Goals for 2006

I have a slight problem preparing my goals for this year. The problem being that anytime between May and December, I could be able to quit the DDJ and I could be moving. Both will do interesting things to my free time and interrupt schedules and any plan I might try to conjure at this point. So, that being said, here are my goals for 2006, with a reassessment due in May or whenever we get a definite timeline on the job and move fronts.

Health: I need to lose 7 more pounds to get into the "healthy" weight range that doctors recommend for my height. I need to lose 15 more pounds to be at my pre-pregnancy weight, which is when all my pants will start fitting me again. And I need to lose 25 more pounds to be at the weight I had hoped to attain at this time last year. Of course, I want to lose the 25lbs, but I'll take the 15 so I'll at least be both healthy and stylin' again. Losing this weight requires healthy eating--something I'm OK at doing, but could stand to improve, especially while I'm nursing--and it also requires exercise--something I haven't even thought of doing until recently. Picking up Andrew and hauling him all over the place served me well enough while I was on maternity leave. But now that I'm back in my basically sedentary job, I need to start getting active again.

My apartment complex has a work-out room. I will start using that room for a half hour every week for starters and go from there. Since the boy's doing so well with sleeping, I will try to start getting up a half-hour early to do some of those Denise Austin workouts on Lifetime. I'll start with the goal of doing one of those a week as well and go from there. I'm also going to treat myself every Monday morning to a coffee or Einstein Bros bagel or somesuch. This will not only make going back to work after the weekend slightly more palatable, but will (hopefully) reduce unhealthy snacking and impulse food purchases throughout the week. If you treat yourself to something junky on a regular but very moderate basis, you should be able to cut the cravings. Which will also help with my finances. We hope. :)

Mental Health: I've actually been doing pretty good with this. And I obviously want to keep it that way. I want to get back into the habit of regular journaling (otherwise known as Morning Pages from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way), but I just don't think it's going to happen daily. I should be able to hit every other day during the workweek. And then on the weekends, I should be able to foist Drew off on Mark for a half hour at least one day for some private journaling. And as much as I love my husband and my son, I need to start regularly giving myself some "me" time beyond the solo drive to and from work. That's also going to be a weekend thing. So, concrete goals: journal twice a week (once on a weekday, once on the weekend) and take a walk or veg alone with a book or in front of the TV for a half hour every weekend. For starters. And look at the countdown up top here more as "in X more days, I get more time to be with Drew and write" instead of "only X more days of this hell".

Writing: This is where I have to play fast and loose until we find out a more definite timeline for the rest of the year. Regardless of what happens by the end of the year, though, I should be able to finish a draft of SoD. That's the big, big goal. It's doable. My current wordcount is about 35k words, and I'm expecting the first draft to come in at 100,000 words or more. I'm able to write for three to four hours during the workweek and the same on the weekends. So, on the short-side, if I can write 500 words an hour, then I'll be able to reach 100,000 words in half a year. Factor in my tendency to "iron out the wrinkles" as I write instead of blazing a draft trail straight to the end, and add in the general insanity of raising an infant, and I think that 65k words by the end of the year is attainable. If I can get there faster, then I'll revise, have beta-readers check it out, revise some more, and start sending it out the door. That'll be icing, though. I just want to get the damn cake done. Once we have a better idea of how the latter half of the year is going to play out, I'll be able to provide more concrete goals for SoD.

As for the rest of my writing projects, all other novel drafts are on hold. I can do research when I have time or if I need a break from SoD. I can tinker around with some short story ideas (which are primarily backstory and worldbuilding for either SoD or The Masque). But the focus is SoD draft creation. In order to keep from burning out on SoD, though, I'm going to get back in the habit of doing regular writing exercises. The goal is to do fifteen minutes on a prompt daily, but I'll start with once on the weekend and once at work and see how I manage that. Reading back through some past exercises, I realized how much I just let loose with that writing, let it go where it would, or let myself experiment with a new style or voice or POV or setting or situation. And I've got the beginnings of a lot of neat stories from that. And it's only going to improve my overall writing skills. While I'm at work, I'm going to let myself continue to play with a writing exercise for as long as I have time during the day. That will be my writing play time, my break from SoD. And if I can get some short stories out of this, great.

I'm also going to devote a little bit of time to some narrative nonfiction. There are some great markets out there for it. The money would be nice, the exposure would be good, and the experience of the publishing world would be invaluable. I'm going to focus on writing some essays on what I endured and learned in 2005 and in some of the more...entertaining times of my life and try them in the woman's magazine market (Woman's Day, Family Circle, etc). I'll be happy to get a draft a month or every other month. This is extra, and I don't want to pressure myself too much with the potential to market it, but it would be nice to start developing a "backlist" of both short stories and narrative nonfiction that I can continually spruce up and submit to various markets and contests. That will help me feel like I'm doing something regularly to get published while I keep chipping away at those novels.

Thus my goals for 2006 are as follows: 1) Lose at least 15 pounds by exercising at least twice a week and limiting impulse snacking with scheduled treats; 2) Maintain good mental health by journaling at least twice a week and finding a half hour of "me" time every weekend; 3) Finish a draft of SoD; 4) Do writing exercises regularly to allow for writing play and learning and in order to develop a "backlist" of short stories and narrative nonfiction for routine submission.

Now I'm going to look at this week and next week and see about writing out the schedule to get this going. And I'll print out that short-and-sweet list and keep it in various places to remind me where I'm hoping to go this year. I will not look at that list as a guilt-inducing "don't fall off the wagon" sort of thing. Instead, it's going to be a motivator. I want to do this, and I know I can. Hour by hour, day by day.