2006 In Review

As for us all, the end of the year affords a look back. In the span of twelve months, what challenges have I met and mastered? What has tripped me up? Where have I persevered? Where have I fallen short?

So many things come to mind as I consider 2006, but I’ll stick to writing for this venue. For the second year now, I set up a spreadsheet in January to track my writing productivity. I do it for two reasons: to keep myself accountable for actual writing time and to look back and realize (hopefully) that all the time snatched here and there added up to a measurable accomplishment. (I tweak the stats I keep each year to show this more accurately.)

And guess what? It continues to work. Not only did I revel in being able to log in numbers of words written, pages revised and critiqued, and books read, but as I entered the function equations to total my numbers for the year, I was shocked! Little does add up to a lot!

Given the circumstances of the year—my nephew’s heart surgery, selling and buying a house and moving—I felt some frustration at my lack of writing time. But feelings don’t necessarily reflect reality. In the midst of this crazy year, I wrote almost 7,000 more new words than last year! Add to that over 1500 pages rewritten or critiqued and 54 books read and I’d say I have nothing to be frustrated about!

Isn’t God good? Only He could have turned my offering of a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish into basket loads left over. I gave Him what I had, doing what He asked me to do, and He multiplied my effort above anything I could have imagined.

So tomorrow I’ll set up my spreadsheet for 2007, adding in new columns for research and pre-writing time spent—to keep myself accountable, but also so that at the end of next year I will again be able to see the grace of God in my life.