Books Ratings Each Year

It appears that some years I am a softee (e.g., 2011), and in other years I find nearly nothing absolutely stunning (this being one of those years). In all years, I end up at least liking or finding passably good most books I read, which makes sense, since I'm the one who selects them. Here are how many books received each star rating by each year (2012 isn't complete yet, though), with five being "loved," four being "liked," three being "okay," two being "didn't like," and one being "hated":

And here is how it looks as a percent:

Longest Books Read by Year

Using my handy-dandy GoodReads stats, I was able to find out the following. Each year's longest book read has fallen between 600 and 900 pages.

Distance Walked Each Week

According to Google maps, my current walk to work is 0.9 miles. My previous walk to work was 4.0 miles. I took the bus three days a week and walked home, meaning that I walked twelve miles per week. Now, I don't take the bus at all and walk all five days of the week both ways. The walk to the bus itself was a mile, so really that was five miles of walk each day I did so back at my previous office location. Never mind the explanations; here's the chart:

Looks like I'm walking significantly less per week than previously. Five to ten miles is still good for you according to something I read recently, but not as good as fifteen.

However, since I no longer walk as far, I've upped my other exercise, which usually consists of two miles of running or four miles of stationary biking four days a week (whereas previously I did this only one day per week). Add in these miles (assuming I split the biking and running evenly), and the mileage covered is actually a bit more now:

Of course, I walk at other times too, but I consider the walk to/from work as the most significant and steady.

Rejections by September 13

As I write this on September 13 (though I obviously posted it much later), I have received three rejections slips since September 1, the start of the submission season. That's out of thirty-nine separate submissions. I wanted to look at how many rejections I've received by this time in previous years.

It's a bit unfair to compare anything before 2008 since before than I submitted only by snail mail and only about seven pieces at a time (whereas now I submit about forty pieces at a time, and many of those via the Web). From 1988, when I first started submitting writing to journals (much too early, for I wasn't any good then), to 2007, I only received a single rejection by September 13 seven times in those nineteen years.

The year 2008 is when I started submitting online and from a much wider selection of my writing. Here's how many rejections I've had by this time in each year:

I must have been quite bummed at this time in 2009, but as I recall, it ended up being a banner year in terms of acceptances.

Life Timeline

Some things don't go quite as one might desire. Actually, I never had much faith that I would win a Pulitzer, but it was nice to dream. However, I'm still waiting on the first book publication (many a writer ten or fifteen years younger than me has a published book now; I don't know that I ever had an age in mind, but certainly by age thirty), and on that wife (around thirty) and kids (around thirty-five). I'm forty-two now, quite a few years past those ideal ages. At least I've had steady jobs that I've mostly enjoyed, in what would have been my dream profession and in my dream location (I wanted to work as an editor at a publisher in the West or South, then later as I refined my desires, as an editor at a university press in a small university town--and that's what I do and where I live).

People I've Been Compared With

I've been compared with seven people that I can remember: Woody Allen, Jim Carrey, Todd Solendz, Orel Hershiser, John Malkovich, the Peter McNichol character on Allie McBeal, Michael Stipe, and David Bilowus. The latter is a "church" celebrity (a chorale director), not one most people would know outside my faith. McNichol's character probably does have a similar personality, and I'm not terribly bothered by that. I think the only comparison I was ever flattered by was Malkovich--he's a kind of attractive guy.

Anyway, if we break this down by what these people actually do, what they're famous for, acting of course comes out at number 1, and it's the profession most in the public eye, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Approximate Distance Traveled for Last Five Dates

I'll go a long way for a date, especially since women of my faith are so few and far between.