I’m not going to lie – I spent the last few days moping as I’ve done the last few years (as one college friend put it, birthdays tend to go downhill once after your 21st) . I just think of all the stuff I should have accomplished in life because anyone who is my age should’ve done so by now. Yesterday was no different, I skulked around and melted into nothingness as I watched the boob tube.

Then a thought came to me –
It’s a new year, a new me. I don’t have to wait until January 1st to do something different and new with my life. I can start today and use the New Year to reconsider the goals I’ve already set and put into motion.
So, that’s the plan – I’m going to spend a portion of the day listing out things I want to achieve by the end of December 2009 and even, possibly, 2010.

Off the top of my head, I already know I want to:
• -Get into shape (haha, is this ever not on anyone’s New Me list?)

• -Do what’s important for my future career aspirations (and in that vein, stay somewhat organized – lots of goal, not so much time…)

• -Ignore those who are petty and just stay positive (happy minds, happy bodies, happy everything – one of my many mantras (those of you who know me may be groaning right about now, don’t think I don’t know that;). Life’s short enough as it is and I think it’s so much better when you can stay optimistic.

• -Stop sweating the little stuff if I can help it. I decided to step back from NaNo (not completely; I’m still going to write as much fiction as I can, but due to outside events a couple weeks ago, 100k is out of my scope). I decided to forego entering the Golden Heart (after thinking about it, I decided it really wasn’t for me, at least not right now…maybe that’ll change in the future, who knows)

• -I do know I want to keep reading novels for fun. I barely read for fun the last four years and, well, it sucked. I carved out time this year to read more and I realize I’m a happier person because of it. It’s important to keep stuff that makes you happy and keeps you sane. 

So, yeah, I’m looking at new beginnings and to be honest, I’m kinda stoked about it.

How about you? What are some things you’re looking forward to changing or doing or even keeping the same for 2010 or your next birthday?

Who knows why I’ve spent so much time coming back to TTR? I love the plot, the characters, the setting, but who knows why it took me so long to write TTR. Who knows why I kept coming back to it? It’s the only WIP that I kept coming back to, time and time again. At one point, only a few weeks ago, I decided to offer it as an Excerpt Monday serial Free Read – even when I decided to sorta, semi give up on TTR, I couldn’t really.

Now that I’ve finished, I plan on cleaning it up a bit lot and sending it in to Golden Heart (I’ll find something else for EM). I’d honestly like to see how it does. And, if for some reason TTR ends up finalling in GH, well, I think it’d be a fantastic way to start my quest to become Published Novelist instead of Wannabe Published Novelist.

Here’s hoping TTR *fingers crossed*…

Well, within 24 hours of being reminded of its existence, I’ve decided to enter the Golden Heart competition and because of that decision I joined RWA. I became an official member yesterday and had  spent a few hours crawling through RWA affiliated listservs and looking through various special interest chapters.

I must admit, it’s kind of scary to be putting myself “out there,” but plunking down the associated fees makes my dreams of turning into an established and published author more concrete, more official. When I bought my domain name, I gave myself a deadline of submitting and hearing back from at least one agent or publisher or contest by September 12, 2010.

As is my nature, I’ve made list after list detailing scenarios from most ideal (dream agent, fantastic editor/publisher, starting off a long and successful illustrious career of writing one hit book after another in a multitude of genres) to the worst with a healthy dose of optimism (where I still get that agent/publisher/editor, but it’ll take a few — what a relative word! — years). I’ve categorized the WIPs I want to work on and even put them in numerical order. I’ve written out business plans and even scheduled out every hour of my day to maximize Real Life things with Writing Life activities (Real Life and Writing Life really should be synonymous, but I’ll save that for another post). Anything that crossed my mind as a way to better improve myself, I’ve looked into it (or, at the very least, written it down). It’s me preparing myself for the road ahead to avoid any unexpected (unwanted?) surprises (good surprises, however, are most welcome).

But really, in all honesty, it’s me taking an optimistic leap of faith (note, it is important for me to note optimistic; indeed, it may be the key word in that phrase) – the belief everything will turn out fine in the end because I gave it my all, not because I held a part of myself back to insulate my heart and mind from rejection.

There isn’t any formula to this madness (aspiring to be) published novelists are drawn to – which is somewhatunfortunate considering all the time and effort I put into the activities mentioned above.
But honestly, that’s alright – sometimes a bit of insanity is a good thing. At the very least, it’ll give me something more to write about.