Distractions

I hope this finds you doing well and making progress on your goals for the year. Myself? Not so much.

A couple of things. My kids, along with three others, left last weekend for their volunteer trip to Kenya with our nonprofit. Whenever they are gone, I naturally obsess about what they are doing, where they are, if things are going well. I stalk all of them on Facebook to see if they have posted anything new. Even though things always turn out well, it seems there is always one snag on each trip. It is Satan’s way of saying, “you need to stop trying to do good in Africa”, and God’s way of saying, “have faith.” Anyway, so someone broke their leg the other day. Not one of my kids, someone else on the team. It’s all going to be okay; she’s taking it in stride. But I feel I need to do something from ten thousand miles away to help the situation. As if there is anything I can do.

The other distraction is that I dog-sat for my daughter’s two dogs this week. They were really good and not a problem, but it was still enough of a drain. We took them back to my daughter’s neighbors on Friday, where they will stay til she gets home Friday night.

Lastly is the editing of my novel. I had it professionally edited by a woman I know and trust, and she did a remarkable job. I’ve been going through the manuscript manually accepting (and occasionally deleting) her edits. The problem is that every time she makes a suggestion, other than something grammatic, I obsess about it. Mostly it’s the comments reminding me that someone might be offended by what I wrote about a certain ethnic group or sounding too preachy or – I can’t even remember all of them. And I totally get it – this is the world we live in and if I want this book to get published and I want people to read it and write positive reviews, then I can’t step on too many toes. But how do you even write anything? Someone could read this blog post and be offended because I mentioned God and Satan in the first paragraph. Blah! I’m not going to rant.

So, I’ve been choosing my battles, as they say, deleting a few things, rewording a few things, and leaving some just the way they are. And if this book does get published and read and someone is offended by one word out of 75,000, then that’s their problem. But it still means this whole editing process is taking longer than anticipated.  

So here are my goals for January, February and March. If it is a goal which I accomplished, and it is done for the Round, I’ll highlight it in blue. If it is a goal which was accomplished this week, but I will do it all over again next week, I’ll highlight it in green. A goal at least worked on is highlighted in yellow and red lettering is not even attempted, a complete fail.

WRITING

1)    Finish the edits on “The Truth Beyond the River”. Worked on it; you already read about it above.

2)    Finish the proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River”. Not worked on.

3)    Write nine chapters in “Old New Spies”. Not started.

4)    Continue posting three times weekly to “The Dino Chronicles.” Yes.  

5)    Continue posting here once a week.  Yes.

REACHING

1)    Submit the query/proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River.” No.

2)    Submit four pieces somewhere. No.

3)    Redo my website. No.

READING

1)    Finish reading “The Secret Garden”. 55% done.

2)    Finish reading “All the Place to Go”. 45% done.

3)    Read an average of five other blogs per week, commenting on three of them. Yes, yeah! Finally something in green.

REMAINING

1)    Empty half the box of old pictures in my office. Not worked on.

2)    Finish my family tree. Worked on.

3)    Clean three closets in my house. Cleaned the front hall closet

4)    Finish the 30-Day Yoga Challenge I started on January 9. Missed one day.

5)    Tumaini Volunteers Nonprofit

a.     Get the tax-deduction letters out to our donors by the end of January. Not yet. Hope to today. (Have to today!)

b.     Hold a meeting after the team returns. Not scheduled yet and won’t be til they get home from Kenya next weekend.

That’s it for now. Have a happy week. 

Goals through the end of March

Last week I posted what my lofty goals are for the entire year. I have yet to work on much of anything, but I think that if I got my act together and wrote down my goals for the next three months (or three weeks, or even three days!), I might get something done.

So, let’s see, how about my goals for the next three months (because even though I hang with the ROW80 people, I never can keep track of those 80 days), or actually until the end of March, because here we are over half-way through January!

WRITING

1)    Finish the edits on “The Truth Beyond the River”. I really should get this done by the end of this week. I am such a putz!

2)    Finish the proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River”.

3)    Write nine chapters in “Old New Spies”.

4)    Continue posting three times weekly to “The Dino Chronicles.”

5)    Continue posting here once a week.  

REACHING

1)    Submit the query/proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River.”

2)    Submit four pieces somewhere.

3)    Redo my website.

READING

1)    Finish reading “The Secret Garden”.

2)    Finish reading “All the Places to Go”.
3)   Read three more books. 

4)    Read an average of five other blogs per week, commenting on three of them.

REMAINING

1)    Empty half the box of old pictures in my office.

2)    Finish my family tree.

3)    Clean three closets in my house.

4)    Finish the 30-Day Yoga Challenge that I started three days ago.

5)    Tumaini Volunteers Nonprofit

a.     Get the tax-deduction letters out to our donors by the end of January.

b.     Hold a meeting after the team returns. They leave today; I’m so excited for them.

That’s it for now. Have a happy week. 

Goals for 2019

Here it is, two weeks into the new year, and I’m still figuring out what I want to get done this year. Last week I posted my 2018 goals for the year and how they came out. Thanks for all the comments. From what you all had to say, I am dropping some goals completely. Still keep them in my head, but not on paper.

So, here’s what I am going to start with:  

WRITING     

1)    Finish the proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River”.

2)    Edit “Finding Justice”.

3)    Finish typing “No Body Found”.

4)    Start the next novella to go with that series. I had ideas for four novellas to put together - the two above, one with the working title of “Ghost House” and one more that I can’t remember.

5)    Finish writing “Old New Spies”. This is a lofty goal indeed. But I will give it a shot.

6)    Continue posting three times weekly to “The Dino Chronicles.”

7)    Continue posting here once a week.  

REACHING

1)    Find an agent.

2)    Publish “The Truth Beyond the River”. If I haven’t found an agent or a publisher for it by June 1, I will self-publish.

3)    Submit fourteen pieces.

4)    Redo my website.

READING

1)    Read fourteen books, two from the “classics” list.

2)    Read an average of five other blogs per week, commenting on three of them.

REMAINING

1)    Return to Kenya in the fall.

2)    Empty the box of old pictures in my office.

3)    Finish my family tree. This has already consumed a lot of my time this year.  

4)    Clean out all of the closets in my house. Last year’s ridiculous goals was to get the whole house as clean as possible. I don’t know how that could happen, so I’m trying to be more realistic. And by cleaning, I mean – empty all the junk out of those puppies.

5)    Keep my weight at 140. Last year I was going to get in the best shape of my life. Didn’t know how that would look, so am being more specific.

That’s it for now. Next Sunday, I’ll get after the week-by-week goals. Wishing you the best in betting your goals together. 

Cleaning out the box of Mom's pictures means I come across gems like this. Looks like a primary grade picture from 1924 or maybe 1921. I can't quite tell. My dad would have been nine or six years old, but I can't find any boys in this picture that look like him. 

2018 Recap

First, I want to thank everyone for your support over the last couple of years. And most especially, for cheering me on when I had the stomach flu last week.

For anyone who is new to this group, it may not seem like it day-by-day, but the ROWer’s will be there for you in a pinch. Hang in there, keep writing, keep blogging, keep sharing your progress on the ROW website or Facebook page.

Before I jump into the goals for 2019 (which are still being tweaked, and as we all know, will continue to be tweaked for twelve months), I thought I would tell you how 2018 ended up. Here are the year-long goals I came up with a year ago and whether or not I achieved them. Green highlight is achieved, red lettering is a fail. (If you are new to my blog, I also usually include other colors for goals at least worked on, but I was thinking that in 365 days, I either succeeded or failed.)

WRITING     

1)    Start and finish editing my novel “The Truth Beyond the River”. Finished the second edit in September.

2)    Start and finish editing the novella “Finding Justice”. Nope, not really.

3)    Finish typing the novella “No Body Found. Nope, not at all.  

4)    Start writing the next novel, “Old New Spies”. Wrote six chapters.

5)    Continue posting three times weekly to “The Dino Chronicles”. Pretty much.

6)    Continue posting once a week here. Pretty much.  

REACHING

1)    Find an agent. Or how about an editor first! Done! Hired an editor in November, who got the manuscript back to me in December. She did a wonderful job. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to review all her edits. This really needs to be my priority this January.

2)    Publish “The Truth Beyond the River”. Nope.

3)    Submit twelve pieces. Only submitted nine and two were accepted (which is about what I’ve been averaging the last few years).

4)    Have 40 reviews of “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”. Only up to 28.

READING

1)    Read twelve books. Read exactly 12. Yeah!

2)    Read an average of five other blogs per week, commenting on three of them. Pretty much.

REMAINING

1)    Return to Kenya in the spring. Yeah! Went with my son Nick and had a good time. 

2)    Write a Procedure Manual for Tumaini Volunteers. Worked on it, but I guess it is a work-in-progress.

3)    Empty one box of old pictures.  I don’t know that I actually got rid of one, but was able to consolidate it down from three boxes to one.  

4)    Get in the best shape of my life. I never liked this goal, too vague, and not even close to being achieved.  

5)    Get my house in the best shape of its life. Again, way too vague, and way too not close to happening.  

That’s it for now. Next time I’ll let you know what I am thinking for 2019. 

A Very Merry Christmas was had by myself and my kids.