found drama

Wow, the first three months of 2012 really rushed by, didn’t they? Better dust off this year’s goals and see where we are with everything. I feel like I’ve done well, but how did I really do?

1. Exercise: ≥4 days each week. I have not been following this very strictly, but it looks like I’m performing slightly above plan. Some weeks I fit in an exercise session of some kind every single days; others ¹ don’t get any exercise at all. Got my money’s worth on skiing this winter, so that was nice. And my “foot-based” exercise routine has been going pretty consistently:
   
   Climbing is a bit off the rails though: ²
   
   But overall looking good:
   
2. Reading: ≥36 books. According to Goodreads, I’m 8 books ahead of schedule on this. ³ And but so I’ve also just started the great 2012 re-read of Infinite Jest, so that may fall a bit behind, those numbers.
   
   

   Book	Author	Date	Links
   Neanderthal	John Darnton	1/2	Goodreads; Amazon.com
   The Cardinal of the Kremlin	Tom Clancy	1/15	Goodreads; Amazon.com
   Animal Farm	George Orwell	1/19	Goodreads; Amazon.com
   We Are in a Book!	Mo Willems	1/21	Goodreads; Amazon.com 4
   Grendel	John Gardner	1/24	Goodreads; Amazon.com
   Embassytown	China Miéville	2/12	my review; Goodreads; Amazon.com
   Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal	Christopher Moore	2/22	Goodreads; Amazon.com
   Quiet	Susan Cain	3/1	my review; Goodreads; Amazon.com
   The Intuitionist	Colson Whitehead	3/6	Goodreads; Amazon.com 5
   Against a Dark Background	Iain M. Banks	3/21	Goodreads; Amazon.com
   The Joy of Clojure	Fogus & Houser	3/22 6	Goodreads; Amazon.com
   Running Lean	Ash Maurya	3/25	my review; Goodreads; Amazon.com
   Mobile Design Pattern Gallery	Theresa Neil	3/29	my review; Goodreads; Amazon.com
   Little House in the Big Woods	Laura Ingalls Wilder	3/31 7	Goodreads; Amazon.com

   Not to mention that I’m working through about 4 ⁸ other books at the moment, and have plenty more lined up…

3. Reading: 10 new authors. If we’re counting non-fiction, I’ve only got two more to go. But my inclination is for the 10 new authors to be fiction. And in that case: more like 7 or 8. ⁹
4. Writing: ≥5 hours each week; 1000+ words per session.
   
   March was huge, but I’m oddly showing “just barely” for January, and “not” for February. Most days I at least write for an hour, though I seldom hit 1000 words. ¹⁰ But…
5. Writing: Finish a draft of my novel-in-progress. This is completed. March 13th was when I “finished” that first draft. Seems like the sensible thing to do would be to update this goal to: “Get something in front of people.” Anyway: actively plowing through the revisions…
6. Code: Write something (anything!) in Clojure. Negative, ghostrider. Not started.

1. Like that week I was sick.[↩]
2. Despite having found a bunch of new partners.[↩]
3. And/but/so looking closely: I don’t know if I totally by that. They’re counting some kids books here that… well, that I would not.[↩]
4. Yes, it’s a kid’s book. So what? I read it for The Boy enough times.[↩]
5. Which, seriously, I know I don’t have my own review posted anywhere but… 5-stars. Really: go out and read it right now.[↩]
6. But I’d been working on this one since… July 2011? A good long while.[↩]
7. Though admittedly: that was a co-read with A., for H.; and A. did most of the reading.[↩]
8. Plus one “on hold”.[↩]
9. Which depends on whether we count Laura Ingalls Wilder, which I probably wouldn’t, since that was a co-read, and was more for H. than it was for me.[↩]
10. Had lots of 900+ word ones where I kick back and frown and say to myself: Why didn’t you just hammer away for 15 more minutes?[↩]

About Rob Friesel