2014 is Not as Cool-Sounding a Year As 2012 or 2013

1.Novel-Writing II: The Revisionating.

Ha ha, like I’m ever done revisionating — I mean, revising a novel or script until it’s published. And sometimes not even then. Still, as you can see….

2. How to hem dress pants and curtains without requiring the assistance of a tailor.

My aunt made lots of awesome clothes for her children, some of which my sister and I received as hand-me-downs. At the cottage this summer, she showed me how to hem by hand without having my irregular stitches conspicuous on the outer side of the garment. She let me practice on my baby cousin’s mini-jeans. Now I’ve hemmed ALL THE PANTS. Thanks, Aunt Ruth!

3. How to be Cinderella. [go to bed by midnight except when required otherwise by professional activities or New Year’s Eve]

This one was always going to be a work in progress. But I’m proud to say that I at least started to take baby steps: I managed to make my bedtime earlier by a couple hours and to wake up early regularly in order to write for three hours before noon in the summer. The change was sporadic and limited to days when the weather doesn’t muddle my head.

In the winter, I got better and started getting ready for bed at 10:30-11 so I could sleep by midnight, and so far I’ve been decent for about a month. It helped a lot to accept that my body wants 9 hours of sleep per night, and I need to plan accordingly. My friends and especially boyfriend have been good about supporting me leaving stuff early or actively telling me to go home, I need to sleep.

(For instance:

BOYFRIEND: Go to sleep.
ME: I don’t wanna!
BF: Go to sleep.
ME: No! Ha ha ha!
BF: *pauses to think*
BF: If you go to sleep now, you’ll wake up in Narnia…)

4. How to program in Python
5. …JavaScript,
6. … jQuery ,…
7. …and Ruby.

I got through these pretty quickly, thanks to Codecademy and Coursera. Of the two, I much prefer the Coursera courses (even though they don’t offer me nifty virtual badges every time I complete something). I picked up coding languages and syntax quickly, and I followed the logic pretty easily, but I’m no good at thinking like a programmer. I don’t know what to do with the stuff I know — the standards to which I should hold my work. It’s like knowing how to compose a grammatical sentence and having a basic vocabulary without understanding what make a good book or article. The Coursera professors (from U of T… so I really should have just taken this course in person when I could have done so during my graduate studies) do a great job of explaining why certain programming conventions exist and what programmers should prioritize when putting code together.

8. How to plan and execute a real-life Murder Mystery Weekend at a rented house this May.

Check it out! Thanks to all my wonderful suspects (or victims?) and our devious murderer, selected randomly, of course.

9. How to be my own Internet nanny. 

Also a work in progress. By spring, I got to the point where I was at least meticulous about keeping Buzzfeed, Cracked, Lifehacker, and other entertainment sites in my incognito windows so Chrome wouldn’t automatically prompt me to go there when I typed a letter in the browser bar. That’s something, right? But during my morning writing, I took no chances: my router stayed OFF. Any important emails or must-know-this-now research could happen on my phone, which is annoying enough that I don’t use it just to browse. Trouble is, to mark, I need online access to student papers.

I think I need to make this one more specific: no using the Internet during breaks from computer work. No entertainment sites after nine p.m.

10. How to do the one-submission-on-average-per-work-week thing.

I *KNOW*. I’m as surprised as you! To be fair, like, 40 of those subs were within a couple weeks of each other. But look at me! I’m sending queries and subs like it’s my job… which is what I hope it will be. Funny how that works, eh?

From 2012:

3. How to get a paper accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Not yet.

4. How to donate blood (or get medically disqualified from doing so, should that turn out to be the case).

I’m a coward! All you people who said you’d come with me, make me do this!

5. How to downhill ski, water-ski, or both.

Maybe my arm will be better this winter/summer.

6. How to play the jaw harp.

Ha ha, nope.

7. How to build a novel that consists of nine self-contained short stories.

Like I said last year, this was done in the first week of January. *sigh* Just a teeny bit too late.

From 2011:

5.  All the information in the dozens of unread books currently on my shelves.

First of all, I got rid of many dozens of those books, because life is short, and why read stuff I don’t want to when there’s a lot of other stuff I do want to read? Then, in July, I promised/threatened myself that there would be no more taking out books from the library until I was finished the ones I already had.

For those of you keeping score at home, this is kind of how my parents toilet-trained me when I was a toddler (I had to pay a “book tax” on diapers once they realized I was being lazy, not incompetent… after that, my laziness lasted about all of one night). Some things never change.

From 2010:

4. How to play The Orange Box and Portal without dying, turning off the computer in fright at Ravenholm, and/or getting stuck in the corner every two seconds.

Boyfriend, you said you would help me. Sister, you started playing Portal with me. C’mon, guys, let’s do this!

5. How to work with a literary agent and editor.

Working on it!

6. How to speak and read German and/or Yiddish.

Still working on it! Check it out.

Ich bin eine Frau. Ich esse Käse. Ich liebe Käse.

I guess I respond well to gamification.

And for 2014 (drum roll please!):

1. How to roller skate (not blade).
2. How to roll tack.
3. How to spar in boxing lessons.
4. How to make at least one type of Ethiopian stew.
5. How to use AutoHotkey.
6. How to continue sending writing submissions like it’s my job.
7. How to use a text expander effectively.
8. How to cartwheel in good form consistently.
9. How to  “fence as a martial art.”
10. How to continue going to bed by midnight almost every night.