Wrapping Up 2008

I have no posts in 2008 labeled "Goals."

None.

Of course, according to my final post about 2007, I didn't set goals. I made plans.

Let's see how I did:

Exercise

I did very well through May, when I got swamped with work. From May through August I occasionally missed my goal of 2.5 hours per week, and then I was totally inconsistent, with some weeks in the fall good, some bad, and then nothing at all in the entire fall.

Compared to previous year: 126 days of exercise compared to 301 in 2007. Ick.

Goal for 2009

I dunno. I started again this week, went to the club yesterday and today. I'm just going to try to go every day, except when I can't.

Weight

No change. Nothing different in my plans for 2009, either.

Entertainment

I read 95 full books, a falloff from last year's actual 107. I also started but didn't finish 40, and tracked 7 additional novellas.

I saw 22 movies in the theater, 8 fewer than last year, but 35 on DVD, up from 17 in 2007. Plus two on TiVo, two on TV, and two on DVD that I didn't finish.

I won't go into the TV I watched live or TiVo'd, I do that during the year. I also watched the following on DVD:

All the Buffy seasons
All the Angel seasons
Prison Break season 3
Entourage
Roswell season 1

Goal for 2009

I always strive to read 100 books, but I think I'll keep better track this year so I can push myself if possible and make the goal. I don't expect as many movies in 2009, probably about the same amount of TV. Once I finish Roswell, I might give Bones a try.

Work!

Okay, this is the biggie. Here's what I accomplished:

Overall writing

Fiction: 184,486 words (includes totally new text and added words during revisions)
Nonfiction: 57,855

That's a total of 242,341 written words in 2008. That's more than 60k less than 2007!

Goal for 2009

Whatever I manage to do, based on my circumstances.

Project breakdown

Fiction:
Submitted 8 projects
Sold 2 novellas
Wrote three novellas
Revised three+ novels

Compared to plan: Did two of the revisions I planned, started both of the sequels plus another book, though not the one I intended to.

A reminder of my plan for 2009:

1. Revise Under the Moon until it's ready for submission
2. Process critiques for Hummingbird and prep for agent review
3. Revise Fight or Flight again, if Agent Awesome so decrees
4. Do first round of revisions for More Than You Know and submit to critique partners
5. Finish Zoe WIP

What else did I do, that caused me to write so much less in 2008? Well, let me tell you:

Nonfiction:

1 20-page report
58 articles
74 biographies (short ones, not book-length!)
21 autoresponders, 4 ads, and a few miscellaneous things

Editing/Proofreading:

Approximately 3,579 pages, some being full editing in hard copy transferred to computer documents, some being small projects that I typed a list of corrections for.


Critiquing:

40 pages for LM
55 pages for M2
184 pages for M3
402 pages for TM
491 pages for JW
506 pages for VB
783 pages for VS
1,011 pages for M1

for a grand total of 3,472 manuscript pages! That amounts to roughly 868,000 words, though it's probably more than that because some people don't use standard format.

I think I only sent one full book out for critique in 2008. I'll make up for it this year!

Judging:

I judged 9 stories with just a scoresheet, and 279 pages that required comments as well as the scoresheets.

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Okay, I'm tired just adding that all up! I will no longer feel like a slacker! Such occasions are surely few and far between, with that kind of tally, wouldn't you say?

So that's all. Goodbye 2008 (a few days late) and hello 2009! May it be better than productive for all of us!

The Day After

Merry Christmas to everyone I didn't manage to greet in some way yesterday. I hope you all had lovely holidays, assuming you weren't puking or dealing with puking or recovering from puking. My condolences to those who were.

And Happy Hanukkah where applicable. I don't know anyone who actually celebrates Kwanzaa, but I think that starts today, so have a good seven days!

We had a nice, quiet holiday, just the four of us. Did presents, played Wii, went to a movie (Bedtime Stories, very funny, though Adam Sandler is always better when he doesn't go all the way to total idiocy), had stir fry for dinner. Yep, stir fry. That's what they wanted!

So now we're on Transition Weekend.

As I've mentioned, December is a difficult work month. Everything seems to back up as we concentrate on the holidays and associated activities. Between now and the end of next week, focus shifts. This weekend I don't actually do anything. It's the last week of regular-season football, and tomorrow we're doing Christmas at my inlaws. Today I'm running errands, including using a gift card that will make one of my Christmas presents (an espresso machine) complete. And Sunday, we'll probably take down the tree and stuff, instead of waiting until New Year's Day. Not sure, I might get outvoted on that one. :)

So for the next few days, I'll be slowly making lists of everything I have to deal with after the first:

Losing weight Getting healthy. I lost 15 pounds in 2007 and kept off every pound this year...until this week. I don't know why. I haven't changed my eating habits at all, just substituted Christmas cookies for other junk food. But I jumped up four pounds. Plus, after my exercise plan fell apart in May, I completely dropped it this fall. And the kids start soccer again soon. So we're going to be increasing our activity levels next week, and I'll go back to the club the week after, when they go back to school.

Writing. My agent hasn't exactly been sitting by her computer waiting for my revisions, but now I have no excuses. I need to get back to them. Luckily, I have a plan for that, too.

Taxes.

Spreadsheets. I have to set up my organization schedule for next year, reconfigure my to-do list to accommodate some regular obligations, get the old pages out of my day planner, etc. Luckily, my office/desk are clean because I had company. The one bright side to that. The cleaning, not the company.

So let the transition begin! (And let the Patriots lead us into 2009 on a positive note. Go, Jets! *gag*)

This is a day late, but hilarious enough to share all year round. Slightly NSFW.

You're Gonna Vote, Right?

Yeah, I know. Everyone hates celebrity PSAs, especially regarding politics, because they're out of touch with the real world, who the hell are they to tell me blah blah blah.

But!

1. This isn't about politics. It's about voting.

2. It's really, really funny.

Warning: Profanity Inside



For the record, I'm registered, have been since I was old enough, though I confess I haven't voted in every election (every presidential one, though!). I take my kids with me to the polls, and we talk about the candidates on our way over. And someday, I'm going to exert myself to try to do something about the fact that my state disenfranchises me in the primaries. Honest.

Pets, Plans, and Travel

These are the last topics that have only one post labeled such, so I'm finishing my boost in one fell swoop.

J told me the other night that Number Two wants a kitten for Christmas. We have two cats and a dog. The dog has stained every carpet with florescent yellow bile vomit. The cats have shredded all our wood furniture. Our vet bill, while certainly lower than other people's is daunting.

Then there's the litter box.

We only have one, because when we had two they both just used one, anyway. And since the cats are banned from going downstairs, there's very limited space in which to place a second box. I'm the one who cleans it all the time. Do I really want to have to do it MORE often?

Plus, kittens are a lot more work. They chew things, they climb things, they get lonely and cry all day/night.

But Number Two really wants one. She insisted she'll take care of it (she already shoulders a lot of the feeding duties anyway). But Daddy got her afraid of me. She said she won't put it on her Christmas list, but could Daddy please let Santa know for her? The heart weeps.

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I have no plans for December. Well, not true. I have some plans. I want to write a short story so I get to 300,000 words. I want to start editing Behind the Scenes to eliminate the loss of tension at certain points. And I have some critiquing to do (should be doing right now, as a matter of fact!). And, of course, I have vague holiday preparation plans. I need to do Christmas cards, and make a gift list, and go shopping, and figure out what we're doing when. And we need to get a tree and put up the lights. And we have kids' events--dance recital for Number Two, orchestra and chorus concert for Number One.

But other than that, I have no plans.

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I didn't travel that much this year. I did the May retreat with my chapter, CPRW, and in August I went to Myrtle Beach for our family vacation. I think that's it.

Next year will be another story. I have plans to go to the NEC conference in April, the CPRW retreat in May, National in July (a serious reach, but I'm not giving up hope), Cape Cod for our summer vacation, and a tour of Ohio so I can speak at the Maumee Valley chapter and visit family in Akron, Toledo, and Delaware (no, not the state, the city near Columbus).

That's a LOT of traveling. Good thing we have a hybrid!

Best Laid Plans

This was going to be my post for today (it's still today, right? *checks clock* Yup) but I had that Nickelback thing already written, and you know it's kinda anti-climactic to post an event review more than two days after the event. So I'll post it now, which is still today, even though you won't read it today.

So my summer has not been going as planned. I seem to be doing more running around with no writing on the go. The fabulous Neo is filling with blog posts for Indulge Yourself and Gab Wagon, instead of action-filled, steamy, roller-coaster scenes from Hummingbird. My house is never as clean as I intend it to be, and my kids spend far more time than they're supposed to sitting on their butts.

This week, at least, all of that changes.

I wrote on the Neo at the pool yesterday. This afternoon I finally got past the end of the pages I'd already written, and after four hours and 13 pages it finally started to flow; I doubled the page count in less than two hours. My kids are with their cousins at my in-laws until tomorrow night, running around and swimming for hours on end. Activity, yay!

And I have a plan:

Monday:

• Work out for 45 minutes
• Write 20 pages 26! \o/
  
• Keep to my cleaning schedule
• Bedroom
• Bathroom
• Litter box
• Dishes
• Laundry
• Update checkbooks
• Order cake for Saturday
• Schedule oil delivery
• Arrange for iPod repair (*sniff* she kicked it)

I also finished Lean Mean Thirteen and an issue of People. I am so good when I'm alone.

Rest of the plan:

Tuesday:

• Work out for half an hour (weights)
• Write 15 pages
• Ship iPod (*sniff* she kicked it)
• Go to post office
• Clean living room and dining room/dishes/litterbox/put away laundry
  
• Wrap D's presents
• Meet family for dinner/dessert/presents

Wednesday:

• Write 10 pages
• Orthodontist (cough up lots and lots of cash)
• Swimming lessons
• Maybe library event with cousins
• Pay bills
• Clean office/litterbox/dishes
• Exercise somehow

Thursday:

• Hersheypark
• No writing *sob*
• Clean kitchen
• Count walking all over damned park as exercise for the day

Friday:

• Write 15 pages
• Swimming lessons
• Clean downstairs bathroom/family room/dishes/litterbox
• Soccer camp
• Walk a mile
• Pick up wristbands for Harry Potter event at bookstore

Saturday

• Spend entire day finding ways to justify listening to Harry Potter

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I just finished watching Drive, the two episodes that were made but not aired because Fox execs are jerks. And I have changed my assessment. They are SUPERjerks.

Or maybe we are. Maybe there really are just too many stupid people in this country, and they'd rather watch shows about stupid fat men and their hot wives instead of smart, funny, intriguing, clever television. How else can we explain why all these great shows fail so freakin' fast?