Last year, I set four goals for myself:

• Read more.
• Write more.
• Play more games.
• Spend more time outside.

Here’s how I did.

Read More

According to Goodreads, I read 34 books in 2016, which is also what I read in 2015. True, at least four of those books were 800 pages or more. But I still want to step that up in 2017. I’m aiming for 40 books, which is about a book every week and a half.

Write More

In 2016, I hoped to finish the first draft of The Tin Whistle, the final book in my science fiction trilogy, but I’m just not there unfortunately. It’s easy to feel bad about that, but on the other hand I finished a play (the first play I’ve written in several years). I wrote an “escape room,” an immersive theatrical experience. And I wrote a draft of different science fiction novel, with the working title That Time in Venice. So it was actually a very good year of writing.

My main 2017 writing goal: finish The Tin Whistle and publish it. In theory, I’ve cleared the deck for this. So here’s hoping!

Play More Games

One a month or once every other month, I and a group of friends have gotten together to play Risk Legacy and it’s been a blast. I’ve had some good cribbage sessions, but fewer games of Acquire than I would like. I’ve played a whole lot of chess on my iPhone but not much in person. Maybe I can change that in 2017.

Spent More Time Outside

Of these goals, I think I fell down here the most. We hit plenty of parks, but we didn’t spend much time in the wilderness. So more hikes! More short drives to the woods. Even if it’s just Point Defiance and Swan Creek, I want to spend more time surrounded by nature.

There’s a lot that I want to see happen in 2017 (many of which are related to the election of Trump). But for personal goals for myself, I think these four are still right on.