--First book was published. In May 2005, Revell published my singles book called Single Servings. If you had asked me when I was growing up if I would ever have a book published, I would have said that it wasn't something I had ever thought about. I wrote, but I always considered it an outlet. I was extremely shy as a child, and as a teen, and at times, writing was my only way of expressing myself. But I never even considered the writing I was doing at the time to be preparation for an eventual book.
--Wrote two nonfiction books. One of them is a sports book that doesn't have a release date yet and the other is a book about preparing for retirement—that book is scheduled for release in July 2006.
--Made a failed attempt to write a novel. I signed up for NaNoWriMo and I knew right away that I wasn't going to be able to pull it off. I had too many other deadlines looming and I couldn't set aside the necessary time to write a novel in one month. Ever since I started taking writing seriously, I've wanted to get a novel published. I've written two, but neither have been published. I'm working on my third and hoping that this will finally be the one.
--Had about 70 articles published. I had more articles published this past year than in any previous year. I'm a sports columnist for one newspaper. I'm a financial columnist for a magazine. I wrote over two dozen articles for a newspaper in the Midwest this past year. And I had quite a few articles published in national magazines.
--Started this blog on August 31. After writing a political/cultural blog for the past two years, I wanted a little more variety, so I shut down my previous blog and started Little Nuances. I've already heard from many of you who are enjoying this blog and I'm extremely grateful for each reader who makes this blog a small part of your busy day. If you've never e-mailed me before, drop me a line when you get a chance. I'd love to hear from you.
--Read 19 books. I set a goal for myself at the beginning of the year to read 36 books. I fell miserably short, but of course some books are longer than others. I've read more than 5,000 pages this year—which is just about the same amount of pages I read in 2004. That works out to about 14 pages per day. When I'm not under tight deadlines, I read a lot more. But when I'm under deadline, I read less.
--Made progress on the decluttering of my home. I've written quite a bit on this blog about my journey to rid myself of the much of the stuff I've accumulated over the years. I would have liked to rid myself completely of all the clutter this year, but I made more progress on it than during any previous year. My next step is to call somebody to haul away the things that are too big to throw away. Once I've done that, I'll actually have room to store the things I actually want to keep and that'll be a great feeling.
--Did a little soul-searching. I took time to do some self-examination and I didn't always like what I saw. One area that really bothered me was my lack of patience with others. I have one of those outward exteriors that probably makes it difficult to know whether I'm feeling impatient or not, but after seeing real patience from one particular person in my life, I determined that I might not be fooling that many people after all. I'm resolved to change this area of my life.
See you in 2006.
