It’s February. Which is a good thing in some ways and a bad thing in others. Given that January was pretty much a write off for me due to getting sick and various other things, I officially completely failed to do much of anything I planned to do in January. Including blogging. So I’m calling a do-over on the start of the year! (After all, it’s sort of Chinese New Year right now, so that’s good enough for me). We’ve had floods and fires and all sorts of weirdness here in Australia over January so I’m imagining there are quite a few people who’d like to join me.
In order to kick start my new new year, (and to claw back some lost writing time) I’m setting a goal of writing a thousand words a day in February and to keep me honest, I’ll blog my progress daily (or mostly daily)! I’m also trying to get back into some sort of exercise routine as the one good thing about being sick for several weeks is that I lost 5 kilos and don’t intend to put it back on (indeed I intend to see that I lose quite a few more), so I’ll report on that as well. The internet can keep me honest.
I will also be re-instating my contest which went on a longer than expected break over Christmas, so stay tuned for the next contest post!
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
February 01, 2011
April 18, 2010
Little steps
Given we've whizzed through a third and a bit of the year already, I thought it might be helpful to revisit my yearly goals (the radical thought being that paying attention to them during the year helps keep them on track!).
So back in December this is what I had to say about my 2010 goals.
So how have I done so far?
1. Writing
Obviously the big achievement for the year has been selling a book (it still seems quite surreal to say that!) so that started the year off right. But it also changed my plans as I now have official deadlines etc to meet and will have a whole lot of extra stuff to do. So the new goals are to meet my deadlines (beat them if I can) and still try and write some extra bits and pieces and enjoy the process : ) I've been working away at book 2 while I'm waiting for my revisions, so I'm on track so far!
2. Get healthier. So far mostly good. I've lost about 6 kilos this year but will confess to falling off the exercise wagon in the last four weeks or so (a combination of post book sale adrenaline crash and being crook and day job getting a bit crazy). But this week I started again with baby steps and next week will get back on the elliptical. I'd gotten up to week 7 on c25k, so might have to back track a bit. One thing I realised in getting to that point was that I vastly prefer interval runs on the elliptical and the last few weeks of the program are pretty much three long runs a week so I might do a variation where I do 2 interval runs and 1 longer steady state run a week. Not sure why but it's easier for me to do 30 mins of intervals than 30 mins of "just run". So let's go with what works. The shoulder which was bugging me most of last year has been a lot better but not perfect which is making it hard to pick up other things again but I'll keep working on it. And I've gotten back into tracking my food this week too after having my adsl out for 11 days got me out of that habit.
3. Filling the well. Still doing bits and pieces of craft and relaxation so that's good.
4. Organisation. This was definitely a 'needs improvement' area from last year. So I've been taking small steps there too. Trying to get my routines back in place to get my little house ticking over nicely and declutter. I mostly use Flylady's techniques with a few variations of my own as I'm a big fan of the do things in little bits and pieces and build up habits approach. Plus the whole "just get back on the wagon whereever you are" is a good thing to remember in most areas of life. Things (the To-Do program I blogged about back then) has been really good for me in keeping things more organised, so that's a Yay. I haven't been using Tumblr or Evernote quite as much as I probably could but I still really like both of them.
The other area I'm reorganising is my finances. Given I'll have some writing income (yay), I have a need to be paying closer attention. One day I'd like to be a full time writer which will mean living on unpredictable and variable income so time to really knuckle down and get good habits in place.
A few years back I was using Quicken and doing okay with tracking everything but then the day job decided we couldn't put any additional software on our work computers and I was on a Mac at home (and they don't sell Quicken for Mac in Australia) and at the time, there wasn't anything much around that worked well for me Mac software-wise so I went back to just keeping tabs on things on paper (after all, I am an accountant and a Virgo so I had to use something). But keeping it on paper is kind of tedious and leads to a "well, let's put some money aside for various big bills" and the rest is just a big pile of money approach to finance (at least, for me it does). Which doesn't really work for either personal or business finances and leads to much time being put in at tax time to file and organise all the business stuff (of course with Flylady back in place I'll be filing all along this year ; ) ).
Luckily, a piece of software I'd looked at and liked back then (that didn't have a Mac version at the time) called YNAB (or You Need A Budget) which combines both register type functions like Quicken etc with sensible, zero based budgeting has recently brought out their Mac version so I've put that into place. The only thing it doesn't do quite as fancily as Quicken is reporting but it does export to excel and I can produce all the fancy reports I want for tax purposes etc from there, so that's good enough for me (if it turns out I need something fancier down the line I'll address that with something else like Moneydance or iBank or whatever is needed and use it just for the writing side of my finances). This is not a personal finance blog so I won't rave on about how much I already like the YNAB methodology for really making you pay attention to what you are and aren't doing with your money but it's well worth checking out if you are interested in that sort of thing. They have lots of resources on the site about budgeting etc that you can read and access without buying the software (which is much cheaper than Quicken etc anyway) if it is something that interests you.
The other thing I'll be doing is seeing an accountant. Yes, I am an accountant but I am NOT a tax accountant or a day to day running a business type accountant so I'll be getting advice up front to confirm (and hopefully improve on) what I think I need to do business-wise. I'm lucky in that I do understand the business side of things given my background but I also know enough to know what I don't know and that I'll need advice. Writer's income with royalties and overseas income and things like income averaging is not straightforward and I'm sure now that I'm actually earning some proper income over and above the odd comp win, there are probably more deductions I can claim. Getting advice now and using an expert will save me/make me money over time (much the same way having an agent does : ) ). To any writer (whether pubbed or pursuing it seriously) I'd say you need to know about the business stuff and keep good records (In Australia you can claim your expenses before publication, and I think the same is true in the US, but there are rules and things you need to do to not fall foul of the Tax Department/IRS so get advice! Which this is not). So you either do it yourself or farm it out to someone else if it's not your thing (and get advice either way!)
So my goals for organisation are to keep Flylady habits going and keep the finance tracking/systems going (including said accountant consultation/s once I get a cheque).
So all, in all, I think I'll give myself a green light so far. Even though I haven't been perfect (and really, life isn't perfect so it's not that big a deal, I've been moving forward and making the changes I want to make. So now I can keep taking little steps and getting to where I want to go over the next few months!
So back in December this is what I had to say about my 2010 goals.
So how have I done so far?
1. Writing
Obviously the big achievement for the year has been selling a book (it still seems quite surreal to say that!) so that started the year off right. But it also changed my plans as I now have official deadlines etc to meet and will have a whole lot of extra stuff to do. So the new goals are to meet my deadlines (beat them if I can) and still try and write some extra bits and pieces and enjoy the process : ) I've been working away at book 2 while I'm waiting for my revisions, so I'm on track so far!
2. Get healthier. So far mostly good. I've lost about 6 kilos this year but will confess to falling off the exercise wagon in the last four weeks or so (a combination of post book sale adrenaline crash and being crook and day job getting a bit crazy). But this week I started again with baby steps and next week will get back on the elliptical. I'd gotten up to week 7 on c25k, so might have to back track a bit. One thing I realised in getting to that point was that I vastly prefer interval runs on the elliptical and the last few weeks of the program are pretty much three long runs a week so I might do a variation where I do 2 interval runs and 1 longer steady state run a week. Not sure why but it's easier for me to do 30 mins of intervals than 30 mins of "just run". So let's go with what works. The shoulder which was bugging me most of last year has been a lot better but not perfect which is making it hard to pick up other things again but I'll keep working on it. And I've gotten back into tracking my food this week too after having my adsl out for 11 days got me out of that habit.
3. Filling the well. Still doing bits and pieces of craft and relaxation so that's good.
4. Organisation. This was definitely a 'needs improvement' area from last year. So I've been taking small steps there too. Trying to get my routines back in place to get my little house ticking over nicely and declutter. I mostly use Flylady's techniques with a few variations of my own as I'm a big fan of the do things in little bits and pieces and build up habits approach. Plus the whole "just get back on the wagon whereever you are" is a good thing to remember in most areas of life. Things (the To-Do program I blogged about back then) has been really good for me in keeping things more organised, so that's a Yay. I haven't been using Tumblr or Evernote quite as much as I probably could but I still really like both of them.
The other area I'm reorganising is my finances. Given I'll have some writing income (yay), I have a need to be paying closer attention. One day I'd like to be a full time writer which will mean living on unpredictable and variable income so time to really knuckle down and get good habits in place.
A few years back I was using Quicken and doing okay with tracking everything but then the day job decided we couldn't put any additional software on our work computers and I was on a Mac at home (and they don't sell Quicken for Mac in Australia) and at the time, there wasn't anything much around that worked well for me Mac software-wise so I went back to just keeping tabs on things on paper (after all, I am an accountant and a Virgo so I had to use something). But keeping it on paper is kind of tedious and leads to a "well, let's put some money aside for various big bills" and the rest is just a big pile of money approach to finance (at least, for me it does). Which doesn't really work for either personal or business finances and leads to much time being put in at tax time to file and organise all the business stuff (of course with Flylady back in place I'll be filing all along this year ; ) ).
Luckily, a piece of software I'd looked at and liked back then (that didn't have a Mac version at the time) called YNAB (or You Need A Budget) which combines both register type functions like Quicken etc with sensible, zero based budgeting has recently brought out their Mac version so I've put that into place. The only thing it doesn't do quite as fancily as Quicken is reporting but it does export to excel and I can produce all the fancy reports I want for tax purposes etc from there, so that's good enough for me (if it turns out I need something fancier down the line I'll address that with something else like Moneydance or iBank or whatever is needed and use it just for the writing side of my finances). This is not a personal finance blog so I won't rave on about how much I already like the YNAB methodology for really making you pay attention to what you are and aren't doing with your money but it's well worth checking out if you are interested in that sort of thing. They have lots of resources on the site about budgeting etc that you can read and access without buying the software (which is much cheaper than Quicken etc anyway) if it is something that interests you.
The other thing I'll be doing is seeing an accountant. Yes, I am an accountant but I am NOT a tax accountant or a day to day running a business type accountant so I'll be getting advice up front to confirm (and hopefully improve on) what I think I need to do business-wise. I'm lucky in that I do understand the business side of things given my background but I also know enough to know what I don't know and that I'll need advice. Writer's income with royalties and overseas income and things like income averaging is not straightforward and I'm sure now that I'm actually earning some proper income over and above the odd comp win, there are probably more deductions I can claim. Getting advice now and using an expert will save me/make me money over time (much the same way having an agent does : ) ). To any writer (whether pubbed or pursuing it seriously) I'd say you need to know about the business stuff and keep good records (In Australia you can claim your expenses before publication, and I think the same is true in the US, but there are rules and things you need to do to not fall foul of the Tax Department/IRS so get advice! Which this is not). So you either do it yourself or farm it out to someone else if it's not your thing (and get advice either way!)
So my goals for organisation are to keep Flylady habits going and keep the finance tracking/systems going (including said accountant consultation/s once I get a cheque).
So all, in all, I think I'll give myself a green light so far. Even though I haven't been perfect (and really, life isn't perfect so it's not that big a deal, I've been moving forward and making the changes I want to make. So now I can keep taking little steps and getting to where I want to go over the next few months!
February 01, 2010
100
Yay, have cracked one hundred pages...hopefully a bit under a third of the way through the draft now!
Would like to be around 250 at the end of the month, so let's see how that goes!
Would like to be around 250 at the end of the month, so let's see how that goes!
December 31, 2009
The year to be
Continuing on...so what do I want to focus on in 2010?
1. Writing. In which my goals are to write two books, to play around with some shorter form stuff to see if I can write short stories or novellas (given the novels seem to keep getting longer and longer) and keep the biz side from interfering with the writing.
2. To get healthier. This means sorting out the sore shoulder and before, during and after that process, doing what exercise I can. Before, I think that means doing my elliptical, my Nia tapes with modified arms and some pilates at home and taking the pills and icing it afterwards. During and after is to be determined based on the diagnosis. It also means eating healthier which is mainly a matter of planning and organisation.
3. Feed the well. Keep doing what I have been doing with the craft and other stuff.
4. Get organised. 2009 has felt like a year of routines slipping away and stuff not quite getting done at times. I'm a Virgo, I like lists and notes and checking stuff off to-do lists. But I don't have a good system right now for keeping it all organised. I have notes in my iCal, to-dos and goals in various notebooks and stuff in my head that gets remembered at random moments when the brain decides to cough up. I need something to co-ordinate it all and given that I seem to be increasingly outsourcing brain space to my iPhone and computer, I'm looking at technology tools.
I've started using Tumblr to capture images etc that take my fancy but that's more a muse thing (the electronic equivalent of my old habit of ripping pictures out of magazines). I've just got an Evernote account with a view to using it to capture all the stuff I currently capture in bookmarks and jotted notes and, once I get a scanner, backing up my writing notebooks electronically.
I do have a to-do type program on my iPhone but it's not exactly what I want so the other thing I'm looking at is Things. Which will sync with my iPhone and my iCal and hopefully allow me to dump stuff out of my head and remember where I dumped it more easily. I'm going to download the trial version of Things tomorrow and buy the iPhone app and see what happens from there (you know, some of the more expensive iPhone apps should have trial versions too!).
So that's my plan. I guess in twelve months we'll see how I've done. The big dream remains, as always, to sell a book but that I can't control other than by doing the best I can with my writing. Still, I hope the publishing stars align this year!
How about you, oh great interwebs, who's got plans and dreams for the tenth year of the century?
1. Writing. In which my goals are to write two books, to play around with some shorter form stuff to see if I can write short stories or novellas (given the novels seem to keep getting longer and longer) and keep the biz side from interfering with the writing.
2. To get healthier. This means sorting out the sore shoulder and before, during and after that process, doing what exercise I can. Before, I think that means doing my elliptical, my Nia tapes with modified arms and some pilates at home and taking the pills and icing it afterwards. During and after is to be determined based on the diagnosis. It also means eating healthier which is mainly a matter of planning and organisation.
3. Feed the well. Keep doing what I have been doing with the craft and other stuff.
4. Get organised. 2009 has felt like a year of routines slipping away and stuff not quite getting done at times. I'm a Virgo, I like lists and notes and checking stuff off to-do lists. But I don't have a good system right now for keeping it all organised. I have notes in my iCal, to-dos and goals in various notebooks and stuff in my head that gets remembered at random moments when the brain decides to cough up. I need something to co-ordinate it all and given that I seem to be increasingly outsourcing brain space to my iPhone and computer, I'm looking at technology tools.
I've started using Tumblr to capture images etc that take my fancy but that's more a muse thing (the electronic equivalent of my old habit of ripping pictures out of magazines). I've just got an Evernote account with a view to using it to capture all the stuff I currently capture in bookmarks and jotted notes and, once I get a scanner, backing up my writing notebooks electronically.
I do have a to-do type program on my iPhone but it's not exactly what I want so the other thing I'm looking at is Things. Which will sync with my iPhone and my iCal and hopefully allow me to dump stuff out of my head and remember where I dumped it more easily. I'm going to download the trial version of Things tomorrow and buy the iPhone app and see what happens from there (you know, some of the more expensive iPhone apps should have trial versions too!).
So that's my plan. I guess in twelve months we'll see how I've done. The big dream remains, as always, to sell a book but that I can't control other than by doing the best I can with my writing. Still, I hope the publishing stars align this year!
How about you, oh great interwebs, who's got plans and dreams for the tenth year of the century?
The year that was
2009 has been an interesting year. I have no idea how it went by so fast but maybe that was because it was interesting.
This time last year I made resolutions and now, inevitably, I'm thinking about what I want to achieve in 2010.
Last year the resolutions were something like lose weight, keep the exercise routine going, write two books, stay off caffeine when I can, do things that make me happy and have fun.
So how did all of that go?
Well, on the things that make Mel happy front I did quite well. I did a lot of sewing, rediscovered knitting and crochet, took some non writing related classes, took a non writing related holiday (though with a fellow writer so there was writing talk *g*) and dropped another day in the day job. Friends has babies (and I was there when one of them arrived), friends hit the NYT list, the family was relatively healthy and many good books were read.
On the stay off caffeine, well, there were ups and down. I have pretty much accepted that there are times in my life when I'm going to be on the caffeine. I have for most of the year been off it or only having a cup of green tea or two a day. There have been times when I've been drinking coke (or even now and then coke zero because, I'm sorry but coke works on the caffeine front but does little for the operation-make-butt-smaller). Balance, people. I know I sleep better off the caffeine but sometimes something's got to give. I need to work on learning to love green tea more and slanting the balance in that direction but whatever.
On the exercise front, things started well and slid into what can only be described as a big fat heap. From January to April I was doing heaps of cardio, doing my pilates and doing Nia. April or May sometime I got sick and work got busy and things started to slide. And I started to notice that my shoulder was pulling up sore after Nia and pilates classes but not too sore so I ignored it (note to self, don't ignore it!)
Then I dropped a day at work which happened to be the day of my regular pilates class and my Nia class was put on hiatus and the shoulder started getting sorer even without exercising and hmmm, here we are feeling unfit and flabby and waiting to find out whether the shoulder needs surgery. Bah humbug to that.
On the writing, that too was interesting. Trying to sell a book is never an easy proposition. Trying to sell a book in a major economic downturn is an even less easy proposition. Some stuff happened. Some work stuff happened and for a lot of the year the writing was slow and kind of torturous (though, I did keep trying to write) because I was letting the stuff mess with my head. Now sometimes the writing will be slow and torturous but the thing is, for me, I try and treat this as a job. I have an agent and she is out there trying to sell my books and has been doing so for some time now without being paid a cent so far, so I need to produce books for her to sell. Which means I have to focus on the writing part and stop worrying about the stuff part (which, for a virgo, is kind of like saying 'stop breathing').
Writing the books and making them as good as I can is what I can control and is the fun part. I don't think for a second that I've found the perfect solution to keeping that in mind and I know there will be "Mel freaks out" slow and torturous times again but hopefully I can pull myself out of them faster now. I'm happy to say that I did finish one book this year (because at times that felt unlikely). A book that was a bit different again to what I'd been writing but it seems to have been worth the grief it gave me because my agent loves it and I'm doing the final polish write now so it can make its way out into the world in January. At which point I will be doing the mental equivalent of sticking my fingers in the ears and saying "la, la, la, I can't hear you to the publishing worries" and writing the next book. Because for me, one book a year is too slow and I'm much happier when I'm producing.
So, for my benefit (and maybe for anyone else who it might work for), a reminder of what worked:
1. Writing sprints for the first draft (and for character free writing and for synopsis sketching). Write or Die is a godsend and Dr Wicked would be deserving of the Nobel Writers Sanity prize if there was such a thing. I need to do quick and dirty first drafts and just get out of my own damn way. Writing sprints let me do this. I can, indeed, focus on nothing but the writing for fifteen minute or twenty minute chunks and produce and shut the nagging voices of publishing doom and the internal editor out for that time. Write or Die might be my new writing motto.
2. Giving myself the time to do the other stuff the muse like. Playing with the pretty fabrics and yarns. Watching a series of Grey's Anatomy if that's what the muse wants (and man, I just now realised that I've been obsessed with Grey's for the last month because my hero is a healer and McDreamy is my favourite hot doctor *headdesk*...quick on the uptake, not).
3. Writing every day (or six days a week at least). Keep the fingers moving and the momentum eventually comes. Of course, when it comes time to revise "writing" includes thinking about the book, talking about the book to crit partners and noodling about the book in notebooks.
And now, cos this is getting long, let's put the actual 2010 resolutions in another post.
This time last year I made resolutions and now, inevitably, I'm thinking about what I want to achieve in 2010.
Last year the resolutions were something like lose weight, keep the exercise routine going, write two books, stay off caffeine when I can, do things that make me happy and have fun.
So how did all of that go?
Well, on the things that make Mel happy front I did quite well. I did a lot of sewing, rediscovered knitting and crochet, took some non writing related classes, took a non writing related holiday (though with a fellow writer so there was writing talk *g*) and dropped another day in the day job. Friends has babies (and I was there when one of them arrived), friends hit the NYT list, the family was relatively healthy and many good books were read.
On the stay off caffeine, well, there were ups and down. I have pretty much accepted that there are times in my life when I'm going to be on the caffeine. I have for most of the year been off it or only having a cup of green tea or two a day. There have been times when I've been drinking coke (or even now and then coke zero because, I'm sorry but coke works on the caffeine front but does little for the operation-make-butt-smaller). Balance, people. I know I sleep better off the caffeine but sometimes something's got to give. I need to work on learning to love green tea more and slanting the balance in that direction but whatever.
On the exercise front, things started well and slid into what can only be described as a big fat heap. From January to April I was doing heaps of cardio, doing my pilates and doing Nia. April or May sometime I got sick and work got busy and things started to slide. And I started to notice that my shoulder was pulling up sore after Nia and pilates classes but not too sore so I ignored it (note to self, don't ignore it!)
Then I dropped a day at work which happened to be the day of my regular pilates class and my Nia class was put on hiatus and the shoulder started getting sorer even without exercising and hmmm, here we are feeling unfit and flabby and waiting to find out whether the shoulder needs surgery. Bah humbug to that.
On the writing, that too was interesting. Trying to sell a book is never an easy proposition. Trying to sell a book in a major economic downturn is an even less easy proposition. Some stuff happened. Some work stuff happened and for a lot of the year the writing was slow and kind of torturous (though, I did keep trying to write) because I was letting the stuff mess with my head. Now sometimes the writing will be slow and torturous but the thing is, for me, I try and treat this as a job. I have an agent and she is out there trying to sell my books and has been doing so for some time now without being paid a cent so far, so I need to produce books for her to sell. Which means I have to focus on the writing part and stop worrying about the stuff part (which, for a virgo, is kind of like saying 'stop breathing').
Writing the books and making them as good as I can is what I can control and is the fun part. I don't think for a second that I've found the perfect solution to keeping that in mind and I know there will be "Mel freaks out" slow and torturous times again but hopefully I can pull myself out of them faster now. I'm happy to say that I did finish one book this year (because at times that felt unlikely). A book that was a bit different again to what I'd been writing but it seems to have been worth the grief it gave me because my agent loves it and I'm doing the final polish write now so it can make its way out into the world in January. At which point I will be doing the mental equivalent of sticking my fingers in the ears and saying "la, la, la, I can't hear you to the publishing worries" and writing the next book. Because for me, one book a year is too slow and I'm much happier when I'm producing.
So, for my benefit (and maybe for anyone else who it might work for), a reminder of what worked:
1. Writing sprints for the first draft (and for character free writing and for synopsis sketching). Write or Die is a godsend and Dr Wicked would be deserving of the Nobel Writers Sanity prize if there was such a thing. I need to do quick and dirty first drafts and just get out of my own damn way. Writing sprints let me do this. I can, indeed, focus on nothing but the writing for fifteen minute or twenty minute chunks and produce and shut the nagging voices of publishing doom and the internal editor out for that time. Write or Die might be my new writing motto.
2. Giving myself the time to do the other stuff the muse like. Playing with the pretty fabrics and yarns. Watching a series of Grey's Anatomy if that's what the muse wants (and man, I just now realised that I've been obsessed with Grey's for the last month because my hero is a healer and McDreamy is my favourite hot doctor *headdesk*...quick on the uptake, not).
3. Writing every day (or six days a week at least). Keep the fingers moving and the momentum eventually comes. Of course, when it comes time to revise "writing" includes thinking about the book, talking about the book to crit partners and noodling about the book in notebooks.
And now, cos this is getting long, let's put the actual 2010 resolutions in another post.
May 04, 2009
May day
Right. I'm imposing a new goal. There's been a lot of circling and thinking about this damn wip (and, yes, there are distractions with babies and sewing and big old work projects) but at some point there's just got to be some serious BICHOK. Last time I checked no-one had invented the "put this on your forehead and sheer brilliance shall be sucked onto the page" machine. So time to suck it up and just work.
So my May goal is to keep that word count climbing. I want the number before the comma to keep going up by one at least six days a week. So that means four pages a day (well, unless i did more than four the day before). It's do-able. It's easily do-able. So let's see what happens. Today I went from six to seven. Tomorrow we're aiming for eight.
Also, about to suck it up and climb back on the ET. The stomach bug in March threw my exercise routine completely out the window but BICHOK needs some form of physical exercise to occur or it will be EIBICHOK.
PS: Dear Universe, to facilitate the above, I am graciously accepting donations of housework fairies, lottery wins, miraculously restocking refrigerators etc etc. 'kthnxbye.
So my May goal is to keep that word count climbing. I want the number before the comma to keep going up by one at least six days a week. So that means four pages a day (well, unless i did more than four the day before). It's do-able. It's easily do-able. So let's see what happens. Today I went from six to seven. Tomorrow we're aiming for eight.
Also, about to suck it up and climb back on the ET. The stomach bug in March threw my exercise routine completely out the window but BICHOK needs some form of physical exercise to occur or it will be EIBICHOK.
PS: Dear Universe, to facilitate the above, I am graciously accepting donations of housework fairies, lottery wins, miraculously restocking refrigerators etc etc. 'kthnxbye.
December 30, 2008
Resolving
Given that tomorrow is reserved for my traditional annual reading wrap up post, I have to do my traditional resolution post today.
So herewith, Mel's goals for 2009.
1. Write at least two books and enjoy the process.
2. Lose 15kg.
3. To assist with 2, make sure the exercise routine stays a routine rather than a sporadic mess. Actually, one of the girls at work talks about an exercise ritual. I like that. Ritual seems more fun and inviting than 'routine'. Rituals are nurturing rather than an imposition. So keep shaping and sticking to my exercise rituals.
4. Remember my recipe for happy Mels.
5. Stay off the caffeine as much as possible (which isn't always but at least I haven't had a diet coke since early this year...and man, I miss it still).
6. Remember when I fall off the wagon with any of the above that I can just get up and get back on.
5. Have fun!
You can't really set a goal of selling a book as publication is largely out of your control after you do all the write a good book/find an agent/submit stuff/keep writing bit but let's call it my big dream for 2009. Sell a book. Or six. : )
So herewith, Mel's goals for 2009.
1. Write at least two books and enjoy the process.
2. Lose 15kg.
3. To assist with 2, make sure the exercise routine stays a routine rather than a sporadic mess. Actually, one of the girls at work talks about an exercise ritual. I like that. Ritual seems more fun and inviting than 'routine'. Rituals are nurturing rather than an imposition. So keep shaping and sticking to my exercise rituals.
4. Remember my recipe for happy Mels.
5. Stay off the caffeine as much as possible (which isn't always but at least I haven't had a diet coke since early this year...and man, I miss it still).
6. Remember when I fall off the wagon with any of the above that I can just get up and get back on.
5. Have fun!
You can't really set a goal of selling a book as publication is largely out of your control after you do all the write a good book/find an agent/submit stuff/keep writing bit but let's call it my big dream for 2009. Sell a book. Or six. : )
December 28, 2008
Still thinking about indulgence
And I'm not sure I'd change a lot about last year's. But I'll still keep thinking. I think part of the problem is that this year I'm feeling about 500% more relaxed than I was the same time last year. There's been no killer work project, there's been no flooded house just before christmas and there's been quite a bit of vacation time this year.
Maybe I need a new approach to the list...I know what my resolutions are going to be and the indulgences aren't supposed to be resolutions but I think I need a new way to think about them.
More once I've slept on it.
Maybe I need a new approach to the list...I know what my resolutions are going to be and the indulgences aren't supposed to be resolutions but I think I need a new way to think about them.
More once I've slept on it.
December 27, 2008
Indolence and indulgences
So carrying on the tradition of the last two years, I thought I'd take a look at how I'd gone on my planned indulgences this year and then work out how to pamper myself next year.
So here's last year's list:
1. Live music and music generally
Well, I've bought a fair bit of music on iTunes this year. I saw Bon Jovi (even if it was a bit of a dud concert due to shocking sound), went to the Rocky Horror picture show, listened to Irish music in a Hobart bar, there was several viewings of Mamma Mia (which counts) and I'm sure there was another musical, plus four ballets, so this is a tick even if I'd like there to be still more. Still I already have Wicked and Pink lined up for next year.
2. Pilates classes.
Hmmm. This is probably a half tick. I've managed to go more regularly but still not every week and somewhere along the line the reformer classes that I was really enjoying fell by the wayside. Exercise has been a bug bear this year while we've been focusing on sorting things out physically but in the last six weeks it's been slowly creeping back.
3. Dancing of some sort
Nope apart from boogying in the loungeroom occasionally. Not sure why I'm resisting this one...
4. The girly things...facials and makeup and sparkly nail polish and hanging out with the gals
I've had a couple of manicures/pedicures, some makeovers, worn lots of sparkly nail polish, worn make-up most days to work and spent plenty of time with the gals being silly, so this is a pass.
5. Relaxation - meditation, massages and naps and feeding myself stories in various forms
I think the massage count doubled to about four. Mostly at the start of the year then tapered off again (possibly cos I was spending a lot on various naturopathic stuff) but I've been good on napping and meditating and there has been plenty of story (though strangely, I get the feeling when I add up my books read count for the year, it's going to be lower this year...lots of re-reading this year and too much driving to work).
6. Quilting - learn some more, do some more
Well I did some more but haven't done any more classes. Will keep working on this one.
7. Scents - especially roses
I bought myself Red Roses by Jo Malone and wear it most days. I love the scent of roses. Nice soaps and aromatherapy have happened too, so pass.
8. Learning something for fun
I didn't do any formal classes but I've been trying different cooking things, kind of learned Dvorak (another project to reboot soon), learned how to change kitchen cabinet handles, a bit more html/web design stuff, the teeniest dabble into knowing more about photography and managed to speak a few words in German plus the myriad other magpie bits and pieces that catch the writer brain attention here and there and get investigated. I'll give me a pass though I'd still like to do something more formal for fun again.
9. Food adventures - both out and at home
Well, there was a fair bit of travel (and some of it not work or writing related) so there's been a reasonable amount of eating out this year. Home-wise, I've been playing with the crockpot and the Kenwood in the last few months so I think I pass this as well.
Now I need to go and eat some dinner (having done half an hour on the ET a little while ago) before I think of what my indulgences for next year might be.
So here's last year's list:
1. Live music and music generally
Well, I've bought a fair bit of music on iTunes this year. I saw Bon Jovi (even if it was a bit of a dud concert due to shocking sound), went to the Rocky Horror picture show, listened to Irish music in a Hobart bar, there was several viewings of Mamma Mia (which counts) and I'm sure there was another musical, plus four ballets, so this is a tick even if I'd like there to be still more. Still I already have Wicked and Pink lined up for next year.
2. Pilates classes.
Hmmm. This is probably a half tick. I've managed to go more regularly but still not every week and somewhere along the line the reformer classes that I was really enjoying fell by the wayside. Exercise has been a bug bear this year while we've been focusing on sorting things out physically but in the last six weeks it's been slowly creeping back.
3. Dancing of some sort
Nope apart from boogying in the loungeroom occasionally. Not sure why I'm resisting this one...
4. The girly things...facials and makeup and sparkly nail polish and hanging out with the gals
I've had a couple of manicures/pedicures, some makeovers, worn lots of sparkly nail polish, worn make-up most days to work and spent plenty of time with the gals being silly, so this is a pass.
5. Relaxation - meditation, massages and naps and feeding myself stories in various forms
I think the massage count doubled to about four. Mostly at the start of the year then tapered off again (possibly cos I was spending a lot on various naturopathic stuff) but I've been good on napping and meditating and there has been plenty of story (though strangely, I get the feeling when I add up my books read count for the year, it's going to be lower this year...lots of re-reading this year and too much driving to work).
6. Quilting - learn some more, do some more
Well I did some more but haven't done any more classes. Will keep working on this one.
7. Scents - especially roses
I bought myself Red Roses by Jo Malone and wear it most days. I love the scent of roses. Nice soaps and aromatherapy have happened too, so pass.
8. Learning something for fun
I didn't do any formal classes but I've been trying different cooking things, kind of learned Dvorak (another project to reboot soon), learned how to change kitchen cabinet handles, a bit more html/web design stuff, the teeniest dabble into knowing more about photography and managed to speak a few words in German plus the myriad other magpie bits and pieces that catch the writer brain attention here and there and get investigated. I'll give me a pass though I'd still like to do something more formal for fun again.
9. Food adventures - both out and at home
Well, there was a fair bit of travel (and some of it not work or writing related) so there's been a reasonable amount of eating out this year. Home-wise, I've been playing with the crockpot and the Kenwood in the last few months so I think I pass this as well.
Now I need to go and eat some dinner (having done half an hour on the ET a little while ago) before I think of what my indulgences for next year might be.
October 11, 2008
Taking care of business
So daylight savings has started and the days are getting longer and warmer and the thoughts are turning towards exercise and health and the whole weight can of worms.
I've been following Jenny Crusie's posts here and here and reading Barbara talking about celebrating her 5 year anniversary of giving up cigarettes because she wanted to be around for a long time and turning things over in my head.
I'm not a tiny girl. I'm five foot nine. I have broad shoulders, I have hips and boobs. I'm never going to look like Kate Moss or Keira Knightley or any of those naturally skinny creatures (and I'm not sure I'd want to). But being tall and curvy has meant I've always struggled with weight issues. Back in high school I thought I was too fat (when I was pretty much smack bang in the top end of my healthy weight range). I've always been a bookworm and liked sacking out with a good book but back in those days I walked to and from school and did PE and played various sports and did ballet and various things. I walked or rode a bike to most things I went to (other than going to friends houses that were a long drive away, being a country girl). My folks used to nag me to do more exercise (back then the concept of walking a lot every day being 'exercise' hadn't quite filtered through to the public psyche like it has now). I could blame that (but you know what, I'm all grown up now and my parents were doing the best they knew how and I'm the one who chooses what I eat and how much I move) or I could blame genetics but the cold hard fact is I'm built to gain weight pretty easily. Which is great if we ever have a famine but not so great when we don't.
So back then I thought I was too fat. I look at those pictures now and think man, I was gorgeous. Then I went to uni. Fell in love. Went on the pill. And suddenly stacked on about 15 kilos. Stupid hormones. Then I moved off-campus so I was driving and taking public transport to get around rather than walking and, what's more, moved in with boys who eat a LOT and those fifteen kilos crept up to maybe twenty. Then just after I turned thirty I got glandular fever. Which completely screwed with my energy levels in a lasting way. Since then I've never felt like I've had much of an energy reserve. A lot of feeling tired. A lot of feeling exhausted. More weight crept on. At the same time I threw "I want to be a writer" into the mix and so effectively started working two jobs. Guess what, like a lot of people, when I'm tired and stressed I tend to eat. And don't feel like exercise.
Then a few years ago I got sick of being what was by then way overweight and joined Weight Watchers. I lost about twenty kilos in 9 months or so which is pretty sensible weight loss. Mostly by tweaking eating habits, writing what I ate down so there could be no snack amnesia : ) and doing some exercise. Then I kind of got stuck for a while. But at that weight, I felt pretty good and was doing pretty well maintaining. I'd occasionally put on a couple of kilos in the stressy times but would lose them again. Couldn't quite get it together to lose the last 8 or 10 to get to the top of the official health range but figured I'd do it eventually. I'd found some balance somehow, my energy had improved a bit and most of the balls stayed in the air most of the time. But the second half of last year was kind of stressful at work thanks to a project from hell and at the same time I was starting to feel really tired all the time again. Exercise was falling by the wayside. Net result was that by the end of the year I was about 7-8 kilos above my previous maintenance point. I'd go down a couple but they'd creep back on. Then my house flooded at Christmas which did not make for a relaxing break. By January I was feeling really bad. I got poked and prodded by various doctors in Jan/Feb who proclaimed everything normal. My muttered response was something like "feeling like I have had no sleep all the time is not normal".
In March I started seeing a naturopath who basically said your hormones appear to be out of whack, let's work on that. What followed was several months of what may have been referred to as the crazy naturopath diet on this blog where we gave up aspartame and lots of other things to give the body a break and took lots of pills and potions to do mysterious things. I lost a few kilos, my hormones evened out a bit and my energy levels have improved a LOT. Then came the big six weeks off (sorely needed by this point). I was no longer on the crazy naturopath you-can't-eat-anything diet.
The result was somewhat predictable. The reason I like Weight Watchers is that they don't say "you can never eat x again". They say eat x when you really want it, work it into your week, do some exercise, watch your portions, watch why you're eating. All that sensible stuff. Tell me "you can't" and I tend to react with "but I want to". So on the holiday I was in holiday mode and ate what I wanted and read a lot and slept a lot and travelled and did whatever the heck I felt like. Not surprisingly, that meant I kind of ended up back where I started at the beginning of the year weight wise. Nobody to blame for that but me but I'm starting to get sick of being on the up and down wagon.
The plus side is I'm far far better energy wise than I was at the start of the year. No excuses on that front. I want to find that balance point again and ideally I'd like to find it at the top of my healthy weight range or something close by. So I need to find my motivation. I'm not in my twenties anymore. Hell, in a cough-cough number of years I won't be in my thirties anymore. I can't just eat carrots for a few weeks and the weight drops off. I need a sustainable eating and exercise way of life.
Obviously just "I want to weigh X and wear size Y clothes" doesn't do it for me or I would've lost weight years ago. So what do I want? I want to be healthy. I want to be fit. I'd like to be around to be a fabulous eighty year old with my fabulous friends. I want to go on a walking tour in Italy and be able to walk 10 or so kms a day and be fine. I want muscle tone. I want energy. I want to be able to write great stories for many years to come. The smaller clothes thing is just a bonus.
And if that's what I want then I have to move and I have to eat sensibly most of the time. So here's what I want to do.
1. Start doing WW properly again instead of vague point calculations in my head. Write it down. Plan my meals. Eat well most of the time.
2. Manage my energy levels - which means exercise yes but also more meditation and quick naps when I get home so that I then have energy to write and exercise.
3. Stop thinking I don't have enough time. I do. I have lots of time. I tend to think I have to hoard time for writing or something. I don't. I have enough time to write and do other things. And doing other things will help the writing.
4. Get fit. This is the hard one. I'm going back to pilates next week so that's the easy part. The hard part for me is always, always, always, the cardio. I have a big old "I don't like cardio" tape in my head. Which is just plain wrong because I do like it once I get going. I just need the "how to get going" part. None of my friends live close enough to be regular exercise buddies, so it's just me. And, quite frankly, I need to get it through my head that "just me" is the most important reason to exercise. I could get a dog but I'm not home enough really and the cats have reached elder statescat age (grey cat is 14, orange cat will be that early next year) where I think introducing a dog at this point would just be unfair. So it really is just me and my excuses. So I need to start small. Small walks. The same "just do ten minutes" technique I use on the writing.
5. Give up a couple of obvious bad habits. I gave up diet coke and caffeine for the naturopath. The no caffeine thing has slipped a bit during the travel and return to work. Trouble is, given I'm not a coffee drinker and I don't really like tea, I tend to drink Coke which is way too much sugar. It would be okay if I could do one a week but one a week slips to one a day then two a day and then it's not good. I don't want to go back to diet coke because really I think the aspartame had a lot to do with how bad I was feeling. So get off the caffeine again and train myself to drink something non-Coke/non-aspartame for energy when I really need it. The other one is chocolate. Prior to the naturopath I'd pretty much given up regular chocolate eating. I'd buy a bar now and then but it wasn't something I had in the house very often. But during the crazy naturopath diet, dark chocolate was one of the few treats I was allowed and I've gotten somewhat addicted. Which means I'm eating 100g or 200g of chocolate a week that I wasn't before. Even if it is the 70% cocoa kind, there's still a whack of fat and sugar in that.. So back to one small block (aka the 35g ones) a week I think.
6. Take another look at some FlyLady routines to keep the house feeling like it's under control and help with the 'no time, no time' feeling. I did Flylady for about a year at one point but it's one of the balls that got dropped but I'm slowly rebuilding my work week routines post holiday, so I think this is a good time to look at it again.
7. Be kind to myself. I'm not going to be perfect at this. I'm going to fall off the wagon now and then but I need to let that go and just get back on. I have lots of good cheerleaders to help me so I need to be a cheerleader for myself. Work with my strengths so it all works for me.
And man, this has turned out to be long and rambling. But it needed to get out of my head and written down. Having achieved that and a short walk this morning, I can just keep going.
I've been following Jenny Crusie's posts here and here and reading Barbara talking about celebrating her 5 year anniversary of giving up cigarettes because she wanted to be around for a long time and turning things over in my head.
I'm not a tiny girl. I'm five foot nine. I have broad shoulders, I have hips and boobs. I'm never going to look like Kate Moss or Keira Knightley or any of those naturally skinny creatures (and I'm not sure I'd want to). But being tall and curvy has meant I've always struggled with weight issues. Back in high school I thought I was too fat (when I was pretty much smack bang in the top end of my healthy weight range). I've always been a bookworm and liked sacking out with a good book but back in those days I walked to and from school and did PE and played various sports and did ballet and various things. I walked or rode a bike to most things I went to (other than going to friends houses that were a long drive away, being a country girl). My folks used to nag me to do more exercise (back then the concept of walking a lot every day being 'exercise' hadn't quite filtered through to the public psyche like it has now). I could blame that (but you know what, I'm all grown up now and my parents were doing the best they knew how and I'm the one who chooses what I eat and how much I move) or I could blame genetics but the cold hard fact is I'm built to gain weight pretty easily. Which is great if we ever have a famine but not so great when we don't.
So back then I thought I was too fat. I look at those pictures now and think man, I was gorgeous. Then I went to uni. Fell in love. Went on the pill. And suddenly stacked on about 15 kilos. Stupid hormones. Then I moved off-campus so I was driving and taking public transport to get around rather than walking and, what's more, moved in with boys who eat a LOT and those fifteen kilos crept up to maybe twenty. Then just after I turned thirty I got glandular fever. Which completely screwed with my energy levels in a lasting way. Since then I've never felt like I've had much of an energy reserve. A lot of feeling tired. A lot of feeling exhausted. More weight crept on. At the same time I threw "I want to be a writer" into the mix and so effectively started working two jobs. Guess what, like a lot of people, when I'm tired and stressed I tend to eat. And don't feel like exercise.
Then a few years ago I got sick of being what was by then way overweight and joined Weight Watchers. I lost about twenty kilos in 9 months or so which is pretty sensible weight loss. Mostly by tweaking eating habits, writing what I ate down so there could be no snack amnesia : ) and doing some exercise. Then I kind of got stuck for a while. But at that weight, I felt pretty good and was doing pretty well maintaining. I'd occasionally put on a couple of kilos in the stressy times but would lose them again. Couldn't quite get it together to lose the last 8 or 10 to get to the top of the official health range but figured I'd do it eventually. I'd found some balance somehow, my energy had improved a bit and most of the balls stayed in the air most of the time. But the second half of last year was kind of stressful at work thanks to a project from hell and at the same time I was starting to feel really tired all the time again. Exercise was falling by the wayside. Net result was that by the end of the year I was about 7-8 kilos above my previous maintenance point. I'd go down a couple but they'd creep back on. Then my house flooded at Christmas which did not make for a relaxing break. By January I was feeling really bad. I got poked and prodded by various doctors in Jan/Feb who proclaimed everything normal. My muttered response was something like "feeling like I have had no sleep all the time is not normal".
In March I started seeing a naturopath who basically said your hormones appear to be out of whack, let's work on that. What followed was several months of what may have been referred to as the crazy naturopath diet on this blog where we gave up aspartame and lots of other things to give the body a break and took lots of pills and potions to do mysterious things. I lost a few kilos, my hormones evened out a bit and my energy levels have improved a LOT. Then came the big six weeks off (sorely needed by this point). I was no longer on the crazy naturopath you-can't-eat-anything diet.
The result was somewhat predictable. The reason I like Weight Watchers is that they don't say "you can never eat x again". They say eat x when you really want it, work it into your week, do some exercise, watch your portions, watch why you're eating. All that sensible stuff. Tell me "you can't" and I tend to react with "but I want to". So on the holiday I was in holiday mode and ate what I wanted and read a lot and slept a lot and travelled and did whatever the heck I felt like. Not surprisingly, that meant I kind of ended up back where I started at the beginning of the year weight wise. Nobody to blame for that but me but I'm starting to get sick of being on the up and down wagon.
The plus side is I'm far far better energy wise than I was at the start of the year. No excuses on that front. I want to find that balance point again and ideally I'd like to find it at the top of my healthy weight range or something close by. So I need to find my motivation. I'm not in my twenties anymore. Hell, in a cough-cough number of years I won't be in my thirties anymore. I can't just eat carrots for a few weeks and the weight drops off. I need a sustainable eating and exercise way of life.
Obviously just "I want to weigh X and wear size Y clothes" doesn't do it for me or I would've lost weight years ago. So what do I want? I want to be healthy. I want to be fit. I'd like to be around to be a fabulous eighty year old with my fabulous friends. I want to go on a walking tour in Italy and be able to walk 10 or so kms a day and be fine. I want muscle tone. I want energy. I want to be able to write great stories for many years to come. The smaller clothes thing is just a bonus.
And if that's what I want then I have to move and I have to eat sensibly most of the time. So here's what I want to do.
1. Start doing WW properly again instead of vague point calculations in my head. Write it down. Plan my meals. Eat well most of the time.
2. Manage my energy levels - which means exercise yes but also more meditation and quick naps when I get home so that I then have energy to write and exercise.
3. Stop thinking I don't have enough time. I do. I have lots of time. I tend to think I have to hoard time for writing or something. I don't. I have enough time to write and do other things. And doing other things will help the writing.
4. Get fit. This is the hard one. I'm going back to pilates next week so that's the easy part. The hard part for me is always, always, always, the cardio. I have a big old "I don't like cardio" tape in my head. Which is just plain wrong because I do like it once I get going. I just need the "how to get going" part. None of my friends live close enough to be regular exercise buddies, so it's just me. And, quite frankly, I need to get it through my head that "just me" is the most important reason to exercise. I could get a dog but I'm not home enough really and the cats have reached elder statescat age (grey cat is 14, orange cat will be that early next year) where I think introducing a dog at this point would just be unfair. So it really is just me and my excuses. So I need to start small. Small walks. The same "just do ten minutes" technique I use on the writing.
5. Give up a couple of obvious bad habits. I gave up diet coke and caffeine for the naturopath. The no caffeine thing has slipped a bit during the travel and return to work. Trouble is, given I'm not a coffee drinker and I don't really like tea, I tend to drink Coke which is way too much sugar. It would be okay if I could do one a week but one a week slips to one a day then two a day and then it's not good. I don't want to go back to diet coke because really I think the aspartame had a lot to do with how bad I was feeling. So get off the caffeine again and train myself to drink something non-Coke/non-aspartame for energy when I really need it. The other one is chocolate. Prior to the naturopath I'd pretty much given up regular chocolate eating. I'd buy a bar now and then but it wasn't something I had in the house very often. But during the crazy naturopath diet, dark chocolate was one of the few treats I was allowed and I've gotten somewhat addicted. Which means I'm eating 100g or 200g of chocolate a week that I wasn't before. Even if it is the 70% cocoa kind, there's still a whack of fat and sugar in that.. So back to one small block (aka the 35g ones) a week I think.
6. Take another look at some FlyLady routines to keep the house feeling like it's under control and help with the 'no time, no time' feeling. I did Flylady for about a year at one point but it's one of the balls that got dropped but I'm slowly rebuilding my work week routines post holiday, so I think this is a good time to look at it again.
7. Be kind to myself. I'm not going to be perfect at this. I'm going to fall off the wagon now and then but I need to let that go and just get back on. I have lots of good cheerleaders to help me so I need to be a cheerleader for myself. Work with my strengths so it all works for me.
And man, this has turned out to be long and rambling. But it needed to get out of my head and written down. Having achieved that and a short walk this morning, I can just keep going.
April 13, 2008
Famous last words
So this afternoon I settled down to read some of Wolf 2 and go over my notes from the last pass on structural stuff. Which was fine. Then I did the Sunday afternoon read for a bit and meditate. Of course, the girls being contrary beasts suddenly decided that maybe, just maybe, they could stop sulking about Steamy Weather. I got some scene snippets and some additions to the soundtrack and a collage.
Not sure where this fits in the grand plan but I'm going to go along with it for now and see how far I get and will do some Wolf 2 thinking/revising at the same time. It will be interesting swinging backwards and forwards between two completely different books and genres but I'll see how it goes.
I'm not planning to talk much about SW in case I voodoo myself, even though keeping the metrics worked well for Witch. I liked seeing the stats each day. I find it motivating to record them, like page counts. It's my Virgo side I guess. All statistical and analytical. So I'll keep some stats and report occasionally but probably not as much as Witch. Who knows, I could wake up tomorrow and the girls will retreat into sulking again but let's hope not, I was having great fun with it when it was flowing well.
Not sure where this fits in the grand plan but I'm going to go along with it for now and see how far I get and will do some Wolf 2 thinking/revising at the same time. It will be interesting swinging backwards and forwards between two completely different books and genres but I'll see how it goes.
I'm not planning to talk much about SW in case I voodoo myself, even though keeping the metrics worked well for Witch. I liked seeing the stats each day. I find it motivating to record them, like page counts. It's my Virgo side I guess. All statistical and analytical. So I'll keep some stats and report occasionally but probably not as much as Witch. Who knows, I could wake up tomorrow and the girls will retreat into sulking again but let's hope not, I was having great fun with it when it was flowing well.
January 26, 2008
PS
One day I will learn to remember that one of the things that helps with the seventh ball aka "getting the brain to chill the heck out" is actually doing some of the tasks, or parts of them, that are piling up on the mental to-do list. *headdesk* Somewhere out there my mother is smirking. Or rolling her eyes and saying "well, duh" or the motherly equivalent (is that perhaps "I told you so"? : ) ).
Virgo brains like achievement. I'm doing an online course with Margie Lawson at the moment and she talks about how important it is to have achievable to-do lists. How we all set our expectations of what we can achieve in any given time too high and set ourselves up for feeling frustrated. So we should focus on setting ourselves goals and tasks that we know we can achieve in a given time and set ourselves up for success. Achievement as positive reinforcement. For me, it works. Prioritise the goals, chunk 'em into tasks if you have to, be realistic, write the ones that you want to get done today down, do them. Tick them off. Feel relaxed. Feel like the balls are in the air at least. Avoid the guilt monster. Start again the next day.
Simple in theory but sometimes hard to remember in practice.
Virgo brains like achievement. I'm doing an online course with Margie Lawson at the moment and she talks about how important it is to have achievable to-do lists. How we all set our expectations of what we can achieve in any given time too high and set ourselves up for feeling frustrated. So we should focus on setting ourselves goals and tasks that we know we can achieve in a given time and set ourselves up for success. Achievement as positive reinforcement. For me, it works. Prioritise the goals, chunk 'em into tasks if you have to, be realistic, write the ones that you want to get done today down, do them. Tick them off. Feel relaxed. Feel like the balls are in the air at least. Avoid the guilt monster. Start again the next day.
Simple in theory but sometimes hard to remember in practice.
January 06, 2008
Clarity
I don't know whether it's a change in the weather (cool again after a couple of HOT days and nights), the dream I had last night where my life was a musical (which was FUN, not sure what that says about me) or just the compounding effects of two weeks off but I woke up this morning thinking "you know, let's treat this too many ideas, too little time thing sensibly and just work out what the heck is best from a career point of view".
Hardly an earth shattering idea but it helps. And I'm going to write down my thought process here so I can come back to it...so if you don't want to read something potentially long and not that interesting if you're not a writer in my current position, go pick a blog from my links and read that instead : )
Still here? Okay, you were warned.
Anyway. I don't suffer from a lack of ideas. I have plenty of ideas as anyone who reads this blog will know. What I have been suffering from the last few months, apart from just a bone-deep need for a break from all forms of work (which includes writing), is unsettledness (if there is such a thing). A bit of a roller coaster year in terms of lots of cool stuff happening but not the ultimate cool thing (aka a sale that would then give me a need to put most of my focus into one genre intially) and also the realisation that I'm definitely a writer who writes more than one genre and needs to do so to be happy. When everything feels a bit up in the air and the muse is throwing ideas up fairly regularly and your brain is a bit fried, it's hard to see things clearly. Add in a virgo brain that likes plans and settledness plus day job craziness and the result is one broken brain.
But this morning, the fog seems to have lifted. So I sat down and tried to look at my choices the same way I'd look at them if someone else came to me saying "Help".
I write contemporary romance and I write fantasy with, at this point, a strong inclination towards urban fantasy. I've done well with both genres in terms of contests and requests etc so signs are I can do both and I enjoy writing both. In fact, because my fantasy stuff tends to be a bit darker (and that's the other realisation I had to come to this year, that yes, I have a witty, snarky voice but that doesn't mean my stories are light), I need the contemps as balance.
On the contemporary side of things, I have two requested partials with two different lines and I have a current wip that isn't quite gelling yet. The reality is I'm more likely to have to revise something if I get a full request from either line, so the need for the next brand new contemp is less pressing. So I guess the contemp wip becomes a "noodle book" aka to be worked on for fun/when quota on the priority project is reached for the day. As does the ST contemp idea.
On the fantasy side, well, Wolf is out there. It would've been nice if it had sold in record time but it hasn't so we're in the 'the wheels of publishing move slowly' process. Reality is, it may not sell (knock wood, salt thrown over shoulder, chocolate to Letitsuk that this is not the case), which begs the question "what's next". The other reality with Wolf is that, in my head, it's not an open ended series. It has a finishing point. Which means if it sells, there's still the "what's next" to be answered.
And the best answer, career-wise as far as I can tell without psychic powers, for 'what's next' would be another UF, preferably a series again. Which makes the question - what's the next UF idea? (And means the other more straight fantasy books also are moved into noodle status - see we're narrowing down the list already.)
At this stage there are two main contenders. Let's call them the Witch book and the Other book.
Witch book pros - it's definitely longer than one book, I know the gist of the first book - including the ending, I know the hero and heroine quite well. I also know what the crunch is, what the thing that interests me to write about is.
Witch book cons - I wrote the first bits of book one a while ago, so I'm sure it'll be slash and burn time.
Other book pros - killer first scene, interesting mythology.
Other book cons - it feels a bit stand-alone at this point, I'm kind of vague on the big bad and the details of the hero/heroine, no real crunch yet.
Given I have a goal of wanting an UF series, then it would seem that the Witch idea is the winner.
In terms of is this the priority project, there's another consideration (I told you this was long and complicated and if it's making your head hurt then this is what it's been like in my brain for a while but with added indecision and dithering and less sense).
When/if Wolf sells, hopefully they'll want the follow ups. The first draft of Wolf 2 is written and has had a first pass revision but needs further revising. Wolf 3 exists in only a few snippets but I know how it starts, what has to happen and how it ends, which makes me think it's all there buried in my writer brain and the girls (crossed fingers) would fork it up when they need to. There's also the potential for things to change in both 1 & 2 if they sold, which would have consequences and mean rewrites. For now, that means, that I want to put more effort into having a draft of another UF project.
Which gives me the following:
Priority 1 project: Witch 1
Priority 2 projects: Progressing Wolf 3, another pass at Wolf 2
Noodle projects: Everything else
Ladies and gentleman...a plan! * Now I just have to go away and think about how that translates to specific goals. I suspect it will be something like x pages per month on Witch, something done on the Wolf stuff each month and only if I want to and have done the other stuff for everything else but we shall see. Man, my head feels a lot calmer! Yippee!
*Management reserves the right to change said plan to respond to events as they arise : )
Hardly an earth shattering idea but it helps. And I'm going to write down my thought process here so I can come back to it...so if you don't want to read something potentially long and not that interesting if you're not a writer in my current position, go pick a blog from my links and read that instead : )
Still here? Okay, you were warned.
Anyway. I don't suffer from a lack of ideas. I have plenty of ideas as anyone who reads this blog will know. What I have been suffering from the last few months, apart from just a bone-deep need for a break from all forms of work (which includes writing), is unsettledness (if there is such a thing). A bit of a roller coaster year in terms of lots of cool stuff happening but not the ultimate cool thing (aka a sale that would then give me a need to put most of my focus into one genre intially) and also the realisation that I'm definitely a writer who writes more than one genre and needs to do so to be happy. When everything feels a bit up in the air and the muse is throwing ideas up fairly regularly and your brain is a bit fried, it's hard to see things clearly. Add in a virgo brain that likes plans and settledness plus day job craziness and the result is one broken brain.
But this morning, the fog seems to have lifted. So I sat down and tried to look at my choices the same way I'd look at them if someone else came to me saying "Help".
I write contemporary romance and I write fantasy with, at this point, a strong inclination towards urban fantasy. I've done well with both genres in terms of contests and requests etc so signs are I can do both and I enjoy writing both. In fact, because my fantasy stuff tends to be a bit darker (and that's the other realisation I had to come to this year, that yes, I have a witty, snarky voice but that doesn't mean my stories are light), I need the contemps as balance.
On the contemporary side of things, I have two requested partials with two different lines and I have a current wip that isn't quite gelling yet. The reality is I'm more likely to have to revise something if I get a full request from either line, so the need for the next brand new contemp is less pressing. So I guess the contemp wip becomes a "noodle book" aka to be worked on for fun/when quota on the priority project is reached for the day. As does the ST contemp idea.
On the fantasy side, well, Wolf is out there. It would've been nice if it had sold in record time but it hasn't so we're in the 'the wheels of publishing move slowly' process. Reality is, it may not sell (knock wood, salt thrown over shoulder, chocolate to Letitsuk that this is not the case), which begs the question "what's next". The other reality with Wolf is that, in my head, it's not an open ended series. It has a finishing point. Which means if it sells, there's still the "what's next" to be answered.
And the best answer, career-wise as far as I can tell without psychic powers, for 'what's next' would be another UF, preferably a series again. Which makes the question - what's the next UF idea? (And means the other more straight fantasy books also are moved into noodle status - see we're narrowing down the list already.)
At this stage there are two main contenders. Let's call them the Witch book and the Other book.
Witch book pros - it's definitely longer than one book, I know the gist of the first book - including the ending, I know the hero and heroine quite well. I also know what the crunch is, what the thing that interests me to write about is.
Witch book cons - I wrote the first bits of book one a while ago, so I'm sure it'll be slash and burn time.
Other book pros - killer first scene, interesting mythology.
Other book cons - it feels a bit stand-alone at this point, I'm kind of vague on the big bad and the details of the hero/heroine, no real crunch yet.
Given I have a goal of wanting an UF series, then it would seem that the Witch idea is the winner.
In terms of is this the priority project, there's another consideration (I told you this was long and complicated and if it's making your head hurt then this is what it's been like in my brain for a while but with added indecision and dithering and less sense).
When/if Wolf sells, hopefully they'll want the follow ups. The first draft of Wolf 2 is written and has had a first pass revision but needs further revising. Wolf 3 exists in only a few snippets but I know how it starts, what has to happen and how it ends, which makes me think it's all there buried in my writer brain and the girls (crossed fingers) would fork it up when they need to. There's also the potential for things to change in both 1 & 2 if they sold, which would have consequences and mean rewrites. For now, that means, that I want to put more effort into having a draft of another UF project.
Which gives me the following:
Priority 1 project: Witch 1
Priority 2 projects: Progressing Wolf 3, another pass at Wolf 2
Noodle projects: Everything else
Ladies and gentleman...a plan! * Now I just have to go away and think about how that translates to specific goals. I suspect it will be something like x pages per month on Witch, something done on the Wolf stuff each month and only if I want to and have done the other stuff for everything else but we shall see. Man, my head feels a lot calmer! Yippee!
*Management reserves the right to change said plan to respond to events as they arise : )
December 30, 2007
Resolving
It's the day before New Year's Eve...how did that happen?
I'm reserving my actual New Year's Eve post for the "I'm making it a tradition year in books post", so I guess today has to be the resolution post. This week has been all about doing whatever I felt like which apparently included chopping off my hair - an urge I've been trying to resist for about six months now but finally figured what the heck. My theory with hair is 'it grows', so I tend to change my style fairly often and it's been various degrees of long for about three to four years now. Which for me is a long time to stave off hair boredom. At least I've kept it longer around the face which makes the inevitable growing out process less painful (I hope). Now I just have to stave off the "hmmm, perhaps I should change the colour too" urges.
Next week I'm still on holiday but it will be back to the writing/exercising etc. I needed this chill week after a very, very busy year full of exciting and not so exciting things, topped off by the pre-Christmas flood. After six days of lazing around, watching dvd's, reading and doing whatever I feel like (go see Enchanted by the way, it's very cute and happy making), I can feel my brain actually starting to function again, which is nice after several months of feeling like it was about to explode : ).
So what do I want to do in 2008, apart from keeping up the indulgences to ward off the imminent brain exploding sensation?
1. Write and have fun writing. We do our writing goals for the year at our Christmas crit group meeting, so they're all set.
2. Lose more weight and keep up the exercise
3. Have a long holiday (combining this with RWA National).
4. Enjoy life!
Short and sweet but there you go. I don't have any too terrible habits to kick (well, apart from diet coke but a girl's allowed one vice and I refuse to do working and writing with no caffeine).
What about everyone else? Any resolutions? Plans? Challenges? Whatever they are, may 2008 be fabulous for all!
I'm reserving my actual New Year's Eve post for the "I'm making it a tradition year in books post", so I guess today has to be the resolution post. This week has been all about doing whatever I felt like which apparently included chopping off my hair - an urge I've been trying to resist for about six months now but finally figured what the heck. My theory with hair is 'it grows', so I tend to change my style fairly often and it's been various degrees of long for about three to four years now. Which for me is a long time to stave off hair boredom. At least I've kept it longer around the face which makes the inevitable growing out process less painful (I hope). Now I just have to stave off the "hmmm, perhaps I should change the colour too" urges.
Next week I'm still on holiday but it will be back to the writing/exercising etc. I needed this chill week after a very, very busy year full of exciting and not so exciting things, topped off by the pre-Christmas flood. After six days of lazing around, watching dvd's, reading and doing whatever I feel like (go see Enchanted by the way, it's very cute and happy making), I can feel my brain actually starting to function again, which is nice after several months of feeling like it was about to explode : ).
So what do I want to do in 2008, apart from keeping up the indulgences to ward off the imminent brain exploding sensation?
1. Write and have fun writing. We do our writing goals for the year at our Christmas crit group meeting, so they're all set.
2. Lose more weight and keep up the exercise
3. Have a long holiday (combining this with RWA National).
4. Enjoy life!
Short and sweet but there you go. I don't have any too terrible habits to kick (well, apart from diet coke but a girl's allowed one vice and I refuse to do working and writing with no caffeine).
What about everyone else? Any resolutions? Plans? Challenges? Whatever they are, may 2008 be fabulous for all!
February 06, 2007
2, down 78 to go
So I'm slowly getting into Wolf 2. Still trying to re-orient myself in the heroine's head and the world and see what the plot holds in store. Looking at the progress bar is always kind of depressing at the start of a book.
One hundred thousand words is a lot. Most people freak at the idea of writing a couple of thousand. I tell myself write 5 pages, repeat 80 times and you have a book. But it's not quite that simple. During those repetitions you've gotta somehow hold a world in your head and make a plot hang together and world build and establish characters and keep the story interesting. Simple? Not always. Not when you know there are interested parties at the other end of the process. But I've written for interested parties before and writing for interested parties is part of the biz. And what I've learned is, you still have to write for yourself, love the story yourself. Or one hundred thousand words could feel very long indeed.
But none of this is stuff to worry about in a first draft. First drafts are for discovery. For playing. This is the first time I'm deliberately writing a sequel rather than just having the story maybe have some familiar characters but focusing on different protagonists. So it's new territory. And the first one was a gift book, one that flowed easily and fast for the vast part. Even the revisions have been relatively straightforward. I'm not expecting this one to be the same. Those books only come along once in a while.
So I have to focus on the little steps. Having fun and knocking over five pages at a time. 2 down. 78 to go.
One hundred thousand words is a lot. Most people freak at the idea of writing a couple of thousand. I tell myself write 5 pages, repeat 80 times and you have a book. But it's not quite that simple. During those repetitions you've gotta somehow hold a world in your head and make a plot hang together and world build and establish characters and keep the story interesting. Simple? Not always. Not when you know there are interested parties at the other end of the process. But I've written for interested parties before and writing for interested parties is part of the biz. And what I've learned is, you still have to write for yourself, love the story yourself. Or one hundred thousand words could feel very long indeed.
But none of this is stuff to worry about in a first draft. First drafts are for discovery. For playing. This is the first time I'm deliberately writing a sequel rather than just having the story maybe have some familiar characters but focusing on different protagonists. So it's new territory. And the first one was a gift book, one that flowed easily and fast for the vast part. Even the revisions have been relatively straightforward. I'm not expecting this one to be the same. Those books only come along once in a while.
So I have to focus on the little steps. Having fun and knocking over five pages at a time. 2 down. 78 to go.
January 13, 2006
Another thing
What I should've said yesterday was that here are my two big goals this year. Write six days a week. Lose 10 kilos.
I'll keep you posted on both.
I'll keep you posted on both.
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