Wow, what a year. What a crazy, messed-up, wonderful year.
A scant 364 days ago, when I first laid out my goals for 2024, I thought I'd de spending my weekdays the usual way. Start the day by fighting the morning commute. Grind out 8 or 9 or 10 hours at my technically challenging but often boring day job. Fight the evening commute back home. Squeeze in a couple hours for dinner and TV with my wife. Then try to crank out a couple pages of writing before collapsing into bed, utterly exhausted.
It worked. I mean, I built my playwriting career that way. But it wasn't fun. It wasn't fulfilling.
Then January 17 happened and everything changed. For that was the day I got laid off from my day job. I looked for a new job for several months, but at the age of 60, I knew I wasn't exactly a hot commodity. So it didn't surprise me that no offers came.
And that's how I became a full-time writer. Not by making a bold decision to quit my job or by falling into a pile of money from a long lost uncle or winning the lottery. No, I was pretty much forced into it, with a pink slip in one hand and a cardboard box of desktop photos under my arm.
It's been nothing short of wonderful.
Why? Well, I can't explain it any better than Gloria Steinem did years ago: "Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else."
That's exactly how I've always felt. And now, I have much more time not to feel I should be doing something else.
That additional writing time has really paid off. Sure, I've been writing a lot more plays. But more importantly, I've been writing better plays.
Having a longer stretch of time to write each day has allowed me to dive even deeper into my stories, to really think about what motivates my characters, to make their actions more compelling, to make their endings more satisfying.
And guess what. It has also helped me achieve two of my goals for the year.
So with that painfully awkward segue, let's see how I did with those now seemingly ancient goals:
1) Finish three plays
Success. When I thought I'd only be writing part-time, this goal seemed quite aggressive. But writing full-time, it turned out to be a piece of cake. As it turned out, I finished five. And one of them, my backstage comedy Bringing Down the House, is already a big hit, booking 38 productions in its first five months of publication.
I'll take that any day.
2) Publish three plays
Success. Again I went well beyond my goal, publishing five new plays. That makes this my most productive year yet.
Those plays are:
George Washington Ate My Homework
Bringing Down the House
Freaky Tiki
The Real Reason Dinosaurs Went Extinct
Kill the Critic!
On the other hand, two of the plays were held over from 2023, when they'd first gotten accepted for publication. On the other hand, I'll be heading into 2025 with three new plays in the editing queue at Pioneer so my backlog is growing, as they say in the biz.
Those plays are:
Too Many Ghosts
The Worst Fairy Tale Ever
Route 66
3) Travel to Hawaii
Failure, and for the second year in a row. But this year it wasn't my fault. I got laid off, remember? And while that allowed me to live the professional lifestyle I've always wanted, it did mean Tammy and I had to cut back on expenses.
The first to go was restaurants. We used to love dining out, trying an exciting new place or revisiting an old favorite every weekend. Giving that up hurt. But pricey trips to places like Palm Springs or San Diego, had to go as well. That hurt only a little but less.
That doesn't mean we're cooped up in the house every day. We do go to local festivals, especially if they involve the blues, Greek food, or wine. As an adjudicator for the ariZoni Theatre Awards, I'm able to see eight or nine plays a year for free. And Tammy and I support our daughter Ashley by cheering her on at the three or four ultramarathons she runs each year. These usually take place in gorgeous locations throughout Arizona and the Southwest and we share the costs with Ashley, making this an economical way to explore a part of the country we love.
Maybe we'll be able to travel again in a couple years, after I've built up my play portfolio a little more. In the meantime, I'm happy to travel vicariously by practicing my Italian every day and watching the occasional Rick Steves rerun.
4) Be more present
Okay, this is a tricky one. When I made this goal, I noted that there was no way I could possibly measure it. The only way I'd know whether I'd met it or not was to be honest with myself and judge whether I'd really gotten out of my head enough. And looking back over the last twelve months, I though I could honestly say: Sort Of.
I mean, I'm getting better. I'm taking more time to enjoy meals, to really think about what I'm eating and savoring every bite. And when Tammy and I walk our dog, the illustrious supermutt Honey, I've been focusing on the beautiful views around me rather than all the things I have to do when the walk is over.
But then I looked back at my goals over the last several years and realized I wrote almost the exact same thing in 2022, even down to the details about meals and walking Honey.
So maybe I didn't make any progress this year. Either way, I've got a long way to go. And that's why I'll keep working at it in the new year, even if I don't make it an official goal. After all, mindfulness--along with finding your purpose and fostering meaningful relationships--is one of the keys to living the Good Life. And I've already got the other two.
