English: New Year's Resolutions postcard
English: New Year’s Resolutions postcard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have been posting my new year resolutions in the blog for the past four years, so I’m going to continue this with my 2018 resolutions. But before my 2018 resolutions I think we should look at how well I’ve done on the 2017 resolutions.

2017 Resolutions

I had a few 2017 resolutions. However I must have been feeling overly optimistic in January 2017! Here they are:

  • Finish my Open University degree (in June if I pass both courses)
  • Design a megagame (1689, in the latter half of the year)
  • Write 50 blog posts, edit Perfects and Noren, write another novel (probably NaNoWriMo 2017) and a history book
  • Get my weight into the 12 – 12.5 stone range and keep it there.

Finish my Degree

I did this, it was a lot of hard work, and I wouldn’t have made it without the support of my wife and children. However I completed both B204 and T317 in June 2017. I was effectively a full time student and working full-time for the first half of 2017.

We all got a day out in Brighton to celebrate my graduation in September. I came away with an upper second class honours degree and a new set of post-nominals.

Allegedly I should have had a bunch of time to do other things after this, but I’ve no idea what has happened.

Design the 1689 Megagame

I haven’t done this. I have read some of the background material, and collected even more. I have also run a couple of sessions at CLWG to test some ideas for 1689. Notably I designed a battle system for it, although it was too unwieldy for a megagame. It would be OK as a campaign system (google doc).

Writing

I haven’t achieved this either. This one was wildly optimistic, so I’m not unhappy with what I’ve achieved. I’ve written

  • Sixty nine unique blog posts
  • two short stories, both for the NYC Flash Fiction Challenge
  • 50k towards a new novel
  • done some of the editing on Perfects.

Weight

I lost track of this and put on a few pounds. Still nowhere near the heaviest I’ve ever been. I’m paying attention to my diet again and have started to lose the extra I put on.

2018 Resolutions

I have a few 2018 resolutions, they’re all a little lower key than the 2017 ones.

  • Read 40 books over the course of the year (I managed 27 in 2017, but have read more in previous years)
  • Design a megagame (finishing what I started)
  • Write 50 blog posts, edit Perfects and publish it
  • Get my weight under 13 stone and keep it there.