One Day at a Time

And here we are, at the opening of yet another brand new year. Made your resolutions yet? Broke ‘em already? Welcome to the club. I too was once a part of the resolution crowd. January 1 would find me making lists of long-term goals and plans on how I would achieve them. For instance, if I start right now and lose a mere five pounds a month, by the end of the year I’ll have dropped sixty pounds. And my pants, because they won’t fit me any more. And I’m going to do it, just as soon as I eat that ice cream I bought the other day. I guess I’ll have to exercise now. Too bad it’s too cold to go outside.

This is why I won’t be making long-term resolutions this year. The only thing easier to make than resolutions are the excuses for failing them. The average wait time between the making and the breaking of my New Year’s resolutions is usually about a week. Sometimes a day, if we’re dealing with anything food-related.

For 2015 I’ll be taking a different approach. I’ll be using the addicts’ method and taking my resolutions a day at a time. I’ll be measuring my goals by days and weeks. By the end of January I’ll reassess and see what needs to be done. Then it’s on to February. Lather, rinse, repeat.

At the end of the year I hope to have several more books added to my backlist and maybe a few stories out. A steady income would be nice. I may have to look for a regular job. I’m going to put that one off until April so I won’t have to drive in ice. Big plus for the writing life: you get to work at home. Big minus: the TV and the fridge are sitting right there, calling out to you. Dumping even five pounds a month may turn out to be tougher than I thought.

To help me stay on track, I’ve got one of those desktop-sized calendars with my monthly goals and deadlines on it, propped up where I can’t ignore it. This week I want to finish the first draft of my WIP and start formatting that porn story. By the end of January either one or both should be in submittable form, and I should have a draft of something else under way. That one I want to have ready to sub to a publisher by the end of February. And so forth.

QUICK SIDE NOTE: Office supply departments are getting skimpy in the big stores like WalMart and KMart, so I went to a couple office supply stores to price those big calendars. The cheapest I could find was $8. Others were close to $20. Screw that. I found a large sketch pad at the dollar store and made my own with colored markers. Take that, Office Max!

I’m hoping these deadlines and highly-visible reminders help me deal with my procrastination. Recall, if you will, my methods for making a million dollars: either get a million people to each give you a dollar, or come up with a million items to sell for a dollar each. I’m using a combination of the two. My overall goal is a minimum of twelve books/stories out, one a month, and hope that generates some income. Definitely need to get over the procrastination.

It always helps to have some kind of consequence for missing deadlines. In the working world, it’s called getting canned. For those of us striving to be self-employed, it’s known as homelessness. The money I’ve been living on for the last couple years is starting to run low, so I need to step up my game and get serious about this writing thing. It’s either that or look for a job, and prospects aren’t too numerous in my neck of the woods. I’d move in with and mooch off my brother, but I don’t like my sister-in-law.

Besides, Stray Kitty’s resolution appears to be “eat more.” Half a can for breakfast isn’t enough for him now. He sticks around for seconds. Then he comes back in the afternoon for a snack. Talk about a moocher. Of course he’s a cat, so he’s entitled. So I have to work harder in 2015. I’ve got a mooching stray who won’t even let me pet him to support. It’s like having a kid or a boyfriend, just without all the basketball.

I realize this is Thursday, but I’m typing these words on Tuesday so I can schedule the blog to post New Year’s Day, when the library’s closed. I thought I’d get a jump on the New Year and start the New Week on Sunday, but … well, things got in the way. I’m already running behind. I’ll see about catching up on New Year’s Eve, provided I can stay up until midnight. Maybe I can teach Stray Kitty to type. Make him earn his cat food. There’s a resolution for you. Happy New Year!

Irresolute

Here we are again: another New Year’s Eve, another wiping of the slate, another fresh start. Well, guess what? Not this time. The world didn’t end back on the 21st, but I’m done anyway. My resolution this year is, no resolutions.

You heard me. Last year I made a number of resolutions. Some even lasted longer than the time it took me to type them. All of them were pretty much shot by the end of January. I understand this is normal for most Americans. However, I’m sick of my personal failure rate. For me, 2013 is the Year of the Screw It.

I was going to clean up the clutter in the house. Didn’t happen. I was going to double my backlist and hopefully pick up more sales. I came the closest on that one. I had two releases, an end-of-year acceptance, and a sub I’m still waiting to hear back on. Sadly, my sales didn’t climb as expected. In fact, I think they went down. Over in another genre, a story I had accepted to an anthology finally came out this month, and I finally got paid. The grand pay-off after a two-year wait: $85, with no royalties even if the book does well. It was a flat-fee deal. Merry flippin’ Christmas, fellow writers.

Let’s not discuss my annual vow to shuck a few pounds. The less said about that, the better.

That’s not to say I have no plans at all for the upcoming 365 days. I’m just not making any promises. If I don’t make promises, I can’t break them. I love how that works out. Therefore, my guilt-free, subject-to-change intentions for the year 2013 include:

* Earn some spending money from writing. Some people can actually earn a living from this, but they write a lot faster than I do, and have more books on the market. That means I’ll have to write faster too, and stop with the screwing around. Related sub-intention: cut back on the time spent watching TV. Maybe I’ll take some of that money and get myself a DVR, or get the VCR portion of my DVD/VCR player fixed so I can tape stuff and watch it after I finish writing. I’m going to have to write and sub something every blasted week if I want to pull this off. Hope my fingers hold out.

* Eat better. That’s a toughie. Fruit I’m okay with, but I just don’t like the taste of most vegetables. Guess I’ll be experimenting with veggies over the next year. I didn’t know I liked asparagus until I tried it. I do know I can’t stand tomatoes or tomato juice, even though I love pizza and spaghetti sauce. Go figure. I don’t think I’ve ever had squash. Maybe I’ll give some form of that a try. Related sub-intention: learn to cook.

* Exercise more. I spend too much time parked on my butt in front of some sort of screen. I’m starting to look like the ship people in WALL-E. There are plenty of malls and big stores around here to hike up and down the aisles in, so I can’t use bad weather or temperature extremes as an excuse any more. If I eat more veggies and move around, it’s bound to do my body some good. Note how adroitly I avoided the “lose weight” resolution. Damn, I’m good.

There are other things I’d like to accomplish, like clean out the Book Room and keep the tub clean, but those are good for starters. Since I’m not making resolutions, I don’t have to front-load January. I can add and subtract “intentions” throughout the year, or replace one that isn’t working with something else.

For instance, suppose my next book takes off like a shot and earns me a million dollars. I can pretty much strike my first plan off the list and replace it with “Move somewhere that has a beach I can sit on and tan while I write. Oh, and doesn’t have so many hills so I can ride my bike.” Whoa, got me a twofer. I like this idea.

Resolutions suck. Screw ‘em. With this new plan I’m not breaking resolutions, I’m course-correcting and dropping plans of action that aren’t working out. Better add another: Practice making guilt-free excuses. Check. Happy New Year!