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Monday Update

All in all, despite being sick, last week was a fairly productive. The only thing that was really harmed was the whole walking/running/marathon training thing. I didn’t feel it would be a good idea to overwork my lungs when I had a racking chest cough.

That Which Hath Been Accomplished in the Past Week
1. The April Poetry Challenge in officially over. I began several new poems this week. None were actually reached a finished (i.e. publishable) stage. So my final count is 9 completed poems, 11 poems in draft form, for a total of 20 poems. This does not include the various haiku I wrote, or that which was recording in my morning poem journal. If I include those I’m closer to the required 30.

Any way you slice it, however, this was an incredibly productive poetry month for me. I probably got more work done in April than I had in previous six. So I’m probably going to challenge myself again in June. In the meantime, I will be spending this month trying to get those drafts polished to completion.

2. I submitted four poems to The New Yorker. I don’t really have any expectations of getting accepted (though it could happen), but I figure what the hell, anything could happen. I’m not terribly afraid of rejection anyway. I just figure it’s par for the course.

3. I killed two birds with one stone by creating A Zombie Limerick, in which I created a youtube video by reading a poem I wrote and making some collaged and painted artwork. I think it turned out rather well.

That Which Need-ith Accomplishing in the Coming Week
— continue to make progress on the story (actually finishing = triple bonus points)
— edit and polish 2-3 of my current poem drafts
— submit a set of poems or a short story for publication
— do 3-4 marathon training days
— post a youtube video
— art, doesn’t matter what, but something

[x-posted to my livejournal.]
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Monday Update

I woke up Friday with a serious head cold, which consisted of much mucus and misery. It extended through the weekend, eventually moving down into a chest cough, which put a damper on some of me efforts.

That Which Hath Been Accomplished in the Past Week
1. Two more poems finished, for a total of 9 complete poems. Another 8 poems in the Idea/Draft stage. I am way, way behind on this 30 day challenge, so I’m going to need to hustle this week if I hope to complete it. (Even if I don’t this is more poetry progress than I’ve made in a while, so I’m happy.)

2. Marathon training was something of a bust. I only walked one day last week (so, okay, not a total bust), but being sick kept me from Saturday’s four-mile hike through the hills.

3. No progress made on the short story. I’m feeling somewhat lost again. I need to figure out what the hell these final scenes are supposed to look like.

That Which Need-ith Accomplishing in the Coming Week
— continue to make progress on the story (actually finishing = triple bonus points)
— finish the drafts of 15-18 new poems
— submit a set of poems or a short story for publication (I do have some ideas on this)
— do 3-4 marathon training days
— post a youtube video
— art, doesn’t matter what, but something

[X-posted to my livejournal.]
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That Which Hath Been Accomplished
1. Over 2200 words have been written on the short story that seems to have no end. Many of these words were of an outlining sort as I tried to figure out just how I was going to wrap things up. The good news is that I may actually know how I’m going to wrap things up. I don’t know whether the jumping back and forth between the past and present is going to work or fail, but I suppose we’ll find out once I edit it all together and actually let others read it.

2. I have successfully finished (ish, because poems can always be further edited) four poems for April’s 30 poems in 30 days challenge. (Some of which have been posted to my blog.) I also have seven poems in the ideas/draft stage of writing. It’s not a bad start, but I should really “finish” ten to twelve more by the end of this week.

3. I have completed all of my marathon training days (along with some supplementary exercises on other days), which means I ran/walked a total of 9+ miles last week. Whoo!

4. A new youtube video was completed for both my personal and the collaborative channels.

All of this means that I more or less completed three of my four to-dos from last week. *does a little dance*

That Which Need-ith Accomplishing in the Coming Week
— continue to make progress on the story (actually finishing = triple bonus points)
— finish the drafts of 10-12 new poems
— do 3-4 marathon training days
— post a youtube video
— art, doesn’t matter what, but something

[This post has been x-posted to my livejournal.]
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Ten Years to the Day

The question of the day over at livejournal was: What do you expect to be doing ten years from today, and where do you hope to be living?

I always find these kinds of questions somewhat odd, especially in terms of expecting specific things. The future is such a wide open field of possibilities that I don’t want to tie it down to one in my mind. To quote Shel Silverstein: “Anything can happen. Anything can be.”

In my mind, expectations are an attempt to define the way you think reality should be. When you expect a specific thing, you place a “should” on reality. “Should”s, in my opinion are rather stupid. Reality is what it is. If it was meant to be anything other than what it is, then it would be. If you don’t like a situation or your current reality, instead of wasting time lamenting the way it should be, you have the right to change your reality. (I know I’m oversimplifying here.)

The point I’m going for here, is that arguing with reality is a waste of time. It’s much more productive to do something about reality as it’s presented to you.

I try not to “expect” anything.

However, I am a firm believer in hope. I think hoping for things is good. I think having goals is good. (It’s even better if you combine hoping and goal making with action.)

Therefore, here are some places that I may be in ten years (possible hopes, as it were):

  • I will be living my cottage-style home that I purchase five years before. The laser printer in my office will be pumping out page after page of my latest writing endeavor to be published later that year. Meanwhile, I’m on the phone with my sister and we’re jointly planning a surprise trip for the whole family to head off to Costa Rica for the week.
  • Year five of my plan to live in a different country every year (having already lived in Dublin, Mumbai, Tokyo, New York, and Paris) finds me in Rome, sitting in a small cafe, drinking wine and taking notes on my impressions of the people passing by.
  • I am pleasantly lost in the side streets of a South American town on my long term trip, whose goal is simply to find my way back to the U.S. via car, rail, bike, of feet after landing in Buenos Aires.
  • The snow is slowly drifting out the window, as I try to decide to drive into Anchorage that day, or just stay home and enjoy the fire.

There are, oh, so many more possibilities that I would find wonderful. All of them involve me making a living of some sort in the writing world.

Above anything else, though, I hope for happiness in whatever shape or form that is to look like. And I expect that I will find and have happiness in my life, because happiness is something you shape from what’s present and available in the world currently around you.

[X-posted to my livejournal.]
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The New Year – A Grand Symbolic Gesture

Even though I know that the possibility to change, grown, and improve one’s situation exists every day, there’s something about the symbolism of a new year starting that helps to inspire me to help me refocus and to get my rear in gear and jump start my goals again. So here I am publicly setting my goals for the new year.

Last year, I didn’t set any year long goals, and instead tried to stick to weekly goals (which are posted on my livejournal). I only sort of succeeded. I still intend to set weekly goals this year as a way to keep me constantly aware of what I’m up to, but I also have some BIG things that I want to get accomplished in the course of this year, so I’ll go ahead and post those, too.

2010 Goals:

  • Finish draft 0 of my Untitled Alternate World Fantasy Novel (currently at 51,189 words). In order to accomplish this, I plan to set aside time to write. There’s a local coffee shop, where I know there’s no wifi, so I can go there and get some focused writing done one to two days a week. Otherwise there are just too many distractions at home. It’s the same way I was able to complete Nano.
  • Actively write poetry and short stories for submission to anthologies (which will give me focus and a deadline), preferably a minimum of one submission a month. This is rather scary for me, because completing that many stories and poems on top of completing a novel feels like a lot, not to mention the possibility of facing rejection. However, I’m trying to look at it this way: if I complete a story that’s rejected by an anthology, then I will still have a story that can be reworked for submission elsewhere.
  • Train for and participate in the Disneyland Half Marathon in September. I’m not putting “lose weight” as a goal, because I don’t think that’s a good thing to focus on for me. But running in a marathon with my mother and sisters will be a lot of fun, will challenge me physically, and will probably achieve the “lose weight” thing in the process.
  • Attend a convention of some sort. This is just something that I’ve been wanting to do and talking about doing for quite some time. I think it’s about time I actually did it.
[X-posted to my livejournal.]