Posts Tagged goals

I recently had a birthday.  I haven’t been excited or fearful of my birthdays in the past; however, I was blue for the whole day of my party (2 days before my birthday) and also on my birthday itself.  I told people I was tired, which wasn’t a lie, but that wasn’t the problem either – I was depressed.  It could be because I am the oldest of my current writing group, or the fact that people younger than me are complaining about being old, or just that I’m a father now and my priorities have changed. 

Last night and this morning I’ve been thinking about life goals.  I hate to admit it, but I’m getting old enough to think ‘old people’ thoughts.  So I created a series of questions for myself, based loosely on things I heard in a college class – 15 years ago <sob>.

What are you goals for:
• 1 Year
• 3 Years
• 5 Years
• 10 Years
• 20 Years
• Lifetime

What do I have to do:
• Today to accomplish my 1 and 3 year goals?
• This week to accomplish my 1 and 3 year goals?
• This month to accomplish my 3 and 5 year goals?
• Within six months to accomplish my 5 and 10 year goals?
• This year to accomplish my goals?
• Within three years to accomplish my goals?
• Within 10 years to accomplish my goals?

I have already started answering these questions myself, and I might share at some point, but I wanted to share the questions with you (in case you are tackling the same problems I am).  Feel free to share your thoughts as well.

I have found it very difficult to write or even think the last few weeks.  My baby is due between Feb 2nd and Feb 15th, depending on who you talk to at the hospital.  However, they all agree that the baby is looking like it will be early.

I thought I would be able to write until the baby comes – I was wrong.  Between writing down my wife’s contraction times, assembling baby contraptions, reiterating that ‘nothing is really happening’ to every friend and relative, and checking (over and over) our list of supplies and goods for both the hospital trip and for when we come home, I have not had any time for writing.  I barely have time for sleeping.

Any goals that I had at the beginning of the month seem silly now.  I have a baby coming, a first child, a little time machine… something that will make me younger on some days and older on others.  I still hope to have a story in the unnamed FSFW anthology, but my new goals are more home based.  I wonder how long it will be before I am back to writing 15-30 hours a week like I used to.  I guess, for now, that doesn’t matter.

It’s been a little while since I last wrote.  I have been focused on finishing my second book by Veterans Day.  I already have a team of readers combing through the opening chapters and I want to have editing done by Thanksgiving.  I was put on this path from the Central California Writers’ Conference at Cuesta College (Oct. 2-3).

Passages of Consequence: The Open Door was about 1/3 done before the conference, but work on it had stalled.  I was having problems with how I wanted to approach different scenes.  My outline followed two parallel stories, related stories that did not intersect, that of a hostage and a target.  From both angles, you get to know the assassins and, well, they’re the interesting part – this is SciFi after all.  That outline just hit the shred-and-recycle pile. 

Based on conversations at the conference, my storyline has been trimmed down, the timeline flattened, and the best two-part chase scene ever written (not that I am biased) re-imagined.  I threw out 32 of my 88 original pages, demoted the target from a major to barely-there character, and stitched up some of the holes.

Now I’m working toward my ambitious goal of 11/11.  I have had this goal since the evening of Tuesday, the 10/6 – driving home from an FSFW meeting.  Thursday night I finished my new outline and corresponding milestones.  By the end of Friday, I was already behind.  The three-day weekend brought me back to where I thought I should be, but I have since fallen behind again.  Long nights are coming.

If my posts don’t appear as often as they did in late summer, it is because I am putting pen to paper.  I hope to get up a post a week.