2016 Year In Review

My plan was to copy my beginning of the year post to see how it all turned out, but I didn't do a beginning of the year post last January, so I guess I'm winging it. Overall, I think '16 was better than '15. We still had bumpy spots, but overall I feel more stable than I have for the last three years. Having Alex here most of the year may have contributed to that.

It was a better writing year for sure. More productive, better quality. I wrote 75,139 words, and as of mid-July (when I started tracking the time) I put in 193 hours. It looks like April was my worst month, and December was the best. As near as I can figure, mid-July was when I got sick of my own crap, the excuses and procrastination, and decided it was now or never. Not that it would ever really be never. I get depressed and cranky when I don't write.

In non-writing life:
- I grew my first garden in three years, and the first in-the-ground one (as opposed to containers and raised beds) since we left Virginia in 2000. I have plans for the next one.
- We finally got all our worldly belongings under one roof. And some of Alex's. Yay basement!
- I still haven't quit the day job, but I am down to one day a week. That should remain status quo for another 2-3 months.
- We are helping to start a new church in an adjacent neighborhood. Our current church is sponsoring it, but the new one will be 12 miles closer and not have city traffic, so it makes sense for us to do this. It's a lot more work than I thought it would be, but I don't have to do much of it. Yet.
- Last summer was jam-packed. We learned from that. Next summer will not be the same. I will have time to putter in my garden more and get more canning done.

My thoughts for next year look much the same as I'm sure they did last year. I have more writing goals than I did, and a few non-writing goals that may get modified throughout the year. We do have a fair amount of travel planned. We leave for Florida in 10 days, and I go back for a writers' retreat the end of February. We are looking at a trip to San Diego in the spring to visit Eric's parents, and Mom will no doubt have me in Michigan a few times. Oh, and Black Hat (the hacker conference) in Vegas in August. There is a spec writer conference (Realm Makers) in Reno the weekend we're in Vegas. I'm trying to figure out if I can make that work. If I can't, I'm going to lobby for them to have it closer to me in the future. Not Chicago proper, maybe, because it will be expensive to rent the space to hold it. Maybe Milwaukee.

Here's the run-down so I can find it easily to cut and paste next year (although I do have it written in my journal):

Writing:
- Write 150,000 words (3,000 x 50 weeks)
- Publish 6 short stories, either in magazine/anthology or on Kindle
- Blog weekly
- Send out two newsletters a month
- Develop good work habits re: time and word count
- Develop better marketing and social media skills
- Track sales vs. expenses

Non-writing:
- Exercise 2-4 days/week
- Bible study 3+ days/week
- Grow/preserve more food
- Get rid of enough stuff so the house is neat all the time
- Spend time with family

I hope y'all are having a relaxing evening and I'll see you next year.