I'm 34

A photo posted by Matt Tuckey (@matttuckey) on Aug 10, 2016 at 5:03am PDT

Another year passes and I'm a little older and wiser, in theory, at least! It's been a good year. A year ago I planned to do 10 challenges, in the hope I'd have made 10 improvements.  Let's take a look at what I've managed.

1. I've certainly worked on the screenplay: I've rewritten the synopsis, taken it to feedback group Writers Connect, rewritten it again, used that rewrite to then rewrite the manuscript then taken the script again to Writers Connect a chunk at a time. This has taken months, but in recent weeks I've taken on board the advice from the group, rewritten the script again, and taken that draft to the group to read through the whole thing in one go. I now have more ideas, and at least one more draft is in order. Then the theory is, I'll send it out to production companies.

2. I'm marginally more confident. Still plenty of work to do with this. Challenges in work and on nights out, and work with the NHS have all helped push me on towards where I want to be. I need to stay out of other people's heads and stop worrying what they think. I'm doing... okay with this. Improvements to come.

3. Oh dear. My intention in the last year was to double my blog hits from 500K to 1 million. I'm currently just under 546K. Right. Well. I still have long-standing plans which should get a bit of exposure to the site. Give me 3 more months. I'll have written something noticeable.
   
   
4. Another fail: I was supposed to cut down on social media. It's really hard to do this when sites like Facebook and Twitter- and now Meetup- are not just websites, but methods of communication and organisation. I wanted to cut down and save time, and spend more time being actually social in person, but these sites are what I use to organise HOW I meet up with people in real life. So it's alright if you're having meaningful discussions... but endlessly scrolling through your Instagram feed for pictures of stupidly rich people or cats or hot people, not so.

5. I've done some travelling. I've met new friends in the last year, and after hammering Meetup for a couple of years I've found a group that I feel right with. I've also met other groups through the site, and obviously have long-standing friends too, but with this group I've been to London a couple of times, and we have a holiday in Germany planned. I mentioned last year that I may have found people who might want to do that- I cannot remember who I was talking about as the group I'm going abroad with I hadn't met at the time I wrote this post.

6. I have looked into shorthand here and there but I haven't yet dedicated a month of my life to learning it. It's my plan to do this after I've finished reading the Evolutionary Void.

7. Oh yeah- in April I bought a new car! The Micra was dying, and I didn't want it packing up in the fast lane of the M60 at 4am on a Sunday morning. So I spotted a Skoda Citigo ( What Car's Best City Car 2016, Auto Express City Car of the Year) online, 12 months old at Skoda RRG Rochdale, and parted with 6 grand of my hard-earned. It's fantastic. It has great 49 MPG, air con, 4 adult seats, is comfortable and handles well. I recommend.

8. So yeah, relationships... *twiddles thumbs, examines floor*

9. My abs are currently covered in a thicker layer of fat than ever before. My weight has ballooned, despite eating more veg and doing more cardio. I'm certainly stronger, but I'm fatter too. I went up to 80Kg earlier. Fuck's sake.

10. I've done some more work with the NHS relating to memory issues and confidence relating to this. I've found that, if I need to remember something, the Windows OneNote app has the added function of inserting pictures to written notes, allowing me to remember more, verbally and visually. This is one feature and advantage the Windows phone has over Android phones (although it's not enough to tempt me back once my contract's up).

Progress in some areas. More progress to come.