I’m off to a good start at the races. Three poems (including two newly written ones) have been sent off to a for-the-love market and I’ve written about 3,860 words of fiction, including work on Untitled Werewolf Novel, a section of the Fay Fairburn story for therealljidol, and the start of a new short story for the Awesome Anthology. So, I’m feeling good on the writing front.

In terms of physical endeavors, I’ve been pretty good about keeping up with the yoga every morning. I’ve only missed a few days. I also got a walk in there and an ill-fated attempt at ice skating (no falls, but the skates temporarily screwed up my feet in a rather painful way). Already my body is feeling better from the little I’ve been doing, which equals awesomesauce.

Thinks to do in the coming month:

• Get another 3000 words down on Untitled Werewolf Novel.
• Complete the LJ Idol prompts (i.e. Fay Fairburn chapters) as they come up, which is necessary if I want to stay in the competition.
• Finish draft zero of the new short story.
• Write two new poem drafts.
• Edit and submit “White Noise”

• Put “Shaking Hands” up on my website
• Create and post a youtube video

• Keep up with the yoga.
• Buy a house plant and frame the art I have in an effort to make apt more homey.

How are you doing in approaching your goals for the new year?

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]

In general I feel pretty good about my level of creative productivity. I wrote a lot at the beginning of the year, slowed a bit in the middle, but picked up some nice word counts over the last four months or so. I wrote oodles of poems (mostly for my blog), one novlette, a handful of stories, and got a good chunk going on a novel. Considering I work full time with a commute, I’d say that’s pretty darn good.

I think I made about 10 (or so) submissions to magazines and journals this year, of which 3 were accepted and 6 rejected, with one response still pending. Not bad at all.

My personal everyday goals are the ones that collapsed a bit. After I quit on my plans for participating in the half marathon in July/August, pretty much all my exercise stopped. No running, no yoga, etc.

Any meditation, affirmations, or breath work was also almost nil. That said, I give you

The Masive List of 2012 Goals!

I always vacillate on how I feel about New Year resolutions and goals. I think they’re good to a degree, and I enjoy making them, because I love lists and I love the idea of scratching off the to-dos as they are completed. The past couple of years, I’ve been more in favor of loose, short lists, which allow for flexibility.

This year, however, I’m going back to the detailed style list. There are things I want done damnit (mostly career-wise), so I’m announcing them. The plan is to check back in once a month and update the list (i.e., strike out what’s completed or change as necessary).

Cut, because it's, um, massive. Click to read

* * *
Some closing thoughts:

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.“
– Neil Gaiman

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]

In the meantime, I’m planning to do the category reading challenge again this year (what can I say, it’s fun, and gets me reading what I might not read otherwise.), so here are my planned categories for 2012 (my Librarything thread is here). Some categories have more required reading than others, but the ultimate goal is to read 100 books.

1. Hello, I Love You (0/6)
I’ve read one book by an author and loved it. Now I want to read at least one more by the same author.

2. Oh, How I’ve Missed You (0/6)
Books by an authors I once loved, but haven’t read in a long time. OR, rereads of favorite books.

3. It’s a Smoldering World After All (0/7)
Apocalyptic and Post Apocalyptic books, as well as some dystopian novels.

4. Unicorns from Space! — Science Fiction (0/10)

5. Unicorns from Space! — Fantasy (0/10)

6. I Don’t Wanna Grow Up (0/9)
Books for children and young adults.

7. Bam! Pow! Wham! (0/9)
Graphic novels and comics.

8. Just the Facts, Ma’am (0/8)
Nonfiction.

9. The Universe in Verse (0/9)
Poetry.

10. From My Bookshelf (0/8)
I have a tendency to jump at the new and shiny in bookstores and the library, rather than reading the stacks already on my shelves. This is meant to rectify that.

11. From the Modern Library’s 100 Best Books (0/10)
There are actually about 200 books, since there is also the publicly voted list (with some overlaps). I’m working off the list from 2009, which is posted on my blog.

12. Miscellany (0/8)
The catch-all category for whatever doesn’t fit in the above.

Apart of me is like booyah, goals are awesomesauce! And an entirely different part of me is repelled by the whole process, keeps hanging its head like Eeyore and letting loose a moping, why bother? (My mood is very transitory at the moment and will probably be completely different in an hour.)

I don’t really want to present a statistical list of 2010. It was what it was with really low lows and really high ups. Assessing the year would be a very messy process and I don’t want to get my shoes dirty, thank you very much.

I’m all for goal setting — with the stipulation that goals actually get completed. Looking back at the goals I set for 2010, I see that I didn’t complete even one of my goals. How sigh inducing.

It would be easy though to take that little fact and use it as an excuse to get all depressed and not bother setting goals for 2011. However, that would negate the other fact, which is that I’ve actually been working my ass off this year — it’s just that at some point in the year my goals shifted and new priorities came up and things looked different than they did in January. My desire to finish my novel switched to a desire to complete enough poetry for a chapbook (still working on this one). My desire to run a half marathon was replaced by a desire to work my way through the 28 day yoga book (which I did accomplish). It would be ridiculous to judge myself based on a list that doesn’t meet my needs now.

So, here I go. Here are my goals for 2011, stated here in the full knowledge that things will change, priorities may shift, and this list of hoped-fors may completely different a few months down the line.

Instead, I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m working my way through this 30 day letter writing (and for me poetry) challenge and right now that’s my main goal — to get that done, so I can seriously look at it as a potential collection. It’s an enjoyable process of coming up with these (even though it’s taking me far longer than 30 days), and I’m enjoying what I’m learning about myself and my writing as I continue it.

In other areas, I still have quite a few things that I want to accomplish, but for them I’m going to day-by-day it. If I make progress, great, if I don’t, it’s probably because I’ve been doing something else enjoyable, so that’s great, too.

I’m sure at some point I’ll want to lasso myself back into seriously attacking all these personal projects with more concrete goals (probably in the new year), and at that point I may go back to weekly updates or maybe some other form of goal creation that suites me.

But for now, I’m going to allow myself the mental break of saying, “It is what it is,” and just enjoy what each day gives me.

[Cross-posted to my livejournal. If you feel inclined, you can comment either here of there.]

ying_ko_4

One Word for 2010? I’m going to go with growth, or perhaps development.

I suppose I say this mostly in relation to the second half of the year. My memory seems to be confined to shorter terms (i.e. within the past few months) or to specific events which are vivid, but loose all but a vague sense of when it actually happened. I’m really having a hard time remembering at the moment what “important events” happened from January to June.

However, I do feel that I’ve grown this year. I’ve made several leaps and bounds in my personal life that I’m rather proud of — paid off my car loan, earned enough money to start lowering my debt, moved into my first apartment. I also traveled to Germany on my own and enjoyed being lonely in a foreign country. And (shhhh) the big shocker, I’ve met a guy that I would actually consider dating (don’t know yet what’s going to happen with this one, maybe nothing, but it’s fun to imagine).

In my creative life, my progress has been a little slower. Novel and fiction writing has not gone so well, but I’ve kind of decided that that’s okay. There’s been a lot of other things going on. I’ve been a busy, busy girl, so I’m going to let it go. I could have also submitted more work this year, and that one, too, I’m going easy on myself with.

Jumping back into art, sketching and drawing, has been fun and beneficial for me. I don’t do it daily like I should (but then, I don’t do anything except getting dress and brushing my teeth daily like I should), but I can already feel how it’s slightly easier than before to create pictures that please me. I have tons more learning to do in order to get where I want to get with this, but for the moment it’s a fun pastime.

Where I’m really pleased creatively is in my poetry, however, and I really feel like it’s going well. I’ve written a lot of poetry this year — some of it’s bad, some of its okay, and some of it I’m proud to have written. Discovering blackout poetry was a great boon for me. It combined art with words into a meditative process that helped focus me into a writerly frame of mine and helped to inspire me with my original poetry.

The 30 Day Letter challenge, even though I’m not nearly done with it after several months, has also been a great thing. For a while I’ve thought my poetry too disjointed in subject matter and style to be able to pool it together into a collection. Silly writer, indeed. But this challenge has helped me through that by not only keeping me writing, but also with the knowledge that when I finish all 30 prompts I’ll have enough poems to attempt to publish as a chapbook. How awesome in that.

I hope my one word for 2011 will be thrive. Like a vine that’s continually growing and climbing up the wall, I want to thrive in heath and joy — to live each day fully. I want to continue to be abundant in money and love, and heck yeah, abundant in sex, too. Why not.

I want my words to flow like Niagara falls. I want the patience to sit and plan a novel and work through a draft from beginning to end. I want the courage to submit my work for publishing. I want to be paid for my words.

So many wants, and all within the realm of possibility.

Thriving doesn’t mean that the days will be without challenges, of course. There will always be challenges and long days in which I wish I had just stayed in bed. It just means that I take it all in and live it. That I weather the storms and if all goes well come out a little beat up, but also a little stronger after wards. Oh, yes, I want to thrive.

[Cross-posted to my livejournal. If you feel inclined, you may comment either here or there.]

Unfortunately I’m not one of them. Nano is too much for me this year. I’m traveling to Alaska to visit my grandmother and moving into a new apartment. But the bigger issue is that I do not have my laptop working, and without regular and easy access to a computer, it’s very difficult for me to work at that kind of a pace.

I am, however, participating in anti-nano (set up bynaomi_jay), in which we set our own smaller goals for whatever project we want to work on. My goal is to write 10,000 words on the Untitled Alternate World Fantasy Novel that I started last November. (Hopefully, I can finally figure out where the plot, if there is such a thing, wants to go.) My plan is to head to the library every Tuesday and Thursday and use their computers to get writing done. I may also borrow a family member’s computer and head to some write ins because I enjoy the collective writing experience.

To do in the coming week:
– write/edit 2-3 poems
– submit something for publication
– post a youtube video
– draw anything
– write 2,500 words for anti-nano

[Cross-posted to my livejournal. If you feel inclined, you can comment either here or there.]

I really need to get back to doing some exercise. It’s been a while, and I can feel the tightness in my back from not doing yoga. It’s been really hard to motivate myself in that direction, though. Anywho…

To do in the coming week:
– write/edit 2-3 poems
– submit something for publication
– post a youtube video
– draw anything
– get some words down on that blasted short story

[x-posted to my livejournal. If you feel inclined, you may comment either here or there.]

That being said, I did get a few poems written last week. I seem to be doing really lately with that. The more I do it, the easier it comes, which is a nice feeling.

This week on top of writing some new poetry, I would like to get back to writing/sketching in my daily journal as I was doing before I left for Germany. If I could get the youtube video I promised to do last week done, that would be great, too.

I’m not really going to set my goals above that, because there is just too much going on.

[x-posted to my livejournal. If you feel inclined, you may comment either here or there.]

On Saturday I went to the open studios art tour in Santa Cruz with my mom (after a giant greasy breakfast, of course). I was hungover, so I felt like I was floating the entire time I was there, but I really enjoyed seeing all the art work on display. Some of my favorites were:

• Robert Larson, who takes discarded cigarette and matchstick packages and turns them into art work.
• Nick Anderson, who does amazing fantasy and surreal paintings that just drip with eerie beauty
• Susan Vaghan, who creates elaborate, sculptural assemblage pieces out of a variety found objects
• Jennifer Pond, who’s paintings are playful and funny

There were many other amazing arists, of course, but these were the ones whose cards I managed to grab.

* * * *

To do in the coming week:
– finish posting photos and any write ups for Germany (some were done last week)
– write/edit 2-3 poems (already on my way, as I wrote one poem this morning and began another)
– submit something for publication
– post a youtube video
– draw anything
– get some words down on that blasted short story