Happy New Year – 2016!

Happy new year, everybody! I hope you’re all going into this new year with positive hopes and goals. I’ve made quite a long list of resolutions again – here are some of them:

1. Complete my vampire novel trilogy
Having had the first story in draft form (and now partially edited) for a while, I want to complete drafts of the second and third novels so I have a good idea of the overall story and can properly link them together.

2. Enter eight short story competitions
I’m giving short stories another go this year – will hopefully do better than last year.

3. Complete a re-read of the Harry Potter series (and blog about it)
I’ve already re-read Philosopher’s Stone – I’m currently working on writing up my reflections.

4. Do a family tree
This is something I’ve wanted to look into for a while. There’s a FutureLearn course on genealogy coming up later this year, so that should help.

5. Travel somewhere new
I’ve narrowed it down to a few different options – now I just need to decide between them.

6. Read 35 books, including the paperbacks I got this year, and any unfinished books on my Kindle
I built up a big pile of books last year – and once I’ve read them, I’ll probably have another big pile from this year!

7. Get through the following list of films
I have a list of classic or highly-rated films I want to see, but last year I kept wandering away from it. Now I’ve compiled a list of 53 films from the IMDb Top 250 and Empire’s 500 Greatest Films of All Time that I haven’t seen:

8 1/2
A Bridge Too Far
A Clockwork Orange
Annie Hall
Before Sunrise
Brazil
Bridge on the River Kwai
Casablanca
Casino
City of God
Double Indemnity
First Blood
For a Few Dollars More
Gandhi
Gone with the Wind
Good Will Hunting
Grave of the Fireflies
Harold and Maude
Heat
La Dolce Vita
Life Is Beautiful
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Magnolia
Manhattan
Metropolis (watched this one this week)
Mulholland Drive
Notorious
On the Waterfront
Once Upon A Time in the West
Pan’s Labyrinth
Platoon
Princess Mononoke
Psycho
Raging Bull
Seven Samurai
Singin’ In The Rain
Snatch
Song of the Sea
Spartacus
Strangers on a Train
Sunset Boulevard
Taxi Driver
The Departed
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Hustler
The Maltese Falcon
The Manchurian Candidate
The Pianist
The Sting
The Third Man
Trainspotting
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Twelve Monkeys

Maybe I’ve given myself too much – but I’ll give it all a jolly good go.