BenCrowder.net

Welcome to 2009. As has become a tradition (see 2006, 2007, and 2008), here’s a short recap of 2008 along with how I did on my resolutions, followed by my 2009 resolutions.

In 2008, I wrote 368 posts on this blog (plus another dozen or two on other blogs) and 1,693 tweets on Twitter. I bought 174 books and then got rid of 192 (not the same ones :)), bringing my year-end total to 913.

I also left my job in Special Collections at the end of May to work full-time as a web designer, still in the library. Over the summer I started a web-based magazine — Mormon Artist — and published two issues by year’s end, with the third issue coming along well. (We’ve had 3,476 visits thus far from 2,601 unique visitors, with 10,606 pageviews. The Facebook group has 712 members right now, and there are 54 people subscribed to the news blog. Considering how little advertising we’ve done, not bad, but there’s plenty room to grow.) And yesterday I launched a new book blog, Booktype, into which I can pour all my OCD. ;) I also consolidated most of my blogs into this new one, BenCrowder.net and have roughly 150 subscribers.

If it’s not obvious, I kind of like numbers. Can you tell I’m the son of an accountant? :P

Resolutions for 2008

1. Read 80 books. I only read 44 in 2008. (Track record: 31 in 2005, 70 in 2006, and 60 in 2007.) I don’t like how the number keeps going downhill. This will definitely change in 2009.

2. Read all the C.S. Lewis books I haven’t yet read. Didn’t even come close — in fact, I didn’t read a single Lewis book I hadn’t already read.

3. Read all the Jane Austen books I haven’t yet read. Ditto — no new ones.

4. Polish Out of Time and write another novel. Neither. I intended to do NaNoWriMo again this year, but things got in the way.

5. Write three short plays and one full-length play. Okay, finally, some measure of success! I wrote 16 short plays, got four of them produced, and wrote a one-act as well. No full-length, but I’m pleased with what I did do.

6. Write a full-length screenplay. Didn’t happen. Oh well.

7. Write five songs. I wrote, hmm, zero songs this year. I’m thinking that in 2009 a monthly review of my resolutions might be in order.

8. Publish five Riverglen Press titles. Only published Jekyll & Hyde. Things will start to happen on this front soon, though — stay tuned.

9. Redesign the look of my blogs. Did this, probably more than once if I recall correctly.

10. Produce a short film in 3D. Nada. I did a little bit of 3D art in Blender, but hardly anything to be proud of.

11. Post a drawing to BenjaminCrowder.com each day in January, a painting each day in February, a 3D render each day in March/April/May, and a logo a day in June. I lasted about ten days on this. Maybe someday when I have more time…

12. Reply to all incoming correspondence within a day or two. Not even close, but for the last ten days or so I’ve done it and stayed at Inbox Zero to boot. And I plan to keep it that way. And I plan to keep it that way. And I plan to keep it that way. And I plan to keep it that way.

13. Get engaged. :P Um, how about we focus on happy things instead? ;)

Resolutions for 2009

1. Go to London. I’m kind of cheating on this, since I’ve already bought my tickets, but what the heck — may as well start the year off with a resolution I know I’m going to keep. :)

2. Listen to only classical music in January. I’m listening to Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E Minor “From the New World” right now. Can I just say that it’s nice there’s so much affordable classical music deals online? I got 99 Beethoven MP3s for $1.99 on Amazon a couple days ago — it’s back up to $7.99 now, but still quite a steal. I’m going to temporarily pull all the non-classical music from my iPhone and iPod so I accidentally put on Broadway or something. (See my post The classical life for why. And I’m only doing this for music, not books, I’ve decided.)

3. Read 60 books. Just over a book a week, I suppose. Quite doable, unless they’re all The Brothers Karamazov and War and Peace.

4. Write half an hour a day. A habit sorely needed, since I’m currently rather sporadic in my writing. If I write half an hour every single day in 2009, I should have no problem nailing the rest of these writing goals.

5. Write five short plays and get at least two of them produced. I have a bit of a headstart on this, since tomorrow night I’m doing this student slam 24-hour playwriting festival, and so I know that by Saturday night I’ll have written a short play and seen it produced.

6. Write 50 short stories. Yeah, it’s a lot. But aim for the stars…

7. Write one novel. Whether through NaNoWriMo or not, I’m going to do this, period.

8. Write and illustrate a children’s book. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. I really ought to consolidate it with resolution #11…

9. Get into the habit of submitting work for publication. I write but rarely submit; this must change.

10. Keep Mormon Artist afloat. Shouldn’t be too hard; I just want the magazine to still be around a year from now. :) And let’s aim at 3,000 members in the Facebook group and 10,000 unique visitors for the year.

11. Complete 20 digital paintings. This is something I’ve wanted to get good at, and the only way to get there is through practice and study. Twenty is an easily achievable number, I think.

12. Stay at Inbox Zero. If I can make it 21 days, then it should automatically become a habit, right? :)

13. Get married. (I figured my goal from last year just wasn’t high enough, so no wonder I wasn’t able to reach it. :P)

And there we have it. I know some people bone about making resolutions when we know we probably won’t achieve them, but that’s the entirely wrong attitude to take, I think. I set high goals so that I stretch myself, because I’ve found that my capabilities are often higher than I originally thought, but I won’t know what they really are unless I try to go past them. (And no, it’s not about the numbers. The numbers are just training wheels to get things off to a good start.)

I think I’d better go start writing. :)