It's that time of year again. Here's what I posted last year for my 2010 goals, with some pity response to how things actually went down.
Oh, yeah... I do have a Wii Fit, don't I? I did manage to lose some weight, but it always managed to find its way back from the desolate backroads I had driven down to throw it out of the car. The upside here is that I have at least "maintained" instead of gaining more weight. Small consolation, but at least I learned a few tricks to help with an exercise routine.
3) (b) Marketing and sending submissions out.
6) Finish cleaning out at the old house. At this point, 99% of what I have left is stuff to be thrown away, which is something that I figure should be my work to do, not somebody elses.
2) Read 26-30 "new" books. [I have already gone through and pulled about twenty books, so far, to work on...] *I made it in 2009. Assuming I can do it again for the next two years as well, I'll consider increasing the target, but for now, it's still a good target.
Big 10-4. Final count was 35. I could have tried to squeeze one more in this last week, but just wasn't feeling it, between the holidays, and just trying to claim "vacation" for a few days before the new year starts, and a new slate starts. More on that in the 2011 Outlook, still to come.
3) (a) Write. The daily routine (500-1000 words per day), with the year's target being at least: 2 books (50k+ words) [finishing the two "Novels-in-Progress"], 6 short stories/novellas [three a given for class, and probably more that will be specifically going towards thesis plans], 1 script (long form) [draft]. Somewhere in all of this, I hope to also have most (if not all) of the thesis done. At the very least, I hope to have it ready to go so it can be submitted relatively early in the Spring 2011 semester, so I can call it a degree... Not quite. Almost there for the 6 shorts (a couple of them started as shorts, and the ideas kept growing into something bigger than a regular short story could hold, then they had to be turned in for class, still a fragment of what they are crying to be)... Scratch the script. The thesis was finished (not quite to the extent I was intending, but enough to graduate). And I wrote a few other things not listed above that has started me thinking about other types of writing as well. Except poetry.
3) (a) Write. The daily routine (500-1000 words per day), with the year's target being at least: 2 books (50k+ words) [finishing the two "Novels-in-Progress"], 6 short stories/novellas [three a given for class, and probably more that will be specifically going towards thesis plans], 1 script (long form) [draft]. Somewhere in all of this, I hope to also have most (if not all) of the thesis done. At the very least, I hope to have it ready to go so it can be submitted relatively early in the Spring 2011 semester, so I can call it a degree... Not quite. Almost there for the 6 shorts (a couple of them started as shorts, and the ideas kept growing into something bigger than a regular short story could hold, then they had to be turned in for class, still a fragment of what they are crying to be)... Scratch the script. The thesis was finished (not quite to the extent I was intending, but enough to graduate). And I wrote a few other things not listed above that has started me thinking about other types of writing as well. Except poetry.
3) (b) Marketing and sending submissions out.
Did some research, sent a few pieces out, but it was lower on my priority list while classes were in session.
4) Train for the local Biathlon (to be held 18 April 10 - 3 mile run, and 15 mile ride).
4) Train for the local Biathlon (to be held 18 April 10 - 3 mile run, and 15 mile ride).
Nice thought, but missed the weekend.
5) Get "A"s in my classes. Close. Ended up with 1 B (from the same instructor that gave me my previous B), in a class that I didn't really feel like it taught me anything that I was hoping to learn from it. But I graduated, a full semester ahead of when I was originally planning, and took an extra class that I didn't really need but took it for the experience to boot.
5) Get "A"s in my classes. Close. Ended up with 1 B (from the same instructor that gave me my previous B), in a class that I didn't really feel like it taught me anything that I was hoping to learn from it. But I graduated, a full semester ahead of when I was originally planning, and took an extra class that I didn't really need but took it for the experience to boot.
6) Finish cleaning out at the old house. At this point, 99% of what I have left is stuff to be thrown away, which is something that I figure should be my work to do, not somebody elses.
With someone else living in the house, it becomes more an issue of matching schedules, or communicating fairly well to say, "Hey, mind if I come spend some time in your attic?" Circumstances improved late in the year to make the communicating a little easier, but getting good weekend time lined up has proven difficult.
7) Travel - like last year, 1-2 "good" trips, just me and MC, with a few weekend jaunts free of any familial obligations. [The "good" trips are already planned... A trip out to Denver in May so we can check out the area and a school out there that I'm considering for a PhD program, as well as a weekend trip to Boston in July for a conference.]
7) Travel - like last year, 1-2 "good" trips, just me and MC, with a few weekend jaunts free of any familial obligations. [The "good" trips are already planned... A trip out to Denver in May so we can check out the area and a school out there that I'm considering for a PhD program, as well as a weekend trip to Boston in July for a conference.]
Denver was good, Boston (Burlington, actually) was fun. We went to Asheville (Biltmore House) for our anniversary just before Christmas, and to a B&B for my birthday weekend. I had a couple of solo trips out to the RDU area for writerly events (as noted in the "Summer Vacation" post).
8) Christmas shopping done by early November. [All of it, hopefully, but unlikely. At least enough to make the traditional "Thanksgiving to Christmas" madness easier to bear.]
8) Christmas shopping done by early November. [All of it, hopefully, but unlikely. At least enough to make the traditional "Thanksgiving to Christmas" madness easier to bear.]
Success all around... Only had a few last-minute things to pick up, and had most of them done by September. Go us.
9) [Continue to] Send out birthday and anniversary cards, etc. in a timely manner.
9) [Continue to] Send out birthday and anniversary cards, etc. in a timely manner.
Sort of. Most of the credit should go to MC. Even the ones that I remembered and she didn't, she still did the legwork.
10) [Continue to] Work on the photography skills... [Which means, actually, taking a lot of pictures, and carrying a camera around on some of the expeditions... or plan "photo trips"...]... I'm already thinking of some photo trips, as well as possibly taking a couple of clinic-style classes later in the year.
10) [Continue to] Work on the photography skills... [Which means, actually, taking a lot of pictures, and carrying a camera around on some of the expeditions... or plan "photo trips"...]... I'm already thinking of some photo trips, as well as possibly taking a couple of clinic-style classes later in the year.
No clinic classes (thanks to other academic needs), but I've read a couple of books (they at least helped with the compositional thought process, and looking for different angles for interesting pictures). The camera's also gotten some milage from some of our trips (LOTS of pictures from Denver).
11) Process the Netflix queue - watch 50 movies from the queue. *Having failed to hit the 100 movie mark in either of the last two years, I'm scaling back the ceiling. With the advent later this year (spring ?) of Netflix being able to stream through a Wii, maybe I'll be able to get close or clear it.
11) Process the Netflix queue - watch 50 movies from the queue. *Having failed to hit the 100 movie mark in either of the last two years, I'm scaling back the ceiling. With the advent later this year (spring ?) of Netflix being able to stream through a Wii, maybe I'll be able to get close or clear it.
Still not even close. If anything, the number of movies watched has declined. The streaming availability is great (especially now that Wii doesn't need the disc anymore, and that it's available on some of the portables that I have is something good for traveling - as long as Wi-Fi access isn't an astronomical rate). I think a lot of it was due to class schedules (Best time to watch movies? Nights. When were my classes? Nights. When would I do any homework? Nights.), so maybe I can get a few more out of the queue. Otherwise, I may look into changing my service tier.
In other happy news, looking back at the year that was 2010:
Mary Catherine and I made it past the two-years-of-marriage mark. I got to see a buddy (nay, almost a brother) that I hadn't seen in about eight years [right before he and his family were sent to Germany for a 3-year duty assignment]. I've made a much bigger shift in my thought pattern about writing, being a writer (generally), and what I want to do as an aspiring-professional writer.
In sad news, we lost a cat, and we lost a nephew-dog.
My cat, Snoopy, got out of the house/yard while we were out of town one weekend [escaping past the pet-sitter], back in August. Despite canvasing the neighborhood speaking to neighbors, posting flyers, and a lot of walking around shaking a treat tub, we never saw a trace. The morbid romantic in me thinks he may have felt it was his time to die and wanted to save us from seeing it. Whether he is still alive or not, he was a few months short of ten when he left.
In a long, convoluted story, my nephew-dog was staying at my sister-in-laws house (just nod and accept it, and move on). He was a beagle named Petey, and was a few months past 15 when I took him to the vet for "the shot." It was a quality of life thing. He wasn't moving well (hardly at all, actually, even if he had to go to the bathroom), his hearing was (near) gone. He was old, and deserved some peace, and the trip was hard.
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