Well it’s here. 2009. 2008 went out with barely a whimper rather than a bang. Which is fine, really, as it wasn’t a wonderful year to begin with. I lost my grandfather and my dog within 4 months, and that sort of screwed the tone for the rest of the year. But 2009 should be better. New Year’s Day always appeals to me (well the part that doesn’t involve me stepping on a scale to see how much damage I did over Christmas) because I love the fact that it’s a clean slate. It doesn’t matter what goals I set and failed to meet last year. It’s a new begining and that’s very freeing. I’ve already detailed my non-writing related goals elsewhere. But the relevant stuff for M & M are the goals I’m setting relating to writing.
So without further adieu, here they are:
- Plot and write Hunted In Shadow. I am determined to finish another book in 2009.
- Continue worldbuilding as pertains to the Mirus.
- Reread GMC. I flew through this in two days when I received it before Christmas and had a spurt of ideas that I couldn’t follow up on at the time due to my class deadline. So I’d like to read it again this coming month.
- 250 words a day until my class is finished getting set up entirely, then 500 words a day. I hope/expect to exceed these goals on a regular basis, but I’m keeping things low key and at a managable level given my workload this year on other fronts. If I maintain low, reasonable goals that I know I can meet, then I am less likely to beat myself up, which I did a lot of in 2008.
- Read 50 books. I totally didn’t read enough in 2008. I’m not sure I’ve read what I’d consider enough in quite some time. But 50 books feels reasonable. I am sitting at 40 books on my Book 100, which probably missed a few earlier in the year since I didn’t start recording those until summer. But anyway, I’d like to aim for 50 books and hopefully finish my Book 100 by 2010.
- Come up with 2 topics to guest blog about and schedule guest blogs at 2 different sites. Yeah I know. Two guest blog spots for a whole year. I got into a big discussion with my friend Zoe Winters the other day about how much of a time suck blogging can be for the payoff. I had a pretty decent following built up before I moved over here to my self-hosted blog. Now I’ve essentially had to start all over. I don’t have the time to read all over the place and post thoughtful comments elsewhere like I used to, so guest blogging seems to be the next thing to try. But I have no idea about what, and I don’t want to aim too high. Remember, I’m going for attainable goals. So 2 seemed like a good starting number. Other than that, I’m going to generally maintain an “If I write it, they will (eventually) come” attitude.
- Cut down my Bloglines subscriptions. That goes along with the time suck of blogs. I’ve already trimmed this down to the ones I read daily and actually get stuff out of. I know for a fact I will miss out on some good stuff, but that’s just something I’ll have to learn to cope with.
- Set up a posting schedule for Frugal Intuition (3-4 days a week). This is the blog I maintain about thrifty living. It’s a cause I’m passionate about, but I don’t think I will have the time to devote to posting something of quality every day. So I’m going to set up some kind of posting schedule and devote one day a week to getting all of that week’s posts written and scheduled, so that I’m not having to wrack my brain about it everyday.
That’s it, I suppose. There are others related to time management that’s going to affect everything in my life (because managing my time well is the only way I’ll get everything done this year). And then there are several relating to improving my health overall–making exercise a daily part of life, improving my strength and flexibility–all of which will, I hope, make my brain function better! Anyway, that’s it.