Old Resolutions & New

First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR! May 2011 rock ever onward and be full of fun and frolics and free of sadness and hard times!

Krispy posted how she did on her 2010 resolutions and though I procrastinated about following suit on my 2010 resolutions because I dreaded how dreadfully I've done, well, here I go:

1. Establish more regular writing habits. I did actually do this, largely because of resolution #2 down below, though I admit I slacked off a tad this month. But considering I finished my thesis and then immediately followed that up with Nanowrimo, I'm giving myself a break. Grade: A

2. Finish Nanowrimo 2006 story/thesis. This I did. And revised it. And turned it in. And, incidentally, as I found out right before Christmas, all three of my professors enjoyed it and I passed. I'm still wallowing in joy like a holiday hog in a vat of caramel candy so I'll grade myself with gross self-indulgence. Grade: A+

3. Blog more. I don't think I did. I may have blogged even less than in 2009. Let me go count right now. Yep, utter fail on this one—I blogged 12 times in 2009, whereas in 2010 I blogged 11 times. Such fail. All my energies went into thesising from the summer onward, whence my already dwindling blogging dropped precipitously. Grade: F

4. Read more. I should have kept track of how many books I actually read, but I think I did okay on this one, especially since I did go on a mild frolic (definitely not on a par with Krispy's rampage) through YA thanks to Krispy and reading many detective/noir novels for school, and then I went crazy and read like three books in a row in a week in December because I suddenly realized how free I was. Grade: A-

5. Get published. This did not happen, though I did submit to a few places and got rejected, so I'll give myself points for trying. (Once summer hit though, this resolution went out the window because I was writing my thesis. That's been my excuse for everything. Didn't do chores? Thesis. Didn't blog? Thesis. Sadly vampiric (albeit not sparkly) from lack of sun? Thesis. Ate sandwiches for every meal three days running because I didn't go to the market? Thesis.) Grade: C

6. Finish/revise Nanowrimo 2007/2008. This did not happen at all. Grade: F

7. Renew and revise Syldraverse story. This also did not happen at all. Grade: F

8. Work on Co-Novel Baby with Krispy. Nor did this happen. Such a sad trilogy of fail. Grade: F

So I have a C- average. It's all highs and lows but that's still passing! Though if I hadn't set myself so many writing goals, I would've done better.

2010 felt long and exciting and amazing—I read my work semi-publicly at two different readings, I finished my last semester of grad school, wrote like mad, finished my thesis and handed it in and passed, and I'm now awaiting that magic piece of paper with my name printed on it declaring that I'm a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Non-school-related, I got another pet rat after over five years of going ratless, I sewed 15 manatees (3 tiny wee ones, 10 little ones, and 2 big ones), I finished Nanowrimo 2010, made a boatload of jewelry and failed to update my craft blog in a regular or timely manner, watched tons of movies, played Epic Mickey and was vastly disappointed, and on and on and on…

This year, more than my senior years in high school and in undergrad, was the academic year of my life. I've mentioned it like eight times already in this post alone and it was both the best and worst senior year ever. I've never felt so accomplished and I've never worked so hard in my life. Okay, enough gushing and repeating myself about that. Time for some 2011 resolutions in no particular order!

1. Maintain consistent writing habits!

2. Blog more!

3. Read more!

4. Get that Etsy shop up and running!

5. Submit to places and get published!

6. Co-author something with Krispy, be it our original Co-Novel Baby or something else!

7. Finish writing some short stories!

8. Finish writing a long story/novel!

9. Stop being nocturnal and get my sleeping habits in order!

I'm stopping there. That's one more resolution than last year and a lot of them are the same, though I decided to be more general and less specific in the hopes that my future GPA won't be so rife with failure.

It's only January 3rd. The future looks shiny-bright and brimful of potential! Now if only the sky would be the same—it's been raining around here on and off for the past few weeks. I think I'll go write something right now and make good on keeping some of those writing resolutions!