Tag: personal goals

Writing Goals

Writers Write: Five Hundred is the Goal

JSB

It’s no secret that I have trouble committing to anything I’m not getting paid to do. I also procrastinate. For instance, I was supposed to write this post on Sunday evening. I can’t imagine that I was doing anything that would have warranted my not writing the post then. I had the task written on my calendar. I had the freedom and time to keep my word to myself.

I found last week that in order not to lose the voice and tone of my novel, I need to work on it daily. I didn’t just pull this goal out of the air without reason. So, I’m going to fight to keep it. Even when it mess up. I’m going to keep trying.

This weekend I said I would give myself the goal of writing five hundred words towards my creative writing project a day. Even while exhausted I should be able to keep this goal. Even on posting days. I realize I may miss Wednesdays – that’s a day where its normally impossible to find the time to do anything. But on every other day of the week, I’m going to make writing a priority. I deserve this commitment to myself. Wish me luck.

Writing Goals

The Art of Finishing: Maintaining Voice

JSB

I’m a one-off sort of person. Every now and then I may say or do something inspired, maybe even profound. I have commanded attention with my brilliance, but before I can really revel in the moment, before i can pat myself on the back, I am equally known to follow up my greatness with blatant and embarrassing stupidity.

A fear years ago I was sitting in a lecture when the writing instructor spat out a list of rules and terms he wanted us to use as a writing prompt. I had one of my one-off moments in that lecture. I totally killed the prompt. It as glorious.

For the first time in my life, a one-off moment seemed as if it would last forever. I was able to stretch that brief exercise into nineteen chapters. The new writing style was unfamiliar but every time I sat down to work the characters, the plot, the setting, the voice – all of the confidence of that moment came back to me. It felt like I wouuld be able to pull it off forever.

And then I finished the MFA program and took a break from creative work. In that short time period, I lost it all . I could no longer find the tone, the voice, the pacing. None of it felt accessible.

Since last month, when my writer’s group decided to come back together again, I tried to reenter the story. I tried reading aloud, editing chapters, and freewriting. None of it worked. I only got discouraged.

As I mentioned last week, one of the ladies in the group suggested I work on a character diary so I could get to know my characters’ motivations. And I did. I wrote through different narrator so that I might free myself over the loss of my voice. I wrote knowing that I would never use any of the words for my final project. I wrote and wrote.

Last night, while rereading the last section I’d written in the diary, it all came back. The voice reappeared out of nowhere without warning.

Writers like King and several of my MFA mentors believe in a daily writing practice. Ive tried to commit to such a practice and failed. But now, afer these months of sitting before a blank screen waiting to fall in where I left off, I realized that the secret to consistency is practice. I have to keep the fires burning. Voice, especially this unfamiliar one, needs for me to come back every day in order to interact with it. The voice and I have to remain in constant conversation if we’re ever to know each other well enough to grow together. We have to make whatever sacrified we need to make in order to carry each other through.

Starting a Business, Time Management, Uncategorized

Untitled document

JSB

I am not a full-time writer. Truth be told, most days I’m not even a part-time writer. Most days I’m a writer trapped in a full-time employee’s body. Most days by the time I get home from work I can’t imagine turning on my computer. I can’t imagine doing anything other than stare at Youtube.

Today on Myleik Teele’s Instagram (she also has a podcast called MyTaughtYou ) she reposted a question, “Are you willing to let go to grow?”

Catch me on a good day, maybe a Sunday right after church, and I would say yes. I would yell yes! I would shout it from the rooftops. But when I think about my full-time responsibilities: my job, my son, our bills, I know I can’t let go to grow. We have to eat. I can’t chase my dreams with the determination and singular focus of the entrepreneurs who run the podcasts I listen to or bake the cupcakes I treat myself to once a month. Right now I can’t afford it.

However, while I will continue to spend precious writing time volunteering at my church and helping my entrepreneur friends; while I will continue to devote as much time as I can to my wonderful, brilliant son, I will also commit to letting go of my comfort zone. I will let go of my fears. I will lose a little sleep.

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Maybe I can’t let go in the same way other women can, but I can move at God’s speed. I can stay in sync with the flow of His Spirit and leadership. I will do what I can today and look forward to the work I CAN do tomorrow.

I will let go of my fears and leap a little at a time.

Apps, Check-in, MFA, Time Management, Uncategorized

Update Fail One

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I called this post Update Fail One because I am sure that if I do nothing else, I will continue to fail at updating this blog on a consistent basis. How shameful is that?

Yet, onward!

It’s no secret that I am failing in every area of my life. If you read this blog you know that already. What you don’t know is that I have a solution. This week I got a life coach! Not a human. I’m broke-ish and can’t afford a human. But what I (sort of) can afford is an app.

It’s called Success Wiz and I’m hoping it will help me get my life together. Like a lot of people in the social media age, I have big dreams. The trouble with me is that I want it all right now and have no idea how I can make any of it happen. I am inconsistent and easily overwhelmed. I get anxious when I think about all I want to do and instead of working towards my goals a little at a time, I whine and complain and resent myself and everyone else… and that’s not productive.

Because I listen to Gretchen Rubin’s Happier Podcast, I know that I am an obliger. I know that I need to be accountable in order to effective. In the case of the Success Wiz app, I’m accountable for the money I will be spending every month on the pro version. It’s only three bucks, but I can’t see myself throwing three bucks out the window for an app I won’t use. I’ll either use it lose it. That’s for sure.

Over the next week, I hope to see a difference in my focus and work ethic. I have to turn in my submission packet to my MFA mentor. I need to create a registration list for the classes I’m helping to admin. I have to read a book and write annotations. I have to work and spend time with my son. I need to read submissions for the literary magazine I edit for and lead the outreach push. I have a lot to do over the next seven days.

My plan is to come back this time Saturday morning and write about whether or not the app helped me to do any of the things I just listed. And since app developers don’t pay unknown inconsistent bloggers to write about their products, you don’t have to worry that I won’t give an honest review. I’ll keep it 100%.

(And do me a favor this week – keep your fingers crossed. I’ll need all the help I can get.)

Time Management, Uncategorized

Failing at Trying to Do it All

JSB

There are only twenty-four hours in a day. I try to devote anywhere from seven to eight of those hours to sleep. I mentioned sleep first because you must understand that, like the fox in the above photo, sleep is my favorite thing to do.

I am required to spend nine hours at my full-time seed money gig (and that doesn’t count commute time). I hang out with my son, eat, sometimes cook, do chores, pray, write and read for school. I read submissions for the two literary magazines I work for and then there’s that hour a week I devote to Game of Thrones. Sprinkled in are church attendance, the time I spend volunteering in the church bookstore, and time with my extended family.

With all of that, it feels as though I have something going every hour of the day. I no longer sit on the couch and binge-watch Netflix. I can’t lay out in my backyard and reread Agatha Christie novels (which is fine because I don’t miss the subsequent mosquito bites.) I no longer have time to do nothing.

When I first began the pursuit of my MFA, I asked one of the women who had been in the program for a year how I was supposed to do it all? She told me that I couldn’t. She told me that I would have to choose.

I spent all of Sunday catering to my son, who has a virus and working on my draft that’s due on Friday morning. There are dirty dishes in my sink and I still haven’t folded last week’s laundry. I’m going to have to leave early in the morning to get both my son’s bus fare and his lunch money from the ATM because I couldn’t leave him to go do it during the day. I may even have to throw a load of clothes in the washing machine at 5 AM because there’s no way I can do it now. Right now I am working on this week’s posts.

Right before I got super busy, God showed me a race. The runners were behind the line, revving up and eager to go. He told me that it wasn’t time to run yet, but that I should rest and wait because once the race started I wouldn’t be able to rest for a long while.

I did rest a good deal during the previous months, so when I started running I thought I was ready. What I didn’t understand was that I could get distracted by trying to take on more than one race at a time. Not only is that not a very smart thing to do, it’s impossible. No matter how many hours there are in a day, I can only concentrate on one task until it is complete… And right now that task is The Game of Thrones because really, Jon Snow deserves my immediate attention. He deserves everyone’s immediate attention.

Parenting, Time Management, Uncategorized

Failing at Morning Routines

JSB

This post will be published around the time my teenager and I are stumbling out of the house for the first day of school. There will be faint whiffs of excitement, a lot whining, and some yelling. The yelling will be from me.

I am always late. No matter where I go. I am late – running through the door at eight for work, sneaking in through the back doors at church, waving across the room at chatting friends who have been waiting for at least five minutes. I try. I really do, but my efforts never pan out.

For months I have been obsessed with morning routines. I watch youtube videos and listen to podcasts. I read blog posts. I even read Hal Elrod’s Miracle Morning. The problem is, I can never stick to the routine. Sure, I do great at first: lunches packed the night before, clothes laid out and ironed, breakfast prepared and ready to go, morning meetings with myself over coffee… and then I fall off. Game of Thrones comes on, someone calls, or I fall asleep on the couch, and then nothing gets done. The next morning I find myself once again scrambling to get out the door ten minutes too late.

The good thing about a new school year is that gives me and my son a chance for a new start. Maybe this time it’ll work. The Miracle Morning works, planning ahead of time works. It’s me that’s a problem and I’ve got no choice but to get it together. I’m tired of fighting with myself every morning. It’s getting me nowhere, and definitely not anywhere on time.