Mental Meanderings

And So... I wrote it - Dear Me,

Yeah I jumped on the bandwagon. I'd planned to write it since they announced it but I finally did just now. I know it's not going to be winning any prizes but it is at least another writing goal I set myself that I managed to accomplish. I wonder how many of those I'll actually acheive this year. By that state of my mood lately, not as much as I'd like.

But I'm resolving to give myself a good slap on the rear and kick my gear into action. Calendar really is coming out. From now on my writing is a real job. I work 9:30 AM to 2PM allowing for interruptions from kids and household chores (like rotating laundry) only, and then 8:30 to 11:30 PM. Weekdays only! That gives me 7 hours a day with time to get my daughter to and from school, half an hour for lunch, and a break to get dinner and kids to bed. It's acheivable and works to my situation.

It means that if I do any shopping on a weekday it'll have to happen in the afternoon or perhaps I'll aim to shop on Saturday's instead. I know I can make this work and it's one of the most important steps to truly accomplishing something of value this year. To take myself seriously I have to treat my writing with the full credit it deserves. No more hobbying and pretending I'm a writer, it's all about BUTT IN CHAIR.

In fact, I've already begun. It's Friday night and I'm here, Butt in Chair, writing my blog for the first time in how long? Yes! Regular, weekday blog entries are again firmly set into my routine. Part of this working regime is focused on ensuring I DON'T work on the weekend so there will be no blog on a Saturday or Sunday night. I'm giving myself permission to have the weekends off. I'll need them after working so hard all week.

I can already hear Anyea, Ger and Hermione cheering. Yeah, I'm back. No chat room however, sorry to disappoint you Anyea. I've found over the past months that the chat room has been the most wonderful procrastination tool. I'm not going to use it as an excuse not to write any more. I am however still available via email, yahoo, and MSN so don't think you're losing me.

I need to do some freewriting because at the moment my priorities are a little scrambled. I have returned Persevering Poets Present to my list of things I do work on. I'm not giving it up like I've time and again suggested I might. *sighs and chuckles* You know, I really am too attached to the group and very proud of it. Sure, it's not as active as I'd like, part of that is my own fault for not being active enough within it myself, but with 80+ members it's a the BEST poetry group on WDC and I'm hoping to really make it something special in the coming year.

Mostly now I need to start thinking about how to use those 7 hours a day. How much time to give each of my projects and which projects to make a priority. That's where the calender/scheduler comes into play. The following are projects I need to allow time for:

         TDG - The Dating Game (Romance Novel)
         FoT - The Flight of Torque (Fantasy Novel)
         PPP - Persevering Poets Present
         NS - Nature's Sonnets (Poetry Anthology)
         Blog - That's here, Mental Meanderings.
         EiW - "Invalid Item" 
         DPJ - Daily Poetry Journal

It's not really too much. In fact, if I focus only on these projects this year I should breeze through. I do have to add checking email and a few reading things, like the few regular blogs I keep up with and "Writer's Fallout Shelter" . I'll have to allocate a specific time of day, perhaps 30 minutes each morning to deal with that.

So much planning to do. But it's 10 PM now and that means I have an hour and a half to begin tonight. *sighs* Darn, and I really wanted to play Neverwinter Nights some more. *chuckles* TOO BAD! I'm WORKING! I'll reward myself with NWN tomorrow. *grins*