Dear Me 2025, Revisited

A look back at what I accomplished on WdC this year…

In January, I wrote and submitted a Dear Me letter ("Dear Me 2025" ) exploring my writing goals for the year ahead. It didn't place at the contest, which hardly matters, because it provided an interesting time capsule to evaluate my progress with. Let me bullet point the goals I laid out:

Write 52 stories, one a week, for Jeff's Bradbury and concurrent contest
Submit 25 items to contests and review 25 fellow participants at Annette's I Write
Submit a story to every monthly Official WdC Contest
Participate in every 48 Hour Media Prompt Challenge
Participate in as many Merit Badge Magic projects as available
Complete Lilli ☕'s Promptly Poetry Challenge round 5 and join Round 6
Write for a contest as part of Contest Challenge by Schnujo each month
Write at least one review each day (which usually makes me a Reviewer of the Month at the Angel Army)
Participate in Jeremy's B. E. A. R. reviewing project
Participate in Annette's Anniversary Reviews
Participate in Gervic’s DragonVale

So… How did I do? A quick disclaimer: I decided to drop out of DragonVale this year because it was too much trouble gathering up everything I do around WdC, pasting it in, and calculating my scores, and I didn't want to put myself in the awkward position of always wondering when poor overworked Gervic would get caught up on his end. It just seemed like a behemoth I shouldn't be worrying about anymore.

Also, Jeremy “hibernated” his B. E. A. R. reviewing project in early summer, and in August we had a falling-out, so I did as much as I could there until it was no longer relevant. (We're on good terms again, no worries )

With the dropped projects out of the way, it turns out I not only accomplished everything I set out to do in 2025, but I also went above and beyond in ways I had no idea I would at the beginning of the year.

I didn't write 52 stories. I wrote well over sixty. By the middle of the year, I had a backlog weeks ahead of Jeff's allowed posting dates, and I maintained a safety cushion of drabbles to post in case I suddenly couldn't write anymore. I never had to post a single drabble at the Bradbury; everything I posted there was between 300 and 3k words.

I didn't submit and review 25 items at Annette's I Write. I submitted and reviewed nearly fifty, if I remember correctly, all before September. I worked so enthusiastically at it, Annette ushered me out early with full credit, before I had a chance to write anything for a September contest as required

I've entered at least one of the contests featured in Jody's Contest Challenge each month, earning myself a place at January's super duper MB celebration. (I completed two calendar years of TCC in July.)

I've not only written at least one review each day, but I've also visited WdC, posted in the Newsfeed, posted at a forum, and posted or commented on a blog every day, earning as many of the weekly achievement MBs as applicable (the blogging MB didn't start until March.)

Consequently, I've been an Angel Army Reviewer of the Month every month, usually sharing the spot with a few other members. iKïyå§ama gradually stopped sending out the honorary images to add to our portfolios, which reminds me I should perhaps transfer mine from image items into a photo album.

I participated in Annette's Anniversary Reviews, but not in the way I expected. She went on vacation in July and August and shut down the forum, which I thought was rather ironic, because it meant I didn't receive any anniversary reviews in July, and I couldn't earn the beautiful August AR MB which I'd forfeited in 2024. But then she unveiled her grand plan for September, which more than made up for her absence.

In September of 2025, to celebrate WdC’s 25th anniversary, Annette gathered up dozens and dozens of members who had joined WdC within the first five years and are still active, sorted them into their respective account anniversary months, and allowed us the opportunity to earn all twelve Anniversary Reviews Merit Badges in one month by carefully reviewing five people from each month's grouping.

Rather than going all out and striving for twelve (which would have involved writing sixty reviews to strict standards within the month,) I chose instead to focus on earning the five badges I'd missed out on the previous year. It worked out perfectly. I now own a complete set of Anniversary Reviews Merit Badges, plus the special exclusive Lead Reviewer MB.

Those are the original goals that went above and beyond. A quick rundown of things I didn't even have in mind to do that I ended up succeeding at in 2025:

Choconut hosted a Beatles writing challenge in June. I believe I wrote seven drabbles a week for it, earning an exclusive Olympic medallion and five custom MBs.
Jeff hosted "Musicology Anthology"  from April through June. I chose an album full of ragtag demos I barely knew and wrote a series of fourteen short stories shaped by it, between 1500 and 2k words each, tracing the lives of a detective, his sleuthing partner wife and their adopted daughter. It's the closest I've come to writing a novel.
Bard's Hall hosted a blogging challenge in June. I wrote ten nonfiction blog entries and placed third among at least a dozen participants.
Amalthea announced the eventual shutdown of her prestigious Lodestar contest, so I made an extra effort to write and submit a story each month for her.
I also wrote a nonfiction, philosophical essay (and/or a story) every month for my mentor LightinMind and his Grill a Christian contest.
I entered every month of Bard's Hall and almost every month of Cubby's Writing 4 Kids.
I was published in my first magazine! Thank you, Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈 !
I commissioned my first exclusive Merit Badge and formed my first group, "Love is Best When Shared"  Thank you, Šuŋgmánitu Tȟáŋka !
I completed a mindboggling flurry of party activities in September, to celebrate WdC's 25th anniversary: writing, blogging, reviewing, welcoming newbies, and stuff I can't even remember, among them writing 25 drabbles by the 25th of the month and an epistolary story in the style of Jane Austen.
I navigated the demise of my primary writing device (an old LG smartphone) and transitioned to writing everything on my iPad instead without missing a beat.
I completed eleven months of checking in and reporting my progress on two important daily habits for at least 21 days at Habit Heroes.
Sometime during Musicology Anthology, I started using the Weekly Goals forum to help me keep things straight, and I haven't missed a week of reporting there since.
I also designed and refreshed innumerable word searches for our friend Ẃeβ࿚ẂỉԎḈĥ 2026 , who has an insatiable appetite for them My favorite one is "Raggedy Ann and Andy" 

Good grief, what a year I never thought I would do so much on WdC. I half expected to fall short of some of the goals I'd set. Instead… I overachieved, big-time

What did I learn from such a frenzy of writing, reading, and participating? A lot. I honed and refined my narrative voice, learning to breathe life and emotions into every story. I became more comfortable with nonfiction blogging and essay writing, even when dealing with personal or controversial issues. I strengthened my poetic voice, becoming more distilled, vivid and direct. I navigated some interpersonal drama and am striving to learn how to be a kinder and more accepting person, one with a chaplain's heart. I prayed for people, argued with people, mourned with the mournful, laughed with the jovial, wrestled with the use of AI, helped others improve their work, and generally matured in a multitude of ways.

And, finally, to address the obnoxious voice in my head that I created in my Dear Me letter, I made plenty of time for listening to music. I never felt like I was depriving myself of something I'd rather be doing by writing (except perhaps sleeping!) Indeed, a lot of my work was inspired by songs, either accidentally or by necessity.

Perhaps the most important thing about my 2025 at WdC is not the goals I've achieved or the awards I've won. It's the relationships I've made, mended and maintained. I like to think I'm respected and respectful, trusted and trustworthy. I'm impulsive and occasionally silly or oblivious, but I know when to reevaluate and apologize. I'm on comfortable speaking terms with almost every active member of the site. That is a priceless treasure I'm humbled to acknowledge.

Without every one of you people, I couldn't have reached any of those goals. And without the tireless efforts of The StoryMaster and The StoryMistress , none of this would be taking place at all. I'm blessed to be a member of this thriving online community.

Words: 1460.

STATIC

Dear Me 2025  (E) An argument with myself, almost like an interview.. #2333295 by Amethyst Snow Angel