Baby New Year’s midlife checkup

Since it’s just over halfway through the year, I figured I’d check in on my New Year’s resolutions for 2008 and see how I’m doing:

1. I’ve read 19 books so far this year. Yeah, Houston, I’m in trouble. Considering how things are going I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it to 80, so I’m going to revise the goal to 50. (I guess I could always read thirty Berenstain Bears books, but that feels like cheating. ;))

2. The only C.S. Lewis book I’ve read that I hadn’t already read is Letters to Malcolm.

3. Nada on Jane Austen. But it’s not too late, since luckily she didn’t write that much. (Wait, what am I saying?!? I wish she’d written forty more books. Oh well. I wonder if she’s still writing… Do they publish books in the next life?)

4. I’ve decided to ditch Out of Time for now and focus on new novels instead. We’ll see if NaNoWriMo happens this year. (I have another project that takes precedence. More on that in a few weeks.)

5. I’ve already written five short plays this year so far, had two performed with two others in production, and directed two (not my own), so we’re good. Finally, a resolution I’ve managed to keep! Oh, wait, one full-length play. Um, haven’t done that yet. Uncheck. Drat.

6. No screenplay yet.

7. No songs yet, either.

8. And not a single Riverglen Press title yet either. Why am I even bothering to look at these resolutions? It’s just depressing. :P

9. I did redesign Top of the Mountains and am still satisfied with the look, which is good. I ended up nixing BenjaminCrowder.com. (I haven’t yet reached equilibrium with any of my sites other than Top of the Mountains, though. There’ll be a new site in the next little bit which will reincarnate the original BenjaminCrowder.com but with a new name. And I haven’t figured out all the other details, but nobody cares about those but me, so I’ll just do it when I do it and leave it at that. :))

10. No 3D film yet.

11. The daily drawing thing only lasted a week or so. It wasn’t as feasible (given my schedule and other projects) as I thought.

12. On and off on the one-day reply thing. Right now I’m just trying to keep my inbox below 25 emails so it all fits on one screen, because I know that as soon as something slips to the next page, it’s off the radar and I completely forget about it.

13. Um…still working on it, I guess?

When I think about all the time I waste and how I could be so much more productive, I want to stop sleeping. But I’ve already learned that that’s a bad idea. :)

Ben, if you think you’re kidding anyone, I just want you to know it’s not me. You are one of the most freakishly productive people I’ve met. So there.

Well, you know me, I fight your over-achieverness tooth and nail any chance I get :)

Seriously, in the future, I’d narrow it down to five or fewer goals. And I’d make them more realistic than “get engaged” (which, as we know, is one of those things on the Lord’s time, as frustrating as that may be…like mission papers).

But I agree with Katherine. Don’t be so hard on yourself, because you ARE freakishly productive. And think of it this way: Aim high, because even if you never reach the stars, at least you’ll get off the ground. Even if you never accomplish all of your goals, as long as you’re constantly working towards them (or some of them) and not sitting around on the couch eating chips and wondering why your goals are slipping past you, you’ll be just fine. (By the way, it IS a good thing to take a break and sit on the couch eating chips every once in a while. So long as you know the difference between meditation and vegetation.)

Katherine: Love that adverb. :P No, really, I may (or may not) be productive compared to other people, but it’s not them I’m racing against, it’s me. And I can be way more productive. Believe me.

Haley: Yeah, and I fight back. :) I should clarify that in this post, I’m not really being hard on myself. I know that I won’t actually reach all of these goals, and that’s okay — but I set a lot of them (and try to set them high) so that I’ll stretch myself and do more than I would have done otherwise.