So I mentioned I would be posting about the goals I’m making for 2011. Ever since reading Maggie Stiefvater’s post a couple years ago on New Year’s Resolutions, I really have learned that making realistic and reachable goals within my control for the new year are pivotal to how I feel about the year come December. I made three very simple writing goals a year ago: to finish my query, finish my synopsis, and to submit to ten agents. They were short and sweet but were big personal steps for me to take as a writer. And I can say with a slap happy grin on my face that I accomplished all three! I will not, however, disclose one of the non-writing goals I made and did not stick to. Of course it has NOTHING to do with the words exercise, lose, weight, or calories. Please…
So come this year I am upping the ante a little. Short and sweet is great, but I need to do a little more to keep going forward with this whole writing business. And yes, it is just that, a business.
So here are goals for 2011, both writing and non:
1. Go to a Writer’s Conference
Haha. I guess I’m cheating a little on this one. I’m still in the process of making goals for once I get there, but I know it will be a great learning experience. So stoked!
2. Write my pitch sheet
Okay, so this is technically for the conference and probably won’t be used anyway because the intensives are all booked, but who knows, right?
3. Find some crit partners
Now, I have some of the best friends and fam in the world who have been a HUGE support and have played a big part in helping me chisel my story into something better than what it started out as, but I really need to step beyond that happy bubble and find a circle of writers. I guess I’ve been hesitant to do this not because I’m anxious about their critiques, but because I don’t know how great of a partner I’d be for them. I’m still transitioning from being a passive reader to an active, scrupulous one. But there’s a first time for everything. And I need to do it.
4. Restore something
I have wanted to learn how to restore/refurbish furniture pieces for awhile. I have three pieces that were my Grandmother’s that need some major love, one of which will involve sewing, which I do NOT do. Maybe next year I’ll make a goal to sew, but in the meantime there is a large chest that has seen better days and needs a major facelift. I’m either going to kill it or make the other pieces of furniture in the house want to be it.
5. Veggies are our friends….eat more of them.
So Thing 1 is at this age where he is so influential. And I have found this out the hard way, btw. I feel like he’s at this crossroads where he will either learn to be polite or he won’t, where he will learn how to use self control or he won’t, where he will learn to love vegetables or he won’t..ET CETERA. Now, I am shamefully guilty of not incorporating vegetables into our family meals. The hubs is a meat and potato kinda guy and has something against anything that can be described as ‘leafy’ or ‘green’. So I have this tendency to just not cook those things because….well, forget it, it’s not even a good reason. Anyway, I am determined that by December, my son will love veggies. <—- There it is in writing people.
6. Paint the dining room and get a new table
7. Finish decorating the living room and master bedroom
Which my West Elm giftcard from my MIL will help with…thanks, MIL!
8. Can the soda
Haha, the cleverness! So the hubs has this love affair with Diet Pepsi. I, however, am a Diet Coke girl when push comes to shove, but settle for the Pep if I have to. Both just haven’t been able to give me what I need, so I am just going to show the soda who’s boss and come home to my one and only loyal quench….water.
9. Take a couple of courses
Okay, so I pretty much HAVE to do this because my teaching cert. expires come 2012 and I need six hours to renew it. So, I guess this goal needs to be a bit further up on the list here….lol
10. Give the hubs more back rubs.
Because I love him and he deserves more than the 1.25348 a year I give him.
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