AndreaBlythe.com

It’s been a good month (see last month’s goals), despite some slow and lazy weekends.

Fiction: I successfully completed each of the therealljidol prompts that came up, resulting in four new Fay Fairburn posts and 6,114 new words. I’m enjoying working on this project and meeting the weekly deadlines is a fun challenge and is great at keeping my work count up. However, I’m starting to find that the addition challenge of reading all the other entries each week is starting to wear me out. A part of me wouldn’t mind if I didn’t stay in the competition much longer (another part of me really, really wants to get into the top 100).

I did not complete draft zero of my new story as I had planned. I have, however, been making progress with about 2,500 new words (I think). I have several random scenes laid down right now and I’m not sure how they all connect yet.

So, 8,614 (ish) words of fiction written over the last month brings me to about 12,474 (ish) words for the new year, which when seen all stacked up like that makes me feel pretty awesome.

Poetry: A few new incomplete tidbits of poetry have been laid down, and three poems have been published this month: Comfort at Last, The Teeth that are Teeth, and Bird Collides with Window.

Other: A new youtube video was posted for Valentine’s Day, called A Love Poem for the Books of Stephen King.

And in terms of exercise, I’ve slacked. Big time. I haven’t been doing my morning yoga the last couple of weeks and my back is definitely complaining because of it.

Thinks to do in the coming month:

• Complete the draft of the new short story. This is absolutely necessary, as the deadline for the anthology is coming up.
• 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.
• Edit and submit “White Noise”
• If possible in between everything else, get another 3,000 words of the Untitled Werwolf Novel down.
• Write two new letter poems
• Compile and submit some poetry
• Put “Shaking Hands” up on my website

• Do the damn morning yoga 5 days per week.
• Buy a house plant and frame the art I have in an effort to make apt more homey.

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]

One of the ways I’m planning to keep motivated on my massive list of goals is to check in once a month and assess where I’m at. I know it hasn’t been a full month yet, but for some reason I like the idea of doing my check in during the middle of the month. *grin*

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.]

2011 Round Up – Highlight of the year was definitely my trip to Australia. Travel is one of the great bonuses of my job and that trip was amazing.

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.]

For some reason, I didn’t post about my category reading challenge for 2011, huh (well, here it is on Librarything). I’m not done with it yet, and it doesn’t look like I will finish — I’m currently at 90 books, with 9 more to be read. I’ll post my reading stats at the end of the month once I have a full tally.

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.

Christmas is past (I got a TOASTER!) and New Year’s has not yet come. This is when it’s natural to assess the previous year and plan goals, hope, dreams for the upcoming year.

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.