All over the blogosphere, people are posting their New Year’s resolutions: reading challenges; writing goals; blogging and financial and creative and exercise goals–and, hand-in-hand with that, tips for staying the course.
I admit to being a list junkie. I LOVE planning. I love setting and writing down goals. I make lists everywhere–on the whiteboard, in notebooks, on virtual stickies, in Word, on scraps of paper, on the backs of envelopes. Setting goals satisfies my inner control freak, the Grand Vizier of Over-Planning.
However, I approach this latest season of goal-setting with more caution than in the past. The way to 2010 (a New Beginning! a Fresh Start!) is strewn with the shards of past goals, fragile dreams that did not withstand reality. Instead of taking a flying leap into the future, aiming for the stars, my goals for the next year are to keep doing what I’m doing now, but more so and more regularly.
I’m going to read more books than last year (I did make it to 64 last night!), spread over more genres (more on that later).
I’ll write, but I’m setting the bar low: one completed first draft or one complete revision (novels, of course!). I’m not going to chain myself to a story that isn’t working for me just so that my stats look good. I’m giving myself the time to play with my writing, the freedom to abandon projects, the gift of not having to keep my eye on the numbers. Everything else–more novels, short stories, submissions, acceptances–is gravy.
I’m going to get back to my pre-December piano practice levels, and then some.
I’ll continue to homeschool my kiddos, and resist the temptation to get lost in mounds of research and the starry-eyed pursuit of new curricula. The focus this year will be on active teaching, on nurturing a love of learning, on building up the whole child, on character traits as well as academic rigor.
I’ll pursue new avenues to creativity, but keep them light, fun and playful. I’ll draw when I want to, I’ll take pictures when I want to. I’ll work on making this blog better–maybe a new design, finally change that header picture, write better content on a more consistent basis.
2009 had some rough patches and I’m fine seeing it go. Do you have any resolutions for the new year?
I haven’t usually had any goals for my new year, but this year I would like to finish revising In This Wood, writing The Rule of Calindria, write and submit one piece of short fiction/poetry/article per month to paying markets, and average seven posts a week on my website.
That’s for writing. For life… We’ll see.
If you ever need a beta reader for any of those books, you know where to find me. 🙂
Good luck with your goals!