2015 Resolutions

Once again, we're at the end of a year and looking forward to a brand new shiny one. Time to think about what changes we want to make.

I'm going to stay away from the long lists and health related resolutions this year. I always end up depressing myself by the middle of February with those anyway. I'm going to keep it short and sweet for 2015.

1. Write for at least thirty minutes every morning.

"Write every day," is a bit of good writing advice you see all over the place. It's something I've tried and failed to start doing time and again, and I've come to believe my reason for failing is because I've never set a specific time aside for it. So that's what I'm doing this year.

I'm a person who peaks in the late morning and afternoon, so if I had my druthers, that's when I'd pick for my writing time. Unfortunately, my late mornings and afternoons are taken six days out of seven, so the half hour or so I've been using to check various social media and have my morning coffee will have to do. It'll probably be like pulling teeth the first week or two, but I figure slow and steady is better than the hit or miss thing I've had going on the past several years.

Some days this might mean writing a few blog posts and scheduling them out, but most days, I'll probably be working on my current works in progress. I'm hoping to start releasing a novel once a year, starting with The Icarus Project sometime in late 2015 and then returning to the Yekara series with Midnight Rising in 2016. Then alternating between the Icarus trilogy and the Yekara series as time goes on.

2. Stick to the cleaning schedule.

I'm a very neat and organized person who lacks in the follow through department. Or well, lacking in energy a lot of times, would probably be more accurate. I do well enough the days I'm off or work-from-home. However, the days I go into the office, I have a bad habit of just crashing once I come back through the door.

I wrote up a workable housekeeping schedule for our family to follow, but we never gave it a go after Hubby's school year started. We're going to try to stick to it going forward in 2015. I figure it might take us a while to get everything back in order following the holiday chaos, but we'll get there eventually. The trick will be sticking with the schedule and not becoming complacent when we get back to just maintaining the house in it's clean state.

That's it. I just have two measly little resolutions this year, but sometimes the smallest things can have the biggest impact.

What are your resolutions for 2015?

Working Behind the Scenes

I know it looks like nothing has been going on since Con Kasterborous the last weekend in June, but there has been a lot happening "behind the scenes" so to speak.

Hubby and I both came down with con crud, and both girls had a bad case of hay fever that weekend. So the whole first week of July, we were all miserable. I'm thankful Hubby and the girls are back to feeling at 100%. I've had a cough and sinus issues that refuse to go away, and I woke up on July 4th almost completely deaf in one ear. Because of this, I have avoided any and all crafting, but that doesn't mean I've been idle.

My booth at last year's Homespun.

That sinking feeling...

Hubby and I are buying our first home and prepping to move this weekend. Why do I tell you this?

1) We're likely to be offline for a bit as we change internet services over.

2) I've realized my notes, resources, and random bits of improved text for Succession, Icarus, and Ashes are scattered here, there, and everywhere in twenty different spiral notebooks and three ring binders.

I've been talking up the benefits of writing roughs in notebooks and polishing as you type for those of us whom it is difficult to always do our writing straight into the word processor. Well, here's the downside.

It started in college. I kept a different notebook for each class, which was really nice in my science courses and other random classes I needed to fulfill the basic course requirements. It got to be a problem in the literature classes.

The pieces we were covering would bring new ideas for something I was already roughing out or an idea for a new piece entirely, and I'd jot them down in the back of whatever notebook I had with me in the classroom. Succession improved dramatically during my college years. Unfortunately, most of these improvements are still waiting to be implemented in the latest draft, and the notes regarding them are scattered to the winds and all jumbled up with notes for other projects.

I'm not sure whether to take a few weeks to go through each notebook to consolidate and rearrange all these notes into three files or simply search through each notebook for what I need as I work on each project and then get rid of the old notebook after I finish all three.

Get this song out of my head!

One major drawback to both my love of music and beginning the prewriting stages for The Icarus Project is that I now seem to constantly have “Never Too Late” by Three Day’s Grace stuck in my head. 

Don’t get me wrong, I like the song. It’s haunting, and even more so if you’ve seen the video. I have, but I try to put the video itself out of my head. As a mother of a young girl who is expecting another daughter in a matter of weeks, I find it disconcerting to say the least.

I first heard the song, oh I guess it was about two and a half months ago now, and The Icarus Project immediately popped into my head. Those of you who read the original when it was being published on The Writer’s Hood likely remember the desperate situation of the surface survivors and the desire of the main characters to save them. As such, “Never Too Late” has embedded itself in my mind as a type of theme song for the developing series, and I can’t seem to shake the melody.

It comes in handy when I sit down to work on Icarus, but it’s rather annoying at other times, especially when I’m trying to get into the rewrites for Succession. The tone of the song doesn’t fit with that one at all.

Anyone have ideas about shoving a song out of your mind without getting another stuck in its place? I'm open to suggestions.

Originally Posted 4/16/2008