Random Thoughts VI January 3, 2022 Welcome to the new year! May it be a good one for us all, both in writing and in life. I've compiled my writing statistics for the year, and they stand as follows: Writing Stats for 2021: o Words written: 180,000+ o Submissions: 112 o Publications: 5 o Hours of writing-related activity/goal: 975/1040 Overall, I improved on the number of submissions (and publications) from my 2020 numbers, and held steady in both word count and number of hours spent working on writing. Not bad for a year as unusual as 2021 was. This year I intend to up my minimum daily word count from 500 to 750 words per day. I gave the new target a test-drive over the last week of December and found that it was doable, but a bit of a stretch for me--which is exactly what I'd hoped for. I've also discovered that, rather than pouring all my words into just one project, upping my word count has forced me to spread my writing out over several projects. I'm hoping that, in the end, it'll make me more productive across the other genres in which I write. In 2021, I was also able to do something I've never done before: be a panelist at a SFF convention (WorldCon, no less). I was nervous at first but ended up having a great time. I hope I gave the audience and other panelists as much as I got from them. I'm also going to try to prune my ever-growing library this year, using two new resolutions: buy no new books; and spend the after-dinner hours reading instead of online or watching TV. My goal is to reduce my library by at least one book a week or fifty for the year. Wish me luck. (c) 2022 by Andrew Gudgel email: contact [at] andrewgudgel.com