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2025 accounting

Doing an end-of-year accounting is a tradition for me. It helps me see where I am and where things are going; what I did, what I hoped to accomplish but could not, and what I am planning for the year ahead.

This year introduced significant changes to my life, along with some hiccups and "what the hell" scenarios that affected everything.

What Happened

I lost my grandmother. She was my last close “primary” family member. While loss itself is a period of reflection with its emotional toll, it is also a significant bureaucratic burden when you are the sole survivor. I spent four months dealing with paperwork. Thanks to my brother-in-law Ozan and my comrade Onur, the three of us tackled it together.
I got laid off thanks to tariffs and the AI craze, but found a new job in less than two months with better pay and a much better promise. The transition still affected things with additional work hours, more effort, and learning in a high-tech environment. My director left three weeks after I was hired for personal reasons, which did not help, ha!
My partner Jeff lost his mother out of the blue. This affected our work with Realm Walkers, and we had to juggle priorities.
I moved to a new home in a new city. Moving is chaotic and takes serious planning, especially when you are working ten-hour days.

What I Achieved

Despite all of this, here is what got done:

Finished writing and rewriting Resent, the next book in The Blackened Prophecy saga. It is not ready for release yet—I have at least two more rounds of editing ahead—but it is close.

The artwork for Resent, book one of The Shadow War trilogy; the next chapter in The Blackened Prophecy saga.

Completed the artwork for the next set of books in The Blackened Prophecy, working again with the amazing Tom Edwards as I did with the previous books.
Recorded a good chunk of Maegi 3, including guest artist sessions. We have some leads and vocals left.
The new Maegi artwork is also done. I worked with Ferry Irawan, a brilliant artist from Indonesia. I am looking forward to collaborating with him more!
Formed Realm Walkers Beer Co., Inc. This is something I had hoped to do for a long time, but was definitely not planning for 2025. The stars aligned, and here it is! This took a good portion of my mental space and time. It is not a hobby project; it is a full-blown beer company. We released our first batches already! From planning to first batches and agreements in seven months, while staying under budget, is a significant win that all our consultants, peer leaders, mentors, and followers praised. Many things are brewing (yes, I did the pun) for Realm Walkers!

What I Missed

From this perspective, I missed all the targets I set back in December 2024, haha!

The Shadow War Trilogy Book 1: Almost done, but still needs another two months or so to cook in editing. I am pleased with where it is, but I need to polish it after taking some time away.
The Eighth: Still cooking. I have done some more work, but not enough to mention. It is mainly about the setting at this point.
Demise of Hopes: I actually wrote this, but I am not happy with it, and I want to rewrite it. So, a net miss.
Maegi 3: We said from the beginning that we would take our time. This year brought lots of good progress: guitars done, keyboards done, all guest artists recorded, but not everything is finished. Solos, some leads, clean guitars, and my vocals remain. It sounds like a lot, but not that bad. Vocals will take time since I need to reconstruct a vocal booth first.
The secret project: This requires one of my partners to take the lead, and he had his doctoral thesis defense, his marriage, and his firstborn all happen within three months. That kind of squished him. So, this project IS going on, but it is intentionally going slowly. It may seem like a fail, but it actually created room to launch Realm Walkers—so it was not a loss, just a swap.

2026 Goals

Plans are always doomed to fail thanks to things outside of my control, but I like to set goals. I am a "Project Man," as Onur always calls me.