looking forward: 2020

[seventhe]

I’m sure I’ll get on the 2019 retrospective train soon, but right now I want to capture thoughts and goals for 2020. Not just for writing, but for life, as well. I’m trying to simplify everything because I’m so fucking malleable day to day; if I have the overall goal and a timeline, I can make my daily goals fit whatever mood / health / shape I end up in every day, which should work.

TW: I’m talking about health / weight in my goals, but it’s all in regards to me.

1. Complete an original novel and consider self-publishing. It’s time to put my money where my mouth is and see what I can do. I took this break from industry work to recover, yeah, but also to see what happens when I try to write books. My initial goal is (at least) 20 minutes a day, either writing or working on outline / details / etc. (based on what I learnt from Nano 2019). This should end up being about ~500 words / day on days that I write story.
   I don’t mind self-publishing; my initial effort is just to get a story OUT there to say I did the thing. The story is likely to be Reflections since I have 50K of it sitting around already, but then again, I might decide to take the “write pulp crap” route first. I am full of surprises.

2. Make drawing, and learning to art, a priority this year. God, I want to know how to draw. So badly. I want to be able to doodle little comics, to sketch out scenes. I don’t intend to become some fully realized artist in a year, no, but I want to make progress on it. These goals consist of:

   • Putting at least 20 min into drawing a day, at first (goal: 5 times / week, but preferably daily), drawing whatever.
   • Developing my more realistic style into something concise, simple, still a bit sketchy (I have examples I’ve saved for myself) that leaves me with arts I would actually post.
   • Attempting to develop a cartoon-y or comic style to draw my friends dumb shit. Eventually, open a silly ask blog on tumblr for doodles.
   • After a month or two of daily doodles, I will switch up my goals so that I spend ~20 min / day on the same art over a week and see where that gets me. I have a habit of doodling something until I fuck it up, and then just giving up lmao. What happens if I put an hour of work into a draw? More? We’ll see.
     I really, really want to make this a priority. I’ll never get money as an artist, but I’d like to be able to draw fannishly just as a personal development goal. Yeah.

3. Become self-solvent working from home by May. I have an income, but it doesn’t equal my expenses. So far I’ve been living off of my pension cashout, but I’m heading to the bottom of that soon. I intend to pick up some part-time work in January to tide me over until I can find enough work-from-home to at least be solvent. [insert rant on Crown’s employment and health insurance here; i may be going back to full-time work in March, depending] ANYWAY January is going to be a month of applying to tons of stuff. Yeah. This should be #1 so just understand these are out of order. I can’t do anything else if I don’t have cash flow.

4. Regularly exercise and lose weight. My “lose weight” here is no judgment on anyone else. I’ve spent a year sitting on my ass in front of a keyboard, which is what you do when you’re writing all the time, and between that and the wine I’ve gained more weight than is healthy. That’s just a fact, for me. So these goals include:

   • Swimming at least twice a week, once I’ve worked back up to it.
   • Hitting Fitbit targets [i wont list them here in case calories and steps trigger anyone] every day I am not sick. This can be by any method, from taking a 20 min walk to punching the bag to just doing random pushups throughout the day. What this will do is make me be active every day, even when I’ve got writing work to do.
   • Dropping at least 20 lb. Yep. I’ll say it out loud.
   • Pick up yoga again. God, I miss it.

5. Unfuck the house. This was a goal last year as well. I ended up spending most of the time recovering my own mental headspace instead. Great, but the house is still an ongoing clutter collection. So:

   • Have the dining room & mirror room, plus the great room space, show progress by mid-Jan when Sep comes to visit.
   • Completely unfuck the bedroom no matter how many loads of laundry it is, separate out clothes that do not work, and get them out of the house.
   • Have the house in a state ready for the family by 12 April, which is Easter, which is now my holiday. This means all bedrooms upstairs, plus the shame room, plus downstairs clutter.
   • Have the basement mostly untucked by June / July timeframe.
     This poor house. I bought it in March, then in May I transitioned into what we now call the Black Hole Job, so it... really never got much of a chance for me to optimize anything. It’s time to do so.

6. Post fannishly more often, move into new fandoms, execute commissions brilliantly, write for fun. Fandom’s still a big part of my life and I like the community aspect of it. I also selfishly hope that having a community to write for will help me if/when I publish original fiction. Cause I’m like that. Anyway I would love to be able to post / update one thing a week on AO3, but I’m as of yet unsure that rate of output would be maintainable with my work words. This goal will be tweaked and updated as I go on into 2020.

7. stop being such a lazy bonch and be more aware and more intentional about the ways you spend your time. enough said there

I’m working on turning all of these into quantifiable goals I can track in spreadsheets (my one true love!), so we’ll see. Public accountability occasionally works, usually when I drop into BDBD and tell people I need to be screamed at. How to turn that into 2020 success? WE SHALL SEE.

Comments

[pict]

These goals are so relatable. Particularly the fitness stuff; I, too, need to lose weight and become less of what I call a useless shitbrick trapped between two couch cushions. Best of luck!!

For work, do you think you’d want to go back to engineering at all?

[whitemage]

Let's be healthy life clean house buddies?

Which does not have to mean anymore than I am also working on being active, dropping ell bees, and taming my Disaster House.

And I'm especially down with mutual venting and accountability about weight loss/exercise goals because I really don't want to mess up someone else's journey, but man it helps to be able to talk about mine sometimes and listen to other people's.

[seventhe]

YES, LETS.

I need accountability. BADLY. and yeah, last thing I want is to upset somebody w weight loss talk, BUT it’s also a thing one needs to talk about? JSJLDKFKF yes yell at me all the time please

[lassarina]

hey I'll be a weight loss buddy because I also want to hit that 20 lb goal

(I started yesterday! I did 17 min on the elliptical with the dregs of a migraine! I'm so proud)

*snugs into you*

[ser_pounce_alot]

My goals are so freaking all over the place for this year just because of so many life changes hitting us all at once, but I'm totally up for being accountability buddies! I don't know if I can force myself to get back into writing and I'm not in any fandoms enough right now to have passion to create fic, but I'd like to at least unfuck my mental headspace about writing so that maybe I can enjoy it again. ♥