Meme Filler

From the most excellent pnkrokhockeymom, she of the unfettered posting of late, a rather odd survey:
( Cut for lengthy memeage )

In The Transition

Okay, time to take stock. How did I do in 2007, and what’s on deck for 2008?

A year ago, I realized that my cynicism regarding resolutions was a symptom to a problem, and vowed to correct it. Well, I think cynicism in general is a problem, and I’ve always thought that, which I think is why the revelation that I was being overly cynical came as such a shock.

Anyway, how’d I do?

• New Writing Strategy? Check! — This actually went pretty well, and I started and finished a brand-new novel in about ten months. Well, the first draft of one anyway. The first part of this year will be devoted to reworking that manuscript, but more there later. Now, toward the end I did drop back to some of my old stuff, but part of the reason for that was that I realized I had a pretty strong novel that just needed some cleaning up. Once I found someone to help me read through it as I cleaned it up, I was (still am) off and running.
• Exercise and Eat Better? Errr, Check? — Okay, so I’m much closer to a gym rat today than I was a year ago, but not quite there yet. The good news is it got to be better than a habit by November, the bad news being that we’re on the tail end of almost a month of continual illness in Chez Klecha, and that’s been disruptive. However, the eating better thing is progressing nicely in spite of that, and I’m generally consuming fewer calories a day without actually starving myself, which is key.
• Finish Most of the Basement? ALLLLmost There — Work on that began in earnest August, then went on hold when Hannah was born. We’re back at it now, though, and very close to being able to paint. The office is about 85% to paintable, the hallway 75%, and the bedroom 65%. I should be close to 100 on all three by the end of the weekend, if not there. After that I get the electrician to finish up, then get the final pair of inspections. All before February 1.
• More Writing Income? Check! — More gross income anyway, but not more sources of income. Things got a little touchy with my client on a couple of occasions, but things might well be smoothed over and ready to go forward now. Still regretting not finding more sources, which will be a goal again for this year.
• Quit Blogging? Errrrrrrr… — I’ve been pretty sporadic all year, so … success in that sense. But I’m realizing blogging itself wasn’t much of a problem. I’ll probably turn that resolution on its ear this year.
• Love My Wife And Kid(s) More? Check! — And now there’s more to love. Didn’t even know Hannah was on the way yet, when I wrote the resolution.

Okay, so what’s up for this year?

• Write Another Novel and Put Finishing Touches on Two Others: the old novel I mentioned above needs to be finished off yet, which I hope to do in the next couple weeks. After that I’m going to start a sequel to it, as well as work on revisions for the fantasy novel I finished last year. The overall goal is to see how well I can do keeping a couple plates in the air at a time. Sounds ambitious, but if I want to make it as a novelist (and I do) and in multiple genres (ditto), output is going to be a key part of that.
• Write and Sell More Short Stuff: This wasn’t really on my radar last year until I joined Codex. Part of it is just that I like having more than one measly publishing credit, but part is also that I think if I’m trying to stretch myself in short fiction it’s going to help me with the longer stuff, too. I could easily get into a storytelling rut with the novels, so working on different and directed short story projects could help keep me limber. It’s not me, temperamentally, but that’s probably what makes it an effective exercise.
• Get Healthier: Okay, I made some good progress last year, but badly missed my numerical goals. Not a problem, says I, at least I was still working out and eating better at the end of the year. This year, I step it up.
• Finish the Basement Project: Should be easy enough. I’d like to move into my new office in the Spring at the latest and get the house rearranged optimally in the wake of that. We’ll be shaking stuff up considerably with our office arrangements; the wife doesn’t use her desk much at all any more, so we’ll be getting rid of it entirely. Which is good, because the office itself will be smaller than the space we’re in currently.
• Increase the Love: But not the number of children, God willing.

So that about does it. There’s some specific metrics that I won’t get into because, well, they’re just numbers. The big vision is to build up the good habits and break down the bad ones, for which 2007 was a good year.

Definitely looking forward to this post again next year.

Crossposted with klech.net