2016 year-end review

Before I can consider goals for the upcoming year, I always like to recap what goals I accomplished in the previous year.

At the beginning of each year, I type up a long list of goals for the entire year, breaking it down in categories such as: writing, reading, family, church, home, health, etc., and including chores ranging from clean a certain closet to plant my garden to read this many books of the Bible as well as fun things such as go camping in August or take a road trip in the winter.

I started this in 2014 and titled it “40 things in ‘14”. I did not increase that list by ten each year (ie 50 in 15, 60 in 16), but am trying to stick with 50 goals. For 2016 I had 46 such goals, accomplished 24 of them, worked on 5 of them, and was only an epic fail on 17. And because I am kind of nuts over numbers, that means I have a percentage of wins or worked on’s at 63%. I like that.

More numbers. One of my writing goal was to submit 12 pieces somewhere. I came in at 10 pieces, which again I am pretty happy with. Only two of those were accepted and six were rejected. Since two are still out there waiting to be heard from, they are not fails yet, so my winning percentage is 40%. Not quite as good as I would like, but it is what it is. I worked on it, right?

As far as what I really wanted to accomplish with my writing in 2016, that ridiculous list looked like this:

1.     Write the memoir of my sister Pat’s life and death – I did work on it.

            2.   Finish editing “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” – Not only finished the final edit, I submitted it somewhere and it got accepted. I should really give myself quadruple bonus points for that, huh?

3.   Write memoir of my second two trips to Africa – Worked on it

4.   Write the novella “No Body Found” – I started this actually 25 years ago and for some reason dug it out last spring. It is half written, long-hand, so I started typing it into the computer. It shouldn’t be that much to finish, but my heart isn’t really in it anymore.

5.   Start writing the novel “The Abbey” – This has been my baby since early this past fall. I’ve written 46,000 some words on it since August. Finishing it is going to be a main goal for 2017.

6.   Start writing “The School” – I don’t know why I think I should have all these projects going on at one time. I think I wrote short bios of three of the main characters, but I think they will have to wait until they are ready to talk to me.

  

I have been swamped with all sorts of other things this week, not to mention that the house is a disaster. I am going to go attend to those things now, and promise to post my 2017 later in the week.

Oh, and one last quick thing, I got a new Laptop for Christmas! So that long list of things to attend to includes setting up the new device with all that I need and want. Been working on it all week and still not done. Yikes.

How about you? Do you review the previous year before diving into the new one? Or do you just keep looking forward? Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas?

I am trying to look surprised, but the hubby had already asked which debit or credit card he could put up to a thousand dollar purchase on. He also said that if I saw any emails from Best Buy to disregard them. The man is such a sweetheart, but not very cunning at all.