Two days into ROW80 and I’m already revising my goals. Truthfully, I’ve been trying to meet them since I first announced I was doing this, so it’s been a few weeks so for me.
I’m learning that while ambition is good and is needed early in a writer’s career, over-ambition hurts everyone, especially yourself. Things have come up that I didn’t anticipate when crafting my original goals, so I need to change them. Otherwise, I may just end up in the crazy house and none of us wants that. So, new goals:
- Finish Book 3 by October 31 – Not going to happen. I write all day in my day job and I’m finding it harder to repeatedly force lunch and nighttime fiction writing when it’s so intense at the place that employs me. My new goal is to get as far as I can without driving myself mad, while finishing prep for NaNoWriMo.
- Write Glastonbury by December 31 – Still hoping for this one, but we’ll see how I’m doing after NaNoWriMo. Right now I just need to focus on finishing research and then plotting. Writing starts November 1.
- Win NaNoWriMo – Yes to this.
- Write at least four days each week – Three or four, we’ll see.
- Exercise every other day – I have to keep myself to this one. Otherwise, it won’t be pretty. (Pun intended.)
So, that’s it. If I need to, I’ll keep revising. I’m realizing the need to be kind to myself and tame my natural “I-can-do-everything-haven’t-you-noticed-I-was-even-born-early” tendencies. Life is a work in progress, right?
PS – I made my first cup of coffee (decaf) this morning. It’s full of milk and sugar and chocolate, but I feel so adult!
I had to revise my goals almost as soon as the round started last round too – and I still didn’t meet them. Life just gets in the way sometimes. But as long as we keep moving, we’ll get there eventually, right?
I see you have a lot of Celtic stuff on your blog – I’m excited to check that out.
Good luck with your goals!
Thank you! It means a lot to my perfectionistic self to know that others have similar experiences. Hope you find more that you like on the site. If you’re looking for anything in particular, just let me know.
well I am the opposite of a perfectionist, but I can be hard on myself where goals are concerned – the trick I have learnt here on ROW80 is to be kinder to self and let life be there – after all it is from living we get inspiration – so as everyone has said to me at times – be kind to self:)
You made me smile. 🙂
I know how you’re feeling about the goals. Logically it seems like you should be able to do it so you make them goals, right? Then you get to practice and the fact is you need fun time and rest your brain time. You can’t be going 100 miles an hour all day while awake.
It took me years to learn that and to learn to be nice to myself. It seems you learned it faster than me and I give you kudos for that.
Thanks for your support, Gloria! You are 100% right. I wish I could going all the time, but in doing so, I think I broke myself. Luckily, the damage wasn’t permanent. Nothing a little TLC won’t fix. Best of luck to you in your goals!