So in the previous 2 years I've done a new year's post: 2008 and 2007 .. Maintaining this tradition I thought I'd do one in this new year too .. I missed publishing this on the 1st, 2nd 3rd, even 10th, ah well like it really matters as long as I do ..

With the end of 2007 I put out some of my goals for the year with the pretext that when I did 'this' post I could "share the progression rather than just me gloating to myself." .. as I egoistically put it. So let's have a quick look back at these before enforcing some new ones. Did I meet these goals? In dribbles ...

The film reviews and articles: I promised a rating system which I provided (with no explanation, but in essence I labeled films green, amber & red, based on whether I considered them 'must-see', 'well, it depends' and 'seriously don't bother' & mentioned in passing that I would try & improve the quality of my writing. I think I've achieved this, as always there is yet much room for improvement, so this shall remain on-going, after all you can always be 'slimmer' as Patrick Bateman once said. ;-)

I said I'll focus on the realistic goals, that way I'd be a total idiot if I failed: [let the demoralisation & entertainment ensue]

Online Screenplay:
I know that I haven't got a problem with doing the work required but have a problem getting my act together and to 'keep' doing it. The lack of motivation is the barrier that I hoped to overcome. To achieve this I suggested that I build a screenplay here in front of you all. 3 pages each week and I quote myself again: "At the end of year -- if you don't find a complete screenplay, with a beginning, middle and end (length: approximately 150 pages) than I have failed." -- and here I 'have' indeed failed!

What happened?!
Firstly, this is no excuse for failing, it is merely a real logical justification as to what happened. I started depending on a readership & feedback from friends & readers. Initially this worked well, but soon I found people just wanted a 'read', every month or so they'd catchup & I wasn't getting anything back from it. Since the story didn't engage me too much, I let it go & started work on other things. Nobody seemed to miss it or quizzed me about it so that was that. 2 and a half months & the project was pretty much dead.

What I learn?
The obvious. Only to work on something for myself, not to expect feedback/support et al, to remain as independent as possible?! Not quite, I need to make a point of infiltrating like-minded crowds. Expecting the average audience to critique, is all fair & well, but primarily they're just going to have a positive or negative feel, not a full-on structural analysis. Expecting more was perhaps a little unrealistic of me. As well as this, had I picked a story that I liked a lot, I probably would have continued. [but on the flip-side I'm not sure I would have been comfortable sharing it then.]

Vocabulary:
Considering my aspirations to sell what I write, I think it only makes sense that I should constantly be improving my vocabulary. As a bare minimum I said I"d go for learning 1 word a week (& sharing it). This means at the end of the year, provided I stored it all in my RAM then I'd have a larger bank of words to use than I did then. -- Part-Fail

What happened?!
Well, I did quite a few such posts. For more than half of the year, each Wednesday, I posted about the word I learnt over the last week & how I learned it. The logic behind it being, that a story attached to a word makes it easier to remember. It worked, however I sort of lost steam when my reading of Books came to a halt [I'm still less than half way through Haunted, which i have been for many months now]. At this stage the only new words I was encountering would be from films & people, (mostly on Twitter, I might add). So, with a recorded conversation there I didn't feel I needed to double post here, considering that half the audience here has exposure to my twittering anyway.

What I learn?
Well, new words, obviously. :-P In addition, recently I've learned that Twitter might be deleting older posts, in my archives I can only see about 800 tweets, which may sound like a lot, but considering the frequency of my twittering that is around a couple of weeks worth. Basically these recorded conversations potentially may be lost in the mist in no time. Taking this into consideration, I'll resume posting these 'here' shortly.

Other listed objectives to work towards:

• The "Koffee with Ram" section is still rather empty. - I had a rather adventurous plan for this but was unsure if I had the time or scope to pull it off. The idea being having coffee with random people, to develop personal communication & social skill, as well as an appreciation for different social groups & networks. It was quite a large time-hungry project and though things are potentially still feasible & in the works, I'm not certain of its long-term outcome. It's closer to fruition than last year, but I'm tempted to just latch on to something simpler. We'll see.
• The "About Me" section: I know that if somebody wants a simple snapshot over-view of what I'm all about, the only thing they would pick up from an initial browse is that I'm quite full of myself, and I seem to have a certain love for films, the Bollywood ones in particular. So a clear and concise page would be a good addition to show what the Ramchandra brand if you can call it that is really all about. - Still practically non-existent. Need to fix that.
• More photos -- I'm not very clear as to what I want to get out of this, but firstly I need to work out an optimal way of displaying pictures an a reader-friendly format. I've tried a couple of Photo album style add-ons to the Movable Type package but nothing I've been satisfied with. I may just port this project to Flickr. Primarily I need to take more pictures. Of the 100's a handful may be worth sharing. If I only take a handful, you do the maths.
• The "comic" that I've been promising for ages will still happen but is on the backburner somewhat. It links in slightly with the above, but that's just an excuse to a degree. I have a lot of ideas, characters and even complete strips on paper, but my drawing is terrible and I'm not entirely comfortable with the rough drafts that I've been doing as to be able to share them. - A friend has volunteered & putting together some character art, which seems potentially like it might go somewhere.
• There is also the building of a database-driven look at my film collection, that I'm hoping to progress. The hindrance here is the rumoured API for imdb has yet to be released. I may look into alternative ways of doing this, but I think I have got a fair chunk on my plate considering I have a full-time job doing something else entirely.

Well, there you have it, how I fared with my aspirations set in 2008.
Obviously that's not 'all' that I did, given time I'll do a follow up post for things achieived in '08 .. & things to do in '09.