 14 weeks, which was so good for me mentally if not necessarily physically. Small but steady improvements.

  • I started reading way, way more! I was one of those voracious readers when I was younger, but once I left for uni I slowly stopped reading until it got to the point where I basically wasn't reading anything except social media and comics. I love comics, but I've been desperately wanting to get back into reading the way I used to read, and this year was explosive. There were multiple steps to this:

    1. I decided to do a reading challenge. I picked out 12 books, one per month, and put them all on my bedside table. No matter what else I did that month, I had to read that month's book, and when I was done I got to add it to my reading blog with a star rating and maybe even a little review. This worked really well; the only downside was the first few fiction books I picked were all frustrating and extreme slogs to get through, followed by a distressing nonfiction read. But I stuck it out, and even when I didn't finish the book of the month I still made myself read a different book to complete the one-book-a-month challenge.

    2. I have so many physical books that I haven't read, so the point of the one-book-a-month challenge was also to whittle down my collection. However, I suddenly remembered that I still had my old Kindle Keyboard (which I hadn't touched in like ten years) so I dug it out and started looking into how to crack it and how to change the battery. Both turned out to be super easy and I read a few more ebooks on top of my monthly challenge. The thing that really dragged me back into reading on an ereader was the Martha Wells Humble Bundle deal with all the Murderbot books; my friend has been telling me to read them for ages so I finally started on a long drive, and ended up reading the first four within like 24 hours. It was insane. I was like omg.. is this.... reading..?

    3. Intermission: flashback. About a month before swallowing all of Murderbot in one gulp, I'd suddenly decided it was time for my partner and I to go and set up our library cards. I've lived in Edinburgh for almost a decade and I had a library card that whole time, but I hadn't used it at all. I had this romantic idea of us going to the library together every couple of weeks to pick out some books to read and also I was in the middle of one of my insane writing throes (more on that later) so I wanted to check out some reference books. Guys, the library is incredible?! I am genuinely so fucking library-pilled now. My local library has sooo much on offer and you can borrow DVDs and there are events and you can just go and hang out and I love the library. I love the library.

    4. Anyway, around my birthday, I was telling my other friends about the sudden return of my lust for reading and how I'd cracked my Kindle, and one of them was like "ah, but it's still a Kindle... if it was a Kobo, you could borrow ebooks on it through Libby". And I said "what". And I spent the next 12 hours reading about Kobo ereaders and watching comparison videos and reading reviews and learning about Libby and 24 hours after that I asked for a Kobo for my birthday and had placed 15 holds on Libby and 36 hours after that I was reading one million books on my brand new Kobo. Guys, the library is fucking incredible, and I'm so, so, so happy with my new ereader. Genuinely, if you've been wanting to get back into reading but you don't really know where to start, at the very least you should sign up to your library and download the Libby app to borrow some books for free to read on your phone. This is going to turn into an ad for Kobo so I'll stop gushing, but upgrading my ereader was actually gamechanging for my brain. I'm back to reading. I'm so happy.

    5. When I do read, I read EXTREMELY quickly, so I've been DEVOURING books ever since. I've got multiple reading projects on the go now: as well as just reading whatever interests me from the library or the Kobo eshop, I've continued my monthly challenge, but I also set up my own version of a Read Around the World challenge which I've seen multiple people doing. Instead of aiming to read one book from every country within a year, I've just picked out a fiction book from each country and added it to my To Read list. I'm not going to focus on this challenge, but I would like to pick away at it over the next several years. I've also set about aiming to read all the Discworld novels in chronological order. Guys, reading is so good. I'm done talking about reading now I promise.

Creative accomplishments

  • I released Where is Charlie King?! This was a project my partner and I have had in the works for a little while. At the beginning of this year, it was nowhere near ready for release - and then I was like, hey, teehee, what if we did Charlie like right now? And then we had two weeks of insanity, busting out nearly the entire project in a fortnight, and we blasted through the Kickstarter goal and put 100 packages together and sent it and it was done. We had a crazy fast turnaround on that project and it was sooo much fun to do. I'll be writing up a little bit about our process at some point, but if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can read more about Charlie here!

  • I put out some blogposts I'm proud of! The second half of the year definitely quietened down once I got hit with a bunch of difficult work, but I wrote about the contract in the Nosferatu films, which was given a big thumbs up by the artist who did the calligraphy for the 2025 film, and I also wrote an insane analysis of the languages in the BBC TV adaptation of China Miéville's The City & the City, which is a boring show for a boring book but somehow I had one million things to say. These were both a lot of fun to research and write and almost definitely led to the fact that...

  • I started writing a book! My undergraduate degree was in linguistics and for my dissertation I wrote about conlangs (constructed languages) and whether the creator or the fans who speak those languages are the ones who "own" the language. At the start of this year I was going to tidy up that dissertation to archive it here on my blog, but like an idiot I realised I could do a little bit more research to see how things had changed in the 10 years since writing it, and then I was like oh I could reinterview some people... oh I could add the chapter I started writing but had to cut for the word count... oh I could add entirely new chapters with new interviews and new research... It's a 30,000+ word book now, and counting. It'll be out when it's out, but it's been so gratifying working on something personal that isn't a comic. This is the year of "fuck comics actually".

  • I started writing... a second book! This one is a collaborative project with my partner and we're nowhere near ready to begin talking about it, but it's been fun getting stuck into yet another storytelling medium.

Career accomplishments

  • We had an exhibition, talk, and signing for Ruin! In February, Spire and I ran an exhibition with our friend Ver featuring Ruin of the House of the Divine Visage and Ver's comic Sacred Bodies at our favourite local comic shop, La Belle Adventure. The exhibition looked amazing, and Spire and I were so touched by the turnout to our talk/signing. I've run launch events for Quindrie books in the past, but never for my own book, so this felt very special, especially getting to share it with my partner and gush about how talented he is.

  • I set up a CIC! Joining forces with my friends Brian Tyrrell (who I co-created TAGS Fest with) and Faye Stacey (who created Sequential Scotland), I set up a Community Interest Company called Small Press Scotland CIC. It's an official business with a listing on Companies House and everything. I'm so proud of what the three of us have managed to do on our own, and with SPS we can hopefully put on even bigger and better events (and get paid for it!).

  • I ran a Quindrie Press pop-up event! I'd been wanting to try putting on an event just for Quindrie creators for a little while, and the Fringe seemed a great time to do it. We ran it on a Sunday in a wee café right in the city centre, with 6 creators as well as myself selling the other Quindrie Press books. The event went great, with a good turnout and just lovely vibes. I'd definitely like to do more things like that in the future.

  • So many awards...
    • Ruin got nominated for multiple awards! We were nominated for an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Story, and three Selkie Awards for Best Narrative (which we won!!!), Best Graphic Novel, and Best Art (and that last one was all Spire, he did an incredible job). I'm so, so pleased by the reception to our little passion project.
    • I was nominated for the Creative Edinburgh Leadership Award!
    • And then TAGS Fest was nominated for the Creative Edinburgh Festivals Award!!

  • We upgraded TAGS Festival! This year we held the event over two days and included a full roster of panels/talks, as well as expanded the Market to a bigger space and expanded the Board Game Zone to the room the Market had been in previously. The weekend went off without a hitch and I was telling everyone who asked that I was bored, because I had nothing to do, because everything was going so smoothly. What a great problem to have.

  • .....I closed Quindrie Press. I've already written about the reasons why in the closing statement, but this was a big decision for me and I'm disappointed it had to be done but also glad at the same time. I'm very proud of what I've done with Quindrie and I'm looking forward to whatever comes next.

Top books & comics I read this year

I'm delighted by how many books I can add to this section this time! For a full list of all the books I read this year plus mini reviews check out my reading blog, which I update regularly now.

  • I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
  • Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton
  • Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
  • Blood on the Tracks (血の轍) by Shūzō Oshimi
  • Lolita by Vladimir Nobokov
  • There There by Tommy Orange
  • The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey
  • Anatomy of an Angel by Oscar Woodiwiss
  • Refuse to be Done by Matt Bell
  • Ornithomancy by Lily Vie

Top songs I discovered this year

Top things I watched this year

  • Hundreds of Beavers
  • How Many Times Can You Pee in Heavy Rain? by Allie Meowy
  • Hadestown (I saw it last year as well, but this year I took my partner to see it and it was so, so, so special)
  • Sinners
  • The Handmaiden
  • 28 Years Later
  • Lachlan Werner: WonderTwunk

Top games I played this year

  • Xenolanguage
  • This Discord Has Ghosts In It
  • Deltarune
  • Promise Mascot Agency
  • Hollow Knight: Silksong

Did I achieve what I wanted this year?

I did a lot of unexpected things this year, so even if I didn't hit all of my goals I don't care. Let me look at what I wanted to achieve this year:

  • Exercise: Not consistently, but I did more than previous years!
  • Successfully pull off Mystery Inhibit Thing: This one fell by the wayside unfortunately, I just had too much other stuff going on. I'll see if I'll be able to circle back to it later, but I may have missed the boat on it.
  • Read a novel in Japanese: Did not do this, but did read a couple of children's manga lmao.
  • Attend ECCC or VanCAFe: Didn't happen. Maybe next year...? Travel is rough for trans folks right now.
  • Collaborate with my partner on a non-story/comic thing: Okay yeah kinda! I'd count Charlie King as this!

Plans for 2026

I want to be a bit loose with these, but it's hard when you have terminal Project Brain.

  • Finish the next two chapters of Inhibit! I didn't get to work on it nearly as much as I would have liked this year. It would be nice to build a buffer back up again.
  • Finish the first draft of my conlang book! I'm nearly done; I only have one chapter and the conclusion, as well as some data analysis to do, and I'll have a complete draft.
  • Host a "land" party for Quindrie Press! Needs a better name, but the opposite of a launch party to send it on its way :')
  • Release an issue of IMPmag! This is a very small-scale project I've been tinkering with over the last few months. I mean it, small-scale. This is not Quindrie level.
  • Return to the Build-A-Language zine! This was on my goals list for 2024 and it's been in my pocket for like six years at this point, but now that I'm forcing myself to focus on smaller projects, maybe I'll actually be able to work on it even if I don't end up finishing it this year.

I don't have anything pithy to wrap up this retrospective with. I'm just at a very happy and content point in my life, with lots of supported friends and loved ones, and I have stuff I want to make. And I'm gonna. Happy new year, everyone. You should transition.