End of the Year: Looking Back and Forward
NB: I meant to post this yesterday, but spent most of the day in bed feeling crummy.
So, um, Happy New Year!
2011 was a bit of a schmozzle for the world, but I had a pretty good year. Highlights included Markus, Spring in London, Fun in the Desert and watching Trevor morph into big boy school attending hockey player. I didn’t bike as much as I wanted to, but that’s OK. For a more complete run down, see My Sweet’s blog, as she beat me to it!
I look forward to 2012, as I have decided to form better habits than I now have. Hungry? Instead of reaching for chocolate bars (why do we have chocolate bars?) reach for raw veggies, that sort of thing. So, here are my plans for the year:
- I am taking eight weeks parental leave: January 23rd to March 18
- I am going to EuroCon 2012 (aka SFEraKon 34) in Zagreb April 26-29
- I am going to bike to work every day of the eight weeks I am home alone
- I am taking twelve weeks LIA in the summer (maybe a bit less, haven’t fully decided)
- Four weeks I’ll dedicate to the Adriatic
- Two weeks I’ll dedicate to a super secret plan that I’ll discuss once everything is in place
- I will take part in Hugo voting again this year. I enjoyed the experience last year, and despite not being present at the awards ceremony, I nevertheless felt connected to the process.
- I am going to try to be active every day. At lunch I’ve played CoD:MW for the last year or two, I think instead I’ll take a walk. Those audiobooks won’t listen to themselves, you know!
- I am going to write every day. Back before I went for my B.Eng, I worked in a pharmacy, and I read this article. It stuck with me, but I never put it into practice. Note that I don’t think I’ll stop at exactly 500 words :).
- To aid this, I am going to go to bed earlier, so I can wake up before the kids. I have tried to write after everyone is in bed, but that usually puts me starting at 10:30, and I’m too zonked to use a computer other than to refresh Next Band Name.
- In the fall, I want to plant enough apple and/or pear trees to ensure fruit production. I will use this fruit to make my own cider and/or perry (whenever they start actually producing enough fruit to do so).
- And, of course, I’m going to read The Wheel of Time, as previously mentioned. Just as a reminder, look at this!
This is what I would call SOME PILE OF BOOKS! It just doesn’t seem possible, does it? But there you are… you can see for yourself. (I obviously have read Cars and Trucks and Things that Go by Richard Scarry just a bit too many times the past year… 😉 ).
Admirable goals for 2012! For the daily writing, if you’ve read The Artist’s Way (and if you haven’t, but would like to, I own it), she recommends something similar. Hers is more “write two pages no matter what to get your mental crunk out of the way”, rather than proper writing a la G. Greene. Still, the doing is what matters! Go you!
I have read it, and it is part of my inspiration to do this. I had been doing the 2 page crunk-out with my night-time writing, but that turned out to be all the energy I could muster, and I usually stopped after getting them out. I hope mornings will work better.