2007 year in review

Okay, not really... but I will address the issue of why there hasn't been an update in the past month and a half.

But first and foremost, I hope that everybody enjoyed their holiday period, and I wish everybody a good 2008.

Number 27: Write a novel

When last I updated, I was (not quite) halfway through a month-long project to cram in as many stupid or cheesy ideas that I could into one 50,000-word long novel. The title of the novel in question was Greatest Hits, it was being written for the month-long event called National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short), and it proved to be a lot tougher than anticipated.

Going into the thing, I was full of energy and excitement over writing a novel, and I thought I had it all planned out. Not so. While I had a pretty clear beginning and ending in mind, what I completely neglected was the tough task of writing the middle of the story. In my last update, I was only 16,000 words in when I was halfway through the month, and things were looking grim.

Because of my lack of ideas for how I was to get from point A to point B, the story took on a life of its own. The characters began to do things that I didn't expect, which started to create some interesting plot points. The general theme of the story changed fairly significantly from my initial intent, and made for some great moments as a result.

Eventually, when my slow progress was threatening to end the NaNoWriMo attempt in failure, I decided to simply keep writing and writing whenever I had any free time. Near the end, there were days when I would do in excess of 5,000 words in a single day. It wasn't pretty, but it did the job. Quantity was definitely the objective.

My almost exponential advancement in word count was displayed on my progress chart, which had a pretty healthy start but otherwise petered off with very slight increases until the last ten or so days, when it skyrocketed towards success. With three days to spare, I typed those final words of the story, several hundred words above the target of 50,000, and rejoiced in what I had just accomplished.

With that, I marked off the 27th item in a list entitled "30 things to do before you turn 30", making it the fourth goal that I had achieved since writing up the list on one sleepless night in May.

Work and play

Much of the rest of the next month consisted of me doing one of two things (not counting eating and sleeping): Going to work, or; playing a little MMORPG called Tabula Rasa. I also vaguely remember buying an Xbox 360 at a sale, but it has sadly been largely neglected due to the addictive nature of Tabula Rasa. I've clocked many hours on it so far.

Other things also transpired, such as endless amounts of Christmas parties, an engagement party, karaoke with the family, and a fun new year's eve at Dave's place in Stanwell Park.

Looking forward, looking back

And now it's 2008.

2007 was, simply put, the best year that I've ever had in my life, and I wouldn't take any of it back. But it's time for me to look forward to the year ahead. It'll be a year that will see me looking for a permanent job and trying to get fit, and no doubt will bring a bucket-load of surprises before the calendar ticks over to 2009. I'm excited to find out what this year will bring.

So, happy new year, everybody!

(Editor's note: Thus far in 2008, Adrian has recovered from two hangovers, attended two days of the cricket at the SCG, and has gotten an impressive t-shirt tan.)