This is the time of year when people make lists and get reflective about the year that’s gone by and start to make resolutions for the coming year. I’ve never been one for resolutions. Resolutions start out great, but often get forgotten, leaving the person who made the resolution feeling disappointed in themselves. I prefer to make some goals for myself. The difference might be semantic, but I see the goals I set as less things I need to accomplish, but rather as setting a direction for the year ahead. So, even if I don’t accomplish the goal itself, it did set a direction for me for the year. Perhaps I didn’t accomplish the goals I set for myself during last year’s navel gaze, but those goals set me down the road I did end up following.
And now, the highlights of my year:
- Meeting my girlfriend Sarah (who is awesome). I haven’t talked too much about her here, but if you follow me on the facebooks, you’ll have seen a lot about her.
- This year, I stumbled a little creatively near the beginning of the year. It got a little hard to write and be creative while job hunting. But later on in the year, about the mid-way point, I rediscovered my love of writing, and have been going strong since.
- I participated in the Red Sandcastle Theatre‘s first annual 1000 Monkeys 24 hour playwriting event, which resulted in the creation of my play The Parliamentarians. I loved participating in this event. A group of playwrights, hunkering down in the Red Sandcastle for 24 hours, each given  three words to inspire them. It was pretty awesome writing in that room, with almost no one talking, everyone concentrating on the play they were working on.
- I changed the name of my podcast, and was able to interview some great people, including one of my theatre heroes.
- With Keystone Theatre, created a new show, called Gold Fever and presented it for three performances at the Toronto Clown Festival.
- Finding out that Keystone Theatre would also be bringing our Fringe Festival hit, the Last Man on Earth to Toronto’s Berkeley Street Theatre in April (and you can totally buy tickets now). Opening night is my birthday, so you should totally come.
- In November, also finding out that Keystone would be bringing Gold Fever to the Toronto Fringe Festival in July.
- Being asked by the Red Sandcastle to present my play The Parliamentarians in May.
And my goals for the coming year:
- Keep writing plays. I’ve got some plays that I started, but didn’t finish, and some ideas that I’ve been kicking around. Last year, I didn’t finish either of the plays I’d mentioned, so I’m not going to list specific plays. I just want to keep writing them.
- I also want to stretch my writing creativity. I want to write in some formats that i’m less comfortable in, like short stories and novels, so I’ll give that a go as well.
- I also want to figure out what to do with the podcast. Since I’ve been working two jobs, its been difficult for me to find the time to seek out interviews and go and do them. I’d like to relaunch the podcast and make it into something I can do given the limited time I have. I just don’t quite know that is yet.
And that’s it. The year that was, and the year ahead. Let’s do this again next year.