It’s the end of December, and the internet is flush with year-in-review blog posts. As much as I despise being a conformist, this blog WAS a one-year experiment that started a year ago. As such, a review of the past year, and an evaluation of how the experiment went is required.
52 Short Stories is an experiment, in which I will attempt to complete 52 short stories from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009.
Anyone who’s been visiting this page on a quasi-regular basis and looked at the progress tracking sheet in the right navigation bar, will have noticed that it hasn’t been updated since the end of April, after the 14th story was completed. Luckily, that tracking table isn’t representative. In truth, I stopped updating the tracking sheet when I started getting embarrassed by my lack of ability to stick to my writing schedule of more-or-less-one-story-per-week. Unfortunately, it’s not as unrepresentative as I would like
So, how many short stories did I complete in a year? Just under 20. I know what you’re thinking: “20 is a far cry from 52. You failed miserably.”
But, I disagree, and not just for the sake of being argumentative. While I may have come far from my quantitative short story goal of 52 short stories, the overall goal of this experiment was to get me writing again, and it did. Twenty short stories is twenty more than I produced in 2008. Aside from writing short stories, I did a lot of other writing in 2009.
- I launched and wrote 27 posts for this blog
- I launched and wrote 17 posts for my professional blog that focuses on internet marketing for small and medium sized businesses
- I wrote two article for the upstart Gen-Y site The Next Great Generation
- I planned and wrote a substantial amount for a new project that I’ll be launching with a co-conspirator in 2010
I also wrote several thousand e-mails, and probably a few dozen proposals and recommendations, but I won’t count those.
This blog has always been meant as a place to chronicle my writing journey, and my thoughts on creativity, but I’m also going to use this space to talk about a few other achievements from 2009.
Professional
On the professional front, I continued my young journey in the world of internet marketing by helping my employer, the Yellow Pages Group, move aggressively into the online world. For obvious reasons, I won’t say exactly what we did at YPG, but I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in some exciting high-profile projects that are changing the face of a 100-year old company. I also took a step up the corporate ladder.
Personal Goals/Experiments
I take a bit of an unusual approach to personal goals, I set them up as experiments, sort of like lifestyle design experiments. One example, is the 52SS experiment, but I tried out a few other ones this year.
The Low-Information Diet: I tried this out, and talked about it here (and here, and here). In essence, i cut out a whole lot of the information overload that I’ve come to believe that I “need.” The result was that I had a lot of extra time, and realized that I didn’t need most of that information after all. Six+ months later, I may have to repeat this experiment, because it seems that while I got rid of a lot of the information I used to consume, I’ve replaced it with a whole bunch more.
The 21-Day Holistic Detox: At some point this year, I took stock of my eating habits and realized that they were causing me to wake up in the morning feeling like I had gargled acid all night, causing me to have mid-afternoon energy slumps, and possibly affecting my focus. I decided to try the 21-day detox to see if it would change anything. The results after 3 weeks were enough for me to make a serious change in my eating habits. You can read more about my detox experience here.
Barefoot Running: After several years of trying to become a serious runner, but consistently being held up by minor injuries, I made a purchase this year that changed how I run, changed how much I run, and definitely changed the way people look at me. Vibram Five Fingers are quite possibly the ugliest shoes on the market, but they quickly became my favourite thing to wear on my feet (I am wearing my VFF Sprints as I write this). I highly recommend them if you don’t mind strangers whispering things about you as you go by.
Twitter: This year, I hopped on the bandwagon and started using Twitter. It took me a little while, but I eventually got the hang of it, and while I’m far from being an addict, I do enjoy logging in for a few minutes a day to see what’s happening. The great thing about Twitter is that its simplicity means the only limit to its usage is your imagination. It can be a tool for businesses, for writers, or just for having fun.
Personal Life/Social
There were no major events in my personal life this year, and I’m okay with that. My relationships, with family, friends and girlfriend remained the same, or got stronger. I realized that the most important people in my life have not changed for at least five years, and most of those, I’ve known far longer. Change is good, but sometimes, stability is better.
Overall
I may have come short of my goal to write 52 short stories, but in many other ways, in both writing, and outside of writing, 2009 was a good year for me, and I’m going to spend what’s left of it being grateful for that.
So, now that the year’s over, what happens to 52SS? Well, I think it’s going to stick around. I think I’ll extend the experiment, and I enjoy having a spot to share my thoughts. Expect the next post to come in the new year, and to talk about what’s in store for 52SS, and for me, in 2010.
How was your 2009? I’d love to hear what you’re proud of having accomplished in 2009, so please share in the comments.
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4 comments ↓
Glad to hear this isn't the end of 52SS.
I'm seriously considering trying the Low-Information Diet next year.
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I'd love to hear more about the barefoot running! Even though it is becoming more popular, there still aren't many of us out there…
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@Paul – I highly recommend the Low-Information Diet. Beware unexpected side effects, though.
@Jason – Not much more to tell. I used to not be able to run further 4k before pain and numbness kicked in and I couldn't run anymore. Barefoot running seems to have relieved that, and I'm on my way to running much longer distances. I think 2010 will be a year for a half-marathon.
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Adam, drop me a line at robillardj "at" gamil "dot' com. I can give you a bunch of links to barefoot info.
Or just check out some of the links on my site here: http://barefootrunninguniversity.com
Good luck!
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