Past Year's Accountability 2020

I’ve been doing this since 2009, so anyone who checks this blog probably already knows how this works. At the end of 2019, I wrote a list of goals for 2020, and now at the end of 2020, I’m posting a public account of which goals I accomplished and which I failed to accomplish.

Because 2020 has been an extraordinary year, I’ve made some modifications to my scoring system, which in the past has been rather unforgiving. For my 2020 recap, I will not be counting goals that would’ve been impossible for anyone to accomplish. For example, it would’ve been outright impossible for me to produce two Elsewhere shows this year, so that won’t count against my percentage. Additionally, unlike in past years, I will give myself “extra credit” if I go above and beyond on any goals. It’s been a tough year, and I think it’s more than fair to give myself credit for accomplishing more than I set out to.

1. Save $15K toward our bus

Leah and I are still planning to move into a renovated school bus in 2021, and we wanted to have at least $15K in savings toward the bus by the end of the year. Despite 2020’s challenges, we managed to squirrel away just over $15K, so I’m giving myself full credit for this resolution.

2. Get credit score over 750

After Leah and I almost wound up homeless in 2017 thanks to my shitty credit, I decided I needed to get my finances in order and get my credit score up. This has taken on extra weight because we’ll be trying to get a loan to buy a renovated school bus next year. According to Credit Karma, my credit score is ~760. Full credit for this resolution as well.

3. Put on two shows for Elsewhere

Last year I started a Shakespeare theatre company and my plan was to produce two shows this year, but that would’ve been impossible, so this is a dropped resolution.

4. Write a play for Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries

I had wanted to enter the Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries contest at the American Shakespeare Center last year, but I just couldn’t make the time for it. This year, I had an abundance of time and wrote three plays: The Killer of Camp Arden (a riff on As You Like It), The Brave and Glorious Victory (a riff on Troilus and Cressida), and Tybalt and the Three Choruses (a riff on Romeo and Juliet). I won’t hear anything back about whether any of my plays made it past the first round of cuts until the spring, but even if they don’t advance, I’m proud of having written them. 3x credit for this resolution.

5. Submit a different story to 10 magazines

In the last couple years I’ve been trying to come out of my shell w/r/t to my writing. In the past I’ve always been too afraid of failure to submit my writing to publishers or magazines. Last year was the first time I ever submitted a story to magazines, and while no one wanted it, it was important to me just to take that first step of putting myself out there. This year I wanted to continue putting myself out there, and so I submitted a different story, Spring Street, to 18 magazines, plus I also submitted some poetry to different magazines. 1.5x credit for this resolution.

6. Expand Why I Am So Sad to 15K words

I wrote a short story a few years ago called Why I Am So Sad, that I decided I wanted to expand into a novel. My goal was to get it to 15K words, but I was able to get it to 51K words, finishing the first draft. It still needs a lot of work, but I easily tripled my goal just in terms of word count, so 3x credit here.

7. Take 10 hours of acting classes (other than potential workshop with Venture)

I wanted to continue my theatre education this year, and I had planned to take more acting classes, as well as organizing a collaborative workshop between Elsewhere Shakespeare and Venture Shakespeare. Between doing the Pre-Conference classes at the Shakespeare Theatre Association conference and also doing Zoom workshops with Shakespeare Forum every week, I am going to give myself half credit for this resolution.

8. Teach three Shakespeare classes other than St. Margaret’s

I taught three Zoom classes for The Steward School in addition to Zoom teaching for St. Margaret’s School again this year. Full credit for this resolution.

9. Organize a workshop with Venture Shakespeare

I originally wanted to organize a collaborative performance workshop with my friend Kirstin Daniel who runs a company called Venture Shakespeare in NC, but that would’ve been impossible to do, so this is another dropped resolution.

10. Do a comprehensive study of Shakespeare's histories

The Histories have always been the weak link in my Shakespeare knowledge, especially the Henry VI plays. I had meant to really do a good study of the histories in 2020, starting with Elsewhere’s production of Henry IV, but that never materialized. I easily could’ve worked on this but I just never made time for it. So, zero credit here.

11. See a show in Cincinnati and a show in Atlanta

I wanted to visit my Shakespeare friends in Cincinnati and Atlanta and see shows at their companies in 2020, but even if it had been possible to do any traveling this year, live theatre wouldn’t have been happening. So this is a dropped resolution.

12. Do some real activism

I used to do more meaningful activism for causes that I cared about. From picketing the circus to phone-banking for Planned Parenthood, I used to actually do things to try and make the world a tiny bit better of a place. Lately I have gotten lazy, resorting to “slacktivism” like signing online petitions and making GoFundMe donations. I really wanted to do more good in the world this year, but all the things I imagined doing were impossible this year. I went out to a couple BLM protests in the summer, but large crowds of unmasked people were too stressful for me. I still tried to reach out to public officials and sign petitions and make donations where I could, but I don’t feel like I was able to do what I originally wanted to do this year. So, this will be another dropped resolution.

13. Write 5K words of SFAM

I am very slowly working on a book about Shakespeare in motion that I’m tentatively calling Spritely Fire and Motion, and I wanted to write at least 5K words of it this year. While I did write a bit of it this year, I realized that there was a lot of research left to do before I really made significant progress on putting words on the page. So, I got a lot of other writing projects done and I did some research for this project, but I didn’t come close enough to 2.5K to even give myself half credit for this. So, while I did some work on this project, I can’t in good conscience give myself any credit for this resolution.

14. Start on my back tattoo

I have been talking about starting on my back for years and years. I actually had a decent amount of money saved up to start on it this year, but I decided that I really shouldn’t be spending money on tattoos when Leah and I are saving up to buy our school bus. So, no credit for this resolution. Maybe next year when I’m a millionaire.

15. Scale back screen/social media time and read more

Like everyone else, I’m addicted to my god damned phone and over the years I’ve found myself reading less and less while wasting more and more time scrolling on social media. While I originally intended simply to set better boundaries about how to budget my time, I ended up resorting to simply deleting my Instagram and Reddit accounts, the biggest time-wasters on my phone. I’ve been reading much more and staring at my phone much less. I’m giving myself full credit for this resolution.

16. Publish Brief Candle 7 and Borne & Razed for Last Syllable Press 

I published the seventh issue of Brief Candle this year, but I had originally wanted to do a poetry zine with Stephen Welch called Borne and Razed, which I’ve put on hold because I sent the poems for that possible zine out to magazines to see if anyone wants to publish them first. Once I hear back from those magazines, I’ll resume work on that project. So, one out of two zines means half credit for this resolution.

17. Write more poetry 

I used to write a lot of (bad, high school) poetry, but in recent years my writing has drifted away from poetry. I had originally wanted to return to writing poetry this year, and while the single poem I wrote this year is certainly more than the zero poems I wrote last year, I don’t feel like I can give myself even half credit for this resolution.

18. Generate less plastic waste 

In the last couple of years, I’ve become more interested and invested in the “zero waste” movement, trying to reduce my waste in general, but especially plastic waste. Last year I participated in Plastic Free July and wrote a blog about my experiences for the Vegan RVA site. I had wanted to expand my commitment to generating less plastic waste this year, but with so much going on in 2020, I definitely made some moral sacrifices in the name of sanity, comfort, and convenience. While I think I did make some small strides in my zero waste journey (including buying a pair of shoes made from plastic removed from the ocean), I don’t think I made enough strides to give myself even half credit for this resolution.

19. Support my friends' art 

As I have aged, I have noticed myself staying in more and going out less. Whereas in my teens and 20s, I was always down to go out to a show, a gallery opening, whatever, I find myself in my mid-30s looking for an excuse to stay home instead, and that has led to me being a huge hypocrite when it comes to my friends’ art. When my friends’ bands would play a show, when they’d have a gallery show, when they’d be in a play, I would find any excuse to avoid going out, all while expecting the same people to come out when I would be working on something. This year I wanted to make more of an effort to be there for my friends’ creative endeavors. Given that we only got a couple months into the year before this became a moot point, this is just going to be a dropped resolution.

20. Make Richmond a more Shakespeare-centric city

I had a lot of plans for Richmond and Shakespeare in 2020. Riding the wave of our successful production of Hamlet, I had originally planned to do workshops for actors, collaborative classes, a mini-documentary, all with the intention of making Richmond a city that loves its Shakespeare. Maybe next year? But for now, this is going down as a dropped resolution.

So, my scoring for this year: 

20 resolutions, minus

6 dropped (impossible) resolutions equals

14 eligible resolutions with

12.5 successful resolutions (counting multiple successes where I exceeded my goals).

...or an 89% success rate.

Those who’ve been following my resolutions for the last decade plus know that I average around a 30-50% success rate, so my unusual scoring for this year yielded me a very good, almost suspiciously good, score.

As someone who typically grades himself harshly and thinks of this annual post as more of an exercise in public shaming than anything else, I had some hesitations about making my 2020 scoring system official and posting this entry. But I think that if there was ever a year to be forgiving to yourself, if there was ever a year to give yourself credit for the things you did and not beat yourself up over the things you didn’t do, this would be that year.