Taking stock on old resoutions

I was going to take stock of how well I achieved my 2011 New Year’s Resolutions, but then I saw that the last ones I posted were at the beginning of 2010. I also saw that I only posted three times in all of 2011…clearly a resolution waiting to happen right there.

So I’ve had two years to work on these goals:

Read more American fiction

I did this, a little, though less than I would have liked. (Then again, I would prefer to have read more of everything, in every category.) I read The Corrections (yes, finally), A Visit From the Goon Squad (really amazing), We Need To Talk About Kevin (really good…very curious to see the movie, especially as Tilda Swinton seems like perfect casting), Home (tremendous), The Human Stain (the only Philip Roth I’d read before was Portnoy’s Complaint…my, what I’ve been missing), and Mr. Peanut (a totally dark and amazingly clever novel about marriage and murder). This last one was recommended to me by another amazing American writer, Joanna Pearson, whose novel The Rites and Wrongs of Janice Wills is the perfect YA treat. (YA = Young Adult, for those of you who don’t occasionally take great pleasure in dipping into what’s available for the younger set.)

Read more British fiction Unless you count rereading Villette, the only British novel I’m sure I’ve read is The Little Stranger. It’s a great story – I got spooked reading it – and it was the perfect companion piece to Downton Abbey, which I got swept up in last January. Oh no, wait! At some point I also read Skippy Dies (solid, enjoyable).

Read more poetry Yes, I absolutely did! Not only did I read a fair bit from the library, but I'm also fortunate enough to know a number of amazing poets who've published books recently. I promise you will not be disappointed by any of the following: Hypotheticals by Leigh Kotsilidis, The Id Kid by Linda Besner, A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People by Gabe Foreman, and All This Could Be Yours by Joshua Trotter. Now I just need people to do this all the time and I'll be totally covered on the poetry front.

Finish my novel Well, what does finish really mean? I finished and submitted the initial draft I’m sure I was referring to here. And then another. And…one more? And now I’m waiting for notes. That’s about as much as I feel like saying about this right now.

Write another one Hahaha, it is to laugh. Well, not really. I have two other serious projects underway, and a few other less ambitious things somewhat started/imagined/idly planned. But a lot of major work needs to happen before this gets crossed off the to-do list. 

Try writing something in another genre Yes! A little. Though I haven’t tried submitting anything yet.

Conclusion: Decent progress? Unless you consider the fact that I had two years to work on these. (Secondary conclusion: time to make some new goals.)