BenCrowder.net

Welcome to 2010. Here’s how 2009 turned out, along with my resolutions for the new year. (Past years: 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006.)

2009 in review

2009 was a good year. A very good year. ;)

I went to London in February (Adventures in London, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, and Days 6–11), which was awesome. I also went to a bunch of writers’ conferences (CONduit, LDStorymakers, WIFYR, Forum on Children’s Literature (Day One, Day Two). I missed LTUE because I was in London, unfortunately, but I’m making sure I go this year. I joined a writers group with some of the people I met at WIFYR and started writing a YA novel, Tanglewood.

I began work on a genealogy web app, Beyond; designed a project tracker; started work on a D&C reader’s edition; made a 3D illustration called Jetpack Johnny; released The Standard Works and Glider; designed a Latin declensions chart; and published Words of the Prophets: Selected Sermons from the Book of Mormon.

After trying to do everything, I decided to focus on just writing and design. It’s already proving to have been a very good decision.

I also bought a car and, most importantly, got married to Meridith.

Some statistics

Blog posts in 2009: 113
Tweets in 2009: 7,220
Number of books I own: Around 1,300 (I have 1,080 cataloged in LibraryThing, but there are a handful I haven’t cataloged and I still haven’t added Meridith’s books yet)

Resolutions for 2009 and how I fared

First off, let me link to two earlier resolution review posts, one in February and one in July.

1. Go to London. Nailed it. :)

2. Listen to only classical music in January. As mentioned in the two review posts, I made it halfway through and decided it was an arbitrary resolution. But I still like classical music.

3. Read 60 books. I ended up only making it to 37. By the end of July I’d read 31, and then there’s a four-month gap to the end of November, after which I read six more books. (Why the gap? See #13. I’m grinning. ;))

4. Write half an hour a day. Nope. I did change halfway through the year to a word count goal instead, but I, um, got distracted and slacked off. :)

5. Write five short plays and get at least two of them produced. I had two short plays produced: “Perfect Circle” (which I renamed “Broken Chord”) at the student slam in January and “Crime & Punishment & Teletubbies” as part of Bad Play Project in April. I also wrote a full-length play, Childlight, as part of BYU’s WDA class, and we had a staged reading of it in October.

6. Write 50 short stories. This is embarrassing. I did write the beginning of one, but that’s it. Apparently writing short stories is a habit I haven’t quite gotten into yet.

7. Write one novel. I didn’t do NaNoWriMo, but I’ve been working on Tanglewood over the past year. I’ve started over eight or nine times, with the most recent reboot being yesterday (cough), but I’m not letting myself start over again until I finish a full draft. (That said, with each successive draft it’s become a better book, so I guess it’s worth it.) See Tanglewood: a teaser for what the first chapter looked like back in May. It’s changed a lot since then.

8. Write and illustrate a children’s book. Nada.

9. Get into the habit of submitting work for publication. Nada.

10. Keep Mormon Artist afloat. In 2009, we published five regular issues and one special contest issue. Had 23,707 visits to the website from 17,393 unique visitors, with 52,041 pageviews. The Facebook group now has 1,700 members (not quite the 3,000 I’d hoped for), and there are 230 subscribers to the news blog. I got interviewed about the magazine for the Daily Herald, Iconia, and A Motley Vision. The magazine also got mentioned in passing by the New York Times and TIME Magazine.

11. Complete 20 digital paintings. I only did five, and all were for Meridith.

12. Stay at Inbox Zero. It didn’t last long, but I’ve generally kept my inbox to 10 or 15 emails at a time, so I’ll count it as a somewhat of a success.

13. Get married. Woot! As most of you know, I met Meridith in July and we got married in November. This was the one resolution I definitely didn’t expect to make, but it’s the one I’m most proud of. ;)

14. Read no more than five books at a time. I’ve mostly done this, and it’s been a huge help in getting me to finish books.

15. Cut side projects and focus on writing. I haven’t been as successful at this as I’d hoped to be, but I did reinforce my decision to focus on writing, which is something.

Resolutions for 2010, in which much awesomeness will occur

Writing

1. Write at least 500 words every day (excluding Sundays). It’s time for me to take my writing to a more professional level, which means producing consistently. ‘Nuff said.

2. Finish Tanglewood. By which I mean not only finishing a draft but also revising it. If I can keep writing 500 words a day, I should be able to finish the first draft within about five months, which leaves seven for revisions. Easy.

3. Write five short stories. We’ll make it more attainable this year. :) (And I want my focus to stay on Tanglewood.)

4. Write two short plays. Ditto — enough to be doable but not so much that I don’t finish my novel.

5. Attend writers’ conferences. This includes LTUE, WIFYR, CONduit, and LDStorymakers, along with any others I can afford and schedule in. I love love love writing conferences.

6. Read 60 books. I’m managing around five books a month nowadays, so this should be easy.

7. Post to my blog at least three times a week. I also want to figure out how to make my blog better.

Design

8. Read five books on design. This can be graphic design, book design, web design, industrial design, whatever. I’m thinking I’ll start with Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things, which I started once but only got a few chapters in.

9. Typeset five books. With the D&C reader’s edition already underway, this shouldn’t be too hard.

10. Design a typeface. I’ve always wanted to do this. (We’ll say I only have to design the regular face, not italic or bold or small caps.)

11. Design four language charts. By which I mean things like the Latin declensions chart, which was really fun for me.

12. Design two movie credit demos or two other motion graphics projects. I’ve wanted to get into motion graphics for a while, and since it’s basically graphic design in motion, it thankfully fits in with my writing/design focus.

Other

13. Spend at least some time studying a language. I used to study lots of languages, but it’s been a few years since I’ve done anything, and I miss it. I’m thinking either Old English, Welsh, or Old Norse.

14. Baby Crowder. Just kidding. :P

A few final words

These aren’t my only resolutions; I have several of the “be a better person” variety as well, but they’re more private, so I’m not posting them here.