Well, the good news is that this report is on time for once. The bad news is that I suspect my progress is sucking. Let’s take a look at my goals and where I’m at.
Read 20 books in 2019: According to Goodreads.com I have completed….one book in 2019. I’m currently reading three others – Soonish, by Kelly Weinersmith (hardcopy on the nightstand), This is Marketing by Seth Godin (e-book on my phone) and Visual Explanations by Edward Tufte (hardcopy, on my shelf in my office), but yeah, I’m way behind. I should have five books under my belt, and even if I completed all three of those in-progress ones today (spoiler: not happening), I’d still be behind. I’m tempted to take Austin Kleon’s advice on how to read more and abandon one or more of those…but I just can’t. I’m the kind of guy who waits until the end credits to make sure he doesn’t miss anything.
I know part of the reason is that while those three books are interesting, they’re all non-fiction and I have to digest them in small chunks. Once I wrap those up, I plan to binge on some page-turning fiction.
Write 50 posts in 2019: This post marks my ninth for the year. Not quite 20% of the way done with this goal, although still more than the five posts I wrote for all of 2018, so I call this progress nonetheless, from a year-over-year point of view.
Finish the Rough Draft Before April 1: Nope. I think I still have about 10,000 words to go before the rough draft is done. By the numbers, I’m at 146,329 words (+12k since December, so that’s…something?). I won’t make excuses. My plan to write in smaller chunks has failed miserably. I’ve been most successful finding a couple quiet hours over the weekends, so maybe I need to amplify that. During the work week has just been too tiring and hectic. We’ll amend this to Finish the Rough Draft before July 1.
Catch up on the Schedule: Nope. I’m more than 200 days behind schedule on the fourth Togahan novel. It’s coming, and I sincerely thank you for your patience. As usual, “life” gets a vote no matter how ambitious the schedule. Still, I keep plugging away. I recall a Will Rogers quote I read a long while ago, “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
So yeah, let’s keep moving no matter what.
-Pete