Writing Goals for 2015

The Drive to Utah. A 3 Day Epic.

Before I go into my goals for 2015, I should probably recap what was accomplished in 2014. I did not start 2014 expecting to work on my writing as major chunk of my daily life. Instead, I started the year off with goals of buying a house (done!), running an insane distance (done!), and some other non-writing related stuff.

But then Derek and I received this great opportunity in Utah and everything changed. We rented out our newly purchased house, gave teary-eyed hugs to loved ones left back East, and set out on a new adventure. With Derek’s new job, we realized we could still break even with me just working part-time and wham-mo, I was suddenly gifted with enough time to really pursue this whole writing thing.

So, it was around October that I set my 2014 writing goal to participate in NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. In the month of November I met that goal with 50,000 words written, creating a whole plot with fun characters and my very first ever completed novel. Whoa.

Now, it’s time for me to take my next steps. My hope is that in 2015 I will grow my writing skills, build up my writing portfolio, and ideally get some stuff published. So, without further ado, here are my Writing Goals for 2015.

1. Revise my 2014 NaNoWriMo Novel and submit it for publication. This is going to require a little help from my friends who have offered to pre-read it for me (you guys rock!!)

2. Draft up and submit at least one article per month for publication in a magazine, website (like Cracked.com), or blog besides my own. While my biggest dream is to write novels, I know they are a time consuming process which may never fully pay off. Articles will offer me a shorter turn-around time on feedback, helping me to hone my craft more aggressively. Maybe I’ll even get paid.

3. Create one blog post per week. Some of these may be book reviews or otherwise writing related, but let’s face it, some of these will probably just be verbal vomit about my life. I’ll try to keep that to a minimum :)

Derek and me, climbing in Utah

4. Write 1,000 words per week for my next novel (or failing that, go all in for NaNoWriMo 2015 and have another writing frenzy like last year (okay, yeah, I’m gonna do NaNo again))

5. Write one gear review per month. Similar to Goal #2, gear reviews will help me practice another style of writing. Additionally, they will be a fun way to combine my interests in writing with my interests in outdoor adventures. My gear reviews are going to be posted in the blog I write with Derek, Rock. River. Run. Feel free to jump over and check it out.

I’m definitely looking forward to an exciting New Year. Wishing you the best of luck with any goals you have set for yourself!

NYR's Check Up

Here's how I did for the month of January on my New Year's Resolutions:

1. Climb 3 times per week at the gym (or 2 times if climbing outside on the weekend) for 30 to 45 minutes, including antagonistic muscle strength conditioning

Gym time didn't happen as much as it should, but I did go ice climbing twice and competed in the T-Town Pull Down

2. Lead a traditional 5.9 route

Nothing to report

3. Lead a sport 5.10 route

Gonna try this Sunday!!! - going for Thin in the Middle at Sandrock again

4. Compete in the T-Town Pull Down

DONE!

5. Attend a group yoga class once a week

I went to two classes...

6.Run 30 minutes at my target heart rate 3 times a week, when not otherwise training

My heart monitor broke, so I'm not too sure here - but I have been running!

7. Train for and run competitively in any number of races, not to exceed a cumulative racing distance of 50K for the year

I picked my next two races!

8. Knit and sew birthday and Christmas gifts

haha, fail so far

9. Hand make birthday and holiday cards

aaaaand fail again.

10. Sleep no less than 7 hours a night - this receives priority over school work

All nights except one

11. Read Thrive by Brendan Brazier, a nutritional guide for vegans

Done! Moving on to the Rock Warrior's Way - book review to come

12. Step down as President of SAC

DONE

13. Create new budget and set specific savings goal for the year

Derek made the budget - savings goals to come

14. No caffeine. Seriously this time.

hahaha. I don't know why I even kept this one. I drink coffee until it makes me sick, then stop for a while and then pick it back up again. Some day. maybe.

And just for funsies: a picture of the new CRACK MACHINE to help us train for our upcoming spring break trip to INDIAN CREEK!!! Details to come :)

New Year's Resolutions - 2011 Goals Set

Last year I had 20 resolutions with more sub-goals than I care to count. This year I have one single resolution, with 14 distinct goals accomplish it.

Here we go!

2011 New Year's Resolution:
Life Balance for Improved Total Health

Measurable Goals:

Rock Climbing
To build my mental strength and physical power
1. Climb 3 times per week at the gym (or 2 times if climbing outside on the weekend) for 30 to 45 minutes, including antagonistic muscle strength conditioning
2. Lead a traditional 5.9 route
3. Lead a sport 5.10 route
4. Compete in the T-Town Pull Down

Yoga
To foster flexibility in my body and serenity in my spirit
5. Attend a group class once a week

Running
To develop endurance and self discipline
6.Run 30 minutes at my target heart rate 3 times a week, when not otherwise training
7. Train for and run competitively in any number of races, not to exceed a cumulative racing distance of 50K for the year

Combined Goals:

Family, Friends, and Crafting
To get my warm-and-fuzzies
8. Knit and sew birthday and Christmas gifts
9. Hand make birthday and holiday cards

Reducing Stress and Improving Health
To cover a few things not addressed above
10. Sleep no less than 7 hours a night - this receives priority over school work
11. Read Thrive by Brendan Brazier, a nutritional guide for vegans
12. Step down as President of SAC
13. Create new budget and set specific savings goal for the year
14. No caffeine. Seriously this time.

That's it!

I did not include any work or school goals, except wherein #10 & #12 aim to reduce school stress. That was intentional to try and correct the overabundance of library land in my life right now. I also know that I will still certainly be doing my best in both work and school, so I don't feel like I'm neglecting them by leaving them out of my resolutions.

I am going to try to post at the end of each month about how I am doing on theses goals.

Anyone else doing resolutions this year?

New Year's Resolutions - 2011 Brainstorm

So, I've been reviewing my goals for last year, and I've identified some problems:

1. There are way too many goals to keep track of and accomplish
2. In real life, Library Land gets what I think to be an inappropriate majority of my time and energy, and causes a fair amount of stress and hinders... well.. the entire rest of my life.
   
3. Health problems were very disruptive in 2010 for me. And they shouldn't be - I'm a 26 year old fit female, I typically eat well, I exercise sporadically but with a greater than average frequency... I'm supposed to be healthy!
   

So based on these dilemmas, I've come up with a single overall abstract goal for the new year:

Life Balance for Improved Total Health

Next, I will break that down into a few manageable, measurable hard sub-goals. A few of them will be continual (ex: go to one yoga class a week) and a few of them with be completed when they are done (ex: make straight A's). Ideally these goals will be complimentary, but most importantly they will all be appropriately limited and all directed at improved health in some form for fashion - be it physical, mental or emotional.

Next post: set a few specific, measurable, BALANCED sub-goals!

New Year's Resolutions - 2010 Recap

Yes, I do New Year's Resolutions.

And I do them hard core. I brainstorm, I make lists and graphs and charts and spreadsheets and tables and outlines and calendars. And they are all color coded. I kid you not. I totally geek out with the resolutions thing.

So, this post will be a recap of last year's highlights and how I did with them. I won't go into major details. I have a 19 page document with the details. This will just be some highlights (still, it's a long post).

Later, I will post my resolutions for 2011.

2010 Goals - (Abstract versions)

I wanted more of the following:
Yoga
Church
Connection w/friends & family
Home cooking
Savings
Running
Reduce/reuse/recycling
Budgeting
Cleaning
Organized space in the apartment
Study time
Arts & Crafts
Job training/development
Rock climbing

I wanted less of the following:
Negativity
Caffeine
Wasteful spending
Hypochondria
Bugs (in the apartment, ew)
Romance novel reading (I figure I should be better using my time)

See why I'm just doing the recap here? I had very lofty goals. Here's how I did (don't worry, I didn't include the break down of how I would achieve the goals or the time lines or the outline or the charts or the...)...

Yoga
I did okay with this. I got a gym membership and attended yoga classes irregularly.

Church
Total fail on this one

Connection w/friends & family
I did so-so on this one, depending on the month. I made several visits to SC, did a much better job of writing my grandma, and I sort of improved the rate at which I answer and return calls - haha - I really, really hate cell phones. Anyway - I'm glad I had this goal because I did make an effort and do a little better, but I know I can improve a lot here.

Cooking
BAHAHAH. This one lasted... oh... about two weeks? I really wanted to make home cooked meals for Derek because he cooks for me all the time. But yeah. I still suck at this one. Poor Derek.

Savings & Budgeting
I lumped these guys together. Derek and I did make a budget and we updated for maybe half the year? It was good practice to know how much we spend and stuff, so I want to do it again. But definitely did not maintain it. For savings, we have more money in savings now that we did this time last year, so awesome. I still want to set some more specific goals here because eventually we will be buying a house and a second car.

Running
I did good when I wasn't getting hit by cars or having intestinal issues. I actually met all of my running goals for the year though, so I'm pretty happy here. Now I just want to keep it up and make my running more consistent. I ran a half-marathon and a 25K this year, but I didn't train at all for the 25K and that was just dumb. Derek got me a heart monitor for Christmas so I am super stoked to start using it with my training. Plus, I still have the ipod he gave me as a wedding present, so I really have no excuse not to run :)

Reduce/Reuse/Recycle
Ugh. It is really hard to recycle in Tuscaloosa. There is no glass recycling, and no recycling pick up where we live. Derek has been stellar by taking our recycling to work, so that's helped. But it also makes a mess in the apartment because we have these piles of stuff to get recycled waiting around attracting icky bugs.

Cleaning
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHa. No, I did not succeed with any of my cleaning goals.

Organized Space
See the answer for 'cleaning'

Study Time
I over achieved on this goal, at least in terms of library school. The last month of summer was especially sucky. I swear I only slept 4-6 hours each night. No good.

Arts & Crafts
I did pretty good with this over the summer. I made several gifts of jewelry, scarves, a purse, and even a homemade chalk bag. Once school took over though, I definitely failed to keep this up.

Job Training
Even if we don't count school, I did pretty good here. I was able to take another cataloging class through work and I'm learning loads more about Voyager, MARC standards, and library life.

Rock Climbing
This one I will go ahead and post my sub-goals (I wrote up hard sub-goals for all of my abstract overall goals to measure my levels of achievement.) I had six:

1. Lead trad 5.9
I led three 5.7 on-sites, and led a couple 5.5-6 routes that I had climbed before. This doesn't seem like much, but I think I actually did more leading in the past year than any other year to date. So... improvement made, and more to follow :)

2. Lead sport 5.10
I actually attempted this!! It was so cool. But I failed. I fell twice and was too scared to continue.

3. Boulder V4
I came no where near this goal and don't really care. Bouldering is dumb.

4. Do a summer trip
DONE!

5. Learn to rescue a leader or a second
Theoretically, done. But I'd like a lot more practice. And I need to go over some knots again

6. Do an all day climb
Note: not climb all day, but 'an all day climb' - a single climbing route that literally takes a whole day to do.
I think done? It took us all day cause I was there and I'm slow... :)

Overall, I'm pleased with the climbing improvement and I want to continue on this path. Like running and yoga, I want to make this activity a more consistent/regular part of my life. I seem to go in extreme spurts, where I train hard and do really well, then either get hurt or just fizzzle out. I want to maintain my momentum.

Less Negativity
I couldn't think of how to make hard goals and measure this one... any ideas for next year?

Less Caffeine
There were actually several weeks in 2010 wherein I did not have any caffeine at all. Aaaaand then there was at least one month (maybe two) when I ODed on caffeine almost every day to keep up with my school work... school seems to have had a bad influence on the rest of my life...

Less Wasteful spending
This got put under saving/budgeting.

Less Hypochondria
See the answer to negativity. I did have what seems like a ton of legitimate health problems this year - MRSA, shoulder sprain, getting hit by a car, acid reflux, tonsil infection, tonsillectomy... Maybe I should just try for a year of better health? That could be measured by sick days and doctors visits and stuff like that...

Bugs (in the apartment, ew)
Definite improvement here. After many discussions with the land-lady, Derek and I took matters into our own hands and fixed several structural problems with the apartment that had been allowing bugs to get in.

Less Romance novel reading (I figure I should be better using my time)
Yeah. Once school started, this dropped off significantly. I still have binges and read 5 books on an odd weekend. But overall, I just don't have time for it very often anymore.

That's it for the recap! I'm way open to comments and suggestions for next year. Also, if you are doing resolutions and want to post them here or in your blog, I would love to read them!