Monday, January 07, 2008

A week in review

It's already a week into the new year and I thought it would be a great idea to see where things are going so far (thanks to Kelly for the idea).

Reading
I'm nearly done with Sunrise Lands and hope to have the review/rating finished today for tomorrow's posting. My reading queue is full already and I still have books that need to be added to the list. But I'm going to make a solid effort to reduce the TV schedule and increase the book time.

UFO Project
Going well so far. Made a trip to Dad's yesterday and increased my pool of items to research. In the short term, I should have enough to keep me busy for a few months. Long term, I'd like to bring in outsiders to submit their items.

Family
Elizabeth will be four in April and William will be one in August (Mom and Dad's birthdays don't matter so much). My sister-in-law should graduate from Duke with her PhD this spring (assuming all goes well). And I'm betting my brother-in-law will get engaged towards the end of the year. Just a hunch.

Travel
No major travel plans that are firm. I'd like to go with my Dad to Nebraska this summer for at least a weekend. A week if I can swing it. Maybe a trip north to Pennsylvania during the summer.

Work
Tax season has been pushed back a week already (thank you Congress for screwing AMT again). But I hope to survive through mid-April and then some.

Genealogy
Still working on it when I can. Right now there's a lot of photos to go through and stuff of that nature. If I can get things organized just right, I'll try to add to it from the collection at Dad's house.

Writing
Quite likely this will end up on the back burner if not back in the fridge this year. War Wagon was a solid bust and is pretty much orphaned at the moment. I do have another great idea for a - get this - a comedic fantasy. Right now, it's more of a short story since I don't have a lot of material. But the idea can be expanded to novel length. And from past experience, I've learned I'll have a better shot at a short story.

Everything Else
- The Wii is in the house and in use already. Yvonne did a wonderful job of stomping me at bowling last night. But I returned the favor in tennis. I'm hoping this will add to our reduced TV schedule and more fun-time with each other (last night was great, even if she beat me).
- I'm also moderately trying to watch what I eat and increase my physical activities. I almost said "seriously trying" but that would be a lie.

So, how was your first week of the new year? Accomplish anything? Already drop a resolution? Any grandiose schemes to take over the world?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"And I'm betting my brother-in-law will get engaged towards the end of the year."
Step-brother?

I'm just trying to get going on the projects I want to work on, one of which happens to be writing a comic fantasy novel (go figure).

Neil Richard said...

Nope. Don't really know much about my step-brother. I'm talking about my brother-in-law in Seattle. I'm betting he'll get engaged soon.

Comic as in animated-cartoony or comic as in funny-haha?

Anonymous said...

But if he's your brother-in-law, isn't he already married to your sister?

Comic as in funny-haha, if I can manage it. Short story or novel, depending on what I get out of it, as with yours. Began as an idea for something to write just for writing practice. I'm just barely starting on the beginning of it right now, actually.

Neil Richard said...

Ahh, yeah, that would make sense except I'm an only child. So, my brother-in-law is actually my wife's youngest sibling and only brother (my wife's the oldest). And she (my wife) agrees that they will likely get engaged this year based on some comments from her mother and the overall gut feeling we both have.

And it sounds like you've made more progress with your story than I have with mine. And I seriously doubt mine will go beyond the idea stage at the moment.

Anonymous said...

I should've thought of that. : )

I have one page at the most now and it's incomplete. : ) But I do intend to complete the story.

I finally had to just start writing because I always spend so much time trying to plan out my ideas and it can be discouraging to spend so much effort on something and never see any visible progress. So after starting out that way and getting turned off of it, I decided I'd never have the motivation to do it if I didn't just jump in.

So yeah, I know only the basics of where the story's going and not much about the characters (a little about the main character plus three other character names is all I've got). It's kind of a change for me, but I hope it works; I've never completed any of my own projects yet, so I'm hoping this "visible progress technique" will make it more fun, and change the trend.