2: Yearly Wrap Up
Saturday, December 27th, 2025
Hello there. I hope you are well. I write this blog post today primarily for myself, but secondarily for any audience members who are curious. I have a tendency to set lofty expectations for myself, and then find disappointment when I do not accomplish everything that I hoped too. So I want to firstly, make a list of all the significant things I’ve accomplished this year, from a professional sense. Then I’ll set some goals for myself for next year.
For my writing related projects:
Finished “A Taste of Melor” draft 2. This was a major milestone. This project took the better part of 8 months or so, starting in the second half of last year and finishing up around late May. 175k words. This novel has the greatest potential of everything I’ve written so far. But only once more edits have been done. This book will be something to be proud of.
Worked on a Warren & Liam short story. This one took place in Cen Leara, and i had written about 9 chapters of content sitting around 16k words. I don’t think I quite finished this before I decided to move on. I had been discovery writing it and I kinda felt like I was treading water instead of moving forward. Eventually, I decided to move on in the hopes that when I return to it one day, I can quickly finish it up.
Started “The Flame Between Us,” v5. Currently about 9 chapters in, with about 31 (?) chapters left to go. Yeah. This is the part where I say progress has been much slower than anticipated. I thought I would be done editing this by now. Instead, I’m nearly a quarter of the way through. They have been good edits, though. The novel was already in decent shape but I feel like it’s coming alive now. The story is largely fixed in place, so for the first time I’ve gotten to edit at the line level and really try to make the prose sing. It’s been challenging, but rewarding. Still, I feel like my attention span is the worst its ever been. Just getting through a thousand words in a day can feel like such a chore and burden, when it shouldn’t. I really need to get this book written so I can start publishing.
For my music related projects:
Grew Juicebox’s instagram from almost no followers to 218. 26 new posts.
Juicebox played 6 shows this year! (One was even a live radio performance)
Wrote several songs including: “You Say,” “Abyss,” “Glitch,” “Automaton,” “Slip,” all of which are complete or very close to it. I wrote countless other demos that weren’t worthy. I’ve been working hard to learn more about the production side of things. “Slip,” in particular, I’m quite proud of. Altogether I’ve got nearly an album’s worth of originals written.
I’ve been taking singing lessons with Bryan Henry since august. In the 5 months I’ve began, I’ve seen measurable, significant progress. This has been well worth the investment. Singing is something I’ve always loved but something I’ve never been good at. I’m not sure I would qualify as “good” just yet, but I’m on my way.
I’ve continued to play drums. Not sure I would call it practice, since I mostly just jam along to whatever song sounds fun. But I’ve atleast maintained my skills at drums, if not actively improved them. I did transcribe all of “Take Aim,” by Sleep Token, and I hope to record a drum cover of that soon (more on that below). I’ve got somewhere in the range of twelve to fourteen years of drumming experience. I can still see a future where I end up playing drums for a living. I think I have the capability. But is that what I want?
I’ve also continued learning guitar on my own. I’ve not really had a formal teacher, but I’ve been playing for more than two years now. I’ve been able to apply a lot of the wisdom and musicality I learned from drumming to the guitar.
Youtube:
I’m afraid I don’t have a lot to report here. I dropped a vlog from my visit to Philly. It was alright. i felt like I kinda rushed the editing on that one. But there also wasn’t a ton of good content to edit.
I also dropped the louder than life vlog. I branded it as Juicebox content. I’m much more proud of this one. The editing is face pasted and snappy. It’s more entertaining to watch. I ended up cutting a lot of content, per my friend’s recommendations. I think the video ended up better for it.
Other:
I’ve continued to bartend as my primary income. Averaging about thirty hours per week. I’ve got a pretty good setup. I make pretty good money. Of course I wish it could be better, but I know it could be much worse. I’m grateful for what I have. However, I would love to see these projects of mine start bringing in more money so I can scale back the amount of hours spent bartending. Although it can be enjoyable at times, I don’t think it’s my calling in life.
Continued to go the gym and train jiu jitsu. I did not train BJJ as often as I should’ve. I’ll blame laziness and injuries. Hopefully I can improve this in the coming year.
So all of that is what I’ve accomplished so far. Ultimately, I am proud of what I’ve done. It would have been very easy to do even less. However, I will continue to strive for more. I think I let the music take up a little more of my time than I should’ve. It’s hard not to. I love music. Writing it, performing it, listening to it. I love it. But I also must balance that with the fact that I’ve sunk over four years into novelwriting, and I still think that might be my best shot at “breaking out” of normalcy. I think I’ve got something special with the books. I’m uniquely positioned as a younger writer. I’ve got a perspective that few others have. I know there are readers out there who might enjoy my books. I’ve just got to finish polishing and then find a way to get the books in front of people.
Lets set some goals for 2026.
Writing:
Finish TFBU v5. Top priority. I would like to be done with this by the end of March. Earlier would be better. But this sounds realistic. Probably hire another beta reader or two from fiverr. And maybe my critique partner Ember will want to take another look at it.
Warren and Liam’s murder mystery. I wrote this short novel/novella last year. For a first draft, it came out surprisingly clean and tight. This could potentially be ready for readers quite soon. And it’s fun. It’s short. It’d be a good project after TFBU.
"A Taste of Melor,” v3. It will be a behemoth of a book to edit, but it’s got the greatest potential. May as well keep chipping away at it. This could easily take most of the year if I let it.
A new project? I’ve got several unwritten books floating around in my head. I’m probably due to transmutate one of those nebulous ideas into a first draft. If there is time, I’d love to get to this. The aforementioned projects will take priority, however.
Music:
Juicebox needs to play more shows! I’ve already got two booked for february.
I’ve got plans to revamp some of the social media. I should probably make a website.
We will put out at least one single on spotify, apple music, etc. I’d like to record a whole album, but we’ll start with a single, then maybe an EP. If that goes well, we can talk about doing the whole album.
For me specifically, not Juicebox, I want to start recording drum covers. It would help to increase my presence as a drummer. I’ve also toyed with the idea of doing full band covers, not just the drums. I still worry my singing is not quite up to par, but I think it would be fun to learn all the parts to a song. It would certainly demonstrate my abilities as a multi-instrumentalist.
Youtube:
Really need to get back on the writing youtube channel. I don’t particularly love talking to a camera, but I need to start gathering an audience for my books. This is the most straightforward way I can think of. And I’ve been aware of the writing community long enough that I probably have some insights to contribute. I acknowledge I’m still young by writer-standards. I’m trying to think of it less as “preaching what I think I know,” and more as, “documenting my progress.” That distinction helps. I think two videos a month is a reasonable goal. More would be nice. But two per month is do-able.
I think that’s it. I hope I can make 2026 a great year. I hope you can too. Hopefully if you took the time to read this, you got something out of it. If not, sorry lol. To conclude I’m going to write three things I’m grateful for. I invite you to take a moment and think of three things you’re grateful for. For me it has to be: 1. My health. I’m well enough to be active in sports, and mentally well enough to write or perform. I wouldn’t be me without this. 2. My family and friends. I know both groups have my back. They are my refuge when, internally, I am a storm. I can count on them to ground me when I need it. Eternally grateful for all of them. 3. Faith. I don’t consider myself to be particularly religious, yet I still pray. I’ve come to trust and believe that things will work out as they should. This has given me lots of conviction and the ability to move forward, even when uncertainty threatens to destabilze myself or those around me.
Thanks for reading. What are you grateful for?
-Trip C
