GuyOnAWire

I can’t believe it’s 2022 already. In some ways, it still feels like March of 2020. The past near-two years have been difficult for us all, and I’m not going to be hard on myself, especially since most of my 2020 goals have been achieved (see below). And yes, it has been a while since my last post. Thanks for noticing! Here are my goals (not resolutions) for the year 2022:

1. Get Back to Blogging.
   While not my actual number one goal, it makes the most sense for the top spot considering this is the first post I’ve made in well over a year. So yeah, I will revisit this blog from time to time. This will include my list of watched movies from the prior year (I skipped 2020, and wish I didn’t). Perhaps I’ll post that too.
   
2. Publish my Novel. 
   Yes, you read that right. The same goal as the past almost seven years since I began posting the first draft chapters on this very blog in March of 2016. What an insane ride. I’m currently deep into the fifth draft, and it’s the second time I’ve systematically restructured it. This will be the closest that I have ever been to finally accomplishing this goal.
   
3. Write Two New Screenplays.
   I had an insane goal to write twelve screenplays last year, and while I came nowhere near that (1.5 if you’re wondering), at least the goal prompted me to write another new feature. Plus, it helped uncork a creative bottleneck I was experiencing at the time. And that one – finished – film I wrote was my absolute best one yet and I plan to shoot that feature in 2023. Which brings me to–
   
4. Produce a Feature Film.
   Yes, the shooting will commence in the Spring of 2023, but I need to get going on the pre-production side so it’s not pure gar-bahge. I plan on doing that this year on top of my current workload.
   
5. Get Hired as a Staff Writer.
   Sure, the next step in my career path is to become a Script Coordinator, but I’d love to get staffed so I can finally get paid to write something. It’s either this job or my book that will finally do it this year.
   
6. Get Married.
   This one’s actually not as lofty of a goal as you’d imagine, considering I proposed to my girlfriend during the last week of 2021. Yes, that means if you came here from the 2020 Goals post, not only did I find the perfect person to share my life with, but also, we’re now engaged to be married. And it’s awesome.
   
7. Shoot Four Short Horror Films.
   Part of the reason I didn’t finish more writing work (aside from the current fifth draft of my aforementioned book), is that my fiancé and I were co-writing, co-producing, and co-directing two horror shorts this past year. I will post them here when I’m able. (Told you I wanted to share my life with someone.) We made the shorts through a film group called Just Scare Me, and because of it, we should have four new shorts due this year, so I know this goal is in the bag.
   Now we just got to write them…

And as promised, here are which 2020 goals I achieved over the pandemic:

My 2020 Goals (Achieved over the past 20 months)

1. Publish That Novel — See above. I didn’t yet.
2. Write Five Screenplays — Among the two drafts of the book, I only wrote the 1 and a half scripts in 2021 (and none in 2020). But writing is still progress in my mind!
3. Get Hired as a Writers’ Assistant — I did! Onto the next step!
4. Visit Somewhere New At LEAST Three Times — I did! Las Vegas, San Francisco, Cottonwood, AZ, and Monroe, WA!
5. Strengthen This Very Blog — I did NOT. This was the most failed goal, but again, I did do a lot more that wasn’t public.
6. Find Someone with Which to Share it All — I did! As I alluded to earlier, I definitely landed the perfect woman!

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And there you have it. My seven goals for 2022. Which one do YOU find more feasible? I think all can be accomplished. Especially with my wonderful lady by my side every step of the way.

Here’s to hard work, and having a blast doing it.

-Jamie (@GuyOnAWire)

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