The Fiction & Apps of Andrew Nicolle

It’s 2019! And with the arrival of the New Year, it’s time to take a look back at 2018 with my annual year-in-review post.

2018 was a good year for me, even with its fair share of ups and downs.

Fitness-wise I didn’t do quite as well as 2017, thanks to our treadmill breaking down later in the year. But I’m apparently still healthy, despite some lingering issues that have persisted over the past few years. I suspect most of that is partly the joy of being in your 40s!

We lost a beloved family pet last year. We bought our son a hamster for his birthday in 2016, and even knowing their short life-spans, we’d hoped it would live at least a few years. After some odd behaviour (biting my wife!) and a middle of the night escape from its cage, our hamster’s health continued to decline. It was sad seeing a healthy, energetic animal who’d spend all night running in her wheel, decline so suddenly. I think we’ve sworn off hamsters for the foreseeable future.

I still enjoy my Magic: The Gathering hobby, frequently attending weekly tournaments at a local game store throughout the year. That tapered off toward the end of the year as I became more worn-out from work, and the existing Standard-format cards rotated out of the format, rendering all my decks obsolete. Lately I’ve been playing more Magic online, in the form of MTG Arena. This is a great improvement over the other online game client (Magic: The Gathering Online aka MTGO), and I’ve been having fun leveling-up my skills and challenging viewers of my Magic YouTube channel. I’ve been testing a new Standard deck that seems to be performing well, so I’ll likely be heading back to the game store to take a paper version of the deck for a spin.

My Magic card unboxing channel continued to grow in 2018, passing 3000 subscribers and finally gaining YouTube monetization (i.e. ads). It has also had nearly 2 million minutes watched since I started it in July 2017, and over 350,000 views. These numbers still boggle my mind, though I suppose consistent effort sometimes yield results! Together with support from patrons (via Patreon), the channel has nearly covered its costs on a monthly basis. Hopefully it will continue to grow this year!

I also started a second YouTube channel back in May related to Funko Pop figures. Besides unboxing and talking about them, I also frequently add some silly skits in each episode. I particularly enjoy the ‘special effects’ aspect of these, even if it can be time consuming. I’m not able to devote as much time to this channel as I’d like, but I look forward to growing it in 2019.

Towards the end of the year we took part in some painting classes as a family, each painting a sunset landscape scene and a whimsical snowman. This was spurred by my wife and son attending a painting event to benefit a local animal shelter. This is something I’ve wanted to get into for years (I briefly tried oil painting), so I’m glad we were able to take these classes.

My fiction writing was non-existent for 2018. I neither wrote any new stories, nor submitted any to fiction markets. I had no real goals in mind, and honestly felt a bit dispirited about the whole thing. The bulk of my spare time was spent on the two YouTube channels and working on my apps. I did have some encouragement from coworkers who discovered my fiction, so that gave my confidence a bit of a boost!

Last year I again took part in the Goodreads Reading Challenge, though I didn’t reach my goal by a long-shot! My reading was exclusively in eBook form. Here are my reads for 2018:

Arsenal by Jeffery H. Haskell
Unstoppable Arsenal by Jeffery H. Haskell
Inescapable Arsenal by Jeffery H. Haskell
Let’s Get Digital 3rd Edition by David Gaughran
Shift by Hugh Howey
Outline Your Novel by Scott King
Dust by Hugh Howey
Plot Gardening by Chris Fox
Be A Writing Machine by M. L. Ronn
Heart Strings by Domino Finn
Powder Trade by Domino Finn
How to Write Your First Novel by M. L. Ronn
Writing for Life by J. H. Haskell

Aside from listening to heavy metal on SiriusXM, I still listen to some great short fiction podcasts on my daily commute, including Escape Pod, Pseudopod, and PodCastle. All highly recommended! The podcasts are free, but please donate or subscribe if you enjoy listening.

Now for some stats:

2018 Stats:

My iOS, Mac and PC app sales have declined significantly, particularly in the final quarter of 2017. I only released two app updates, having struggled for months to add support for the iPhone X screen layout and the myriad other changes in iOS 11 and iOS 12. I’d completed this process for one app, only to have Apple to release more new iPhones and iPads with even more screen variations. While I should have a good handle on making these updates, the more painful aspect is updating several hundred screenshots for all my apps in multiple languages. If only the screenshot automation tools were more reliable! Revenue was significantly lower than last year, though I did manage to keep expenses much lower also.

I released a new app in February, which was the PC version of Artwork Tracker. Despite numerous requests for this app over the years, sales so far have been abysmal. I’ve also had requests for a PC version of my iOS app, Plant Album, but I’m not planning such an app due to poor sales. At this point it seems like I’m close to saturating the market for my apps, but I’m hoping to stabilize the trend with more updates. Failing that, I’ve had a good run, having been working on my apps for over 10 years now!

As with last year, I didn’t do much with my bonsai this year except keep the remaining trees alive. There were no bonsai shows or botanic garden visits either. I still spent a fair bit of time in the garden this year, growing the usual selection of veggies (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, peas, beans, cucumbers, and zucchini). We had a nice crop this year!

Last year was another great year, travel-wise. In addition to our trips back and forth to Michigan, we also spent some time in Florida, and went on our first cruise with the in-laws. We visited Miami, Key West, Costa Maya (Mexico), the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza (Mexico), Grand Cayman, and Universal Studios. I enjoyed the cruise much more than I thought I would. The seas were pretty calm, and no one was seasick! In addition to this grand adventure, we also spent a few days at a cabin in the woods in Michigan, visited a Halloween event at Old World Wisconsin, and made a short pre-Christmas visit to Milwaukee.

The summer of 2018 was also apparently the summer of home improvement! We knew our roof and gutters were in bad shape, but we didn’t know exactly how bad until we had them inspected. We ended up with a new roof, soffit, fascia, and gutters! Now we’re having a much less stressful winter knowing the roof isn’t likely to cave-in or leak anytime soon due to snow and ice build-up. The downside is we’ll be paying for all this for a long time…

That’s pretty much it for 2018. I’m mostly done with New Year’s resolutions, since that’s an almost guaranteed way to ensure none of those goals are ever reached. Though I would like to make some time for my fiction writing again in 2019, assuming I can fit it in with all my other hobbies!

I hope everyone had a good year, and I wish you all the best for 2019. Happy New Year!