As you may know, if you read this blog, I am trying to keep tabs on my New Year's Resolution. My brain is a bit mushy right now because I've been grading essays all the live long day, but I'll do my best to be reflective.
1) Take More Photos (at least two pictures a week)
If I was part of the Selfie-Generation, taking pics would be second nature. But for me, I have to keep reminding myself about this one. It does help that I adopted my wife's iPhone 4. I just check, and it looks like I took a total of 69 snapshots in March.
It helps that we went to several cool places, including the touring production of Fun Home, the Universal Studios park -- complete with Hogwarts, Vasquez Rocks, and Disneyland. So, I am still keeping up with this resolution. I guess I should start posting more photos on the blog -- but as I mentioned before, the quality isn't great.
(By the way, I'm already off to a good start for April's quota. Mackenzie and I went out of state to visit colleges, and I took a bunch of photos.)
ACHIEVEMENT: 25% Complete
2) Write / Sell a New Picture Book
Holy cow! Big news on this front. I haven't signed a contract, so it's not official... but it looks like my agent sold Picture Book #5!!!!
When I can post specifics, I will certainly do so. But for now, let me say that this book sale was very unexpected. It's a book that I wrote a while ago (not the one that was most recently sent). The publisher had it for a long time, and after several months they decided to go for it. In the immortal words of Homer Simpson: Whoo-hoo!
Again, things can always fall apart... but for now we are going to consider this:
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED.
3) Generate idea for next big project (Complete 25% of it)
I have been adding to my middle grade novel off-and-on. In part because I let life (and essays) get in the way. In part, because I'm still trying to figure out who these characters are... and what the exact plot will be. It sounds kinda sloppy, right? But I am confident that I will eventually create a novel that I am proud of... whether or not publishers will want it is a completely different issue.
So, I believe I have added another ten pages... Which means I need 80 more to reach my goal. I am curious to see how things turn out next month, because I have slowed down this week. I am switching back into Picture Book writing mode, at least for a little while.
ACHIEVEMENT: 20% Complete.
4) Work on a creative project with my daughters (YouTube video and/or Podcast)
Emily and I were chatting about this, and I discussed the motivation of Youtubers. What draws them to this medium? Is it something that we want to pursue? If so, why?
Part of me wants to try to have this type of social media presence, but it might simply be motivated out of a desire for fame/recognition -- a way to try to create attention to myself as an author. And the more I think about that, the more it seems that my energies might be better spent actually writing instead of trying to brand myself as the John Green of the Picture Book World. (Although now that I've written that phrase, that does sound pretty awesome.)
In related news, Emily has been improving her ukelele and songwriting skills, so I think some Youtube posts might be arriving on her channel. (After she makes a channel.) Maybe I'll shift my focus and just concentrate on helping her film whatever she wants to film.
ACHIEVEMENT: Pending.
5) Show my appreciation more often / strengthen relationships and communication.
I am very lame at this aspect of my resolutions. And that's kind of a surprise to me. I had considered myself a naturally empathetic person who is anxious to reach out and connect with his fellow human. However, based upon this month's results, I am a selfish hermit.
I don't think I made any progress on my list of folks. Let's hope I get this percentage up next month.
ACHIEVEMENT: 6.5%
6) Lose ten pounds.
Yep. I'm still good with this one. But I did eat a sausage sandwich, complete with a large coke, so perhaps if I were to weigh myself I'd discover that I gained it all back. (I'm not stepping on that scale!)
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED.
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