New Year's Resolutions

To be quite honest, I don't really have a lot of things that I want to resolve to do or not do this year. I'm pretty much on track with my life at the moment, and am enjoying where I'm at.

My "Suffer No Fools" resolution of a few years back has been successful, and there's not a whole lot more I think I need to worry about. We don't eat bad foods. We should probably exercise more, but I don't think that's something that's going get much attention for a while, given our work schedules.

Other than that, there are a couple of things that I do want to take care of.

RESOLUTION #1: Get Organized.

January is being devoted to getting my house in order. I've let things slide for quite a while and the clutter is almost overwhelming. Therefore, January is "Get Organized" Month.

In just the first week I've gotten my bookshelves organized, condensing, making space, and getting things shelved that have been lying around for months. That might not sound like much, but check out my library of books over in the sidebar. I've got way too many, but can't give any up.

Anyway, that's step one. Step two was getting my DVDs in order. That was done yesterday, and has also helped to clear out some of the shelving clutter.

Step three is the big one. Shredding. I've got years of old bills piled up (taking up shelf space) and they need to go. Which means hours of shredding. But once it's done, there's only minor straightening that will be left and I can move on to Resolution #2, while maintaining a certain level of order throughout the year.

RESOLUTION #2: Writing.

I write a lot of reviews. 133 last year, to be exact. That's more than 10 per month, which means at least 2 to 3 per week on average, if my math is right. But it could be wrong.

Regardless, that's a lot of reviews. Especially when you consider that each one is averaging around 800 words. That's approximately 106,000 words over the year. That's the equivalent of a big novel.

So, once the house is in order and Resolution #1 is complete (I've given myself until the end of January to do this, but I should be done before then), then I start cutting back on the reviews and start devoting that writing time to myself.

However, being a veteran of two 3 Day Novels and having tried (and failed) a NaNoWriMo attempt, I think I've gotten a good idea of my current limitations. If I put too big a demand on myself and fall behind, then I'll just quit. I know this.

So I'm going to make the ground rules fairly easy and undemanding.

I'm shooting for a 500 word minimum per day - non-cumulative. Meaning, that if I miss a day, I don't fee obligated to write 1000 words to make it up. That's doable. Very doable. And in six months, if I've kept up with the regimen, then that's around 90,000 words. Again, a good sized novel's worth of writing. It'll not be worth reading, most likely, but it'll be a start. And if the groundwork doesn't get established, then nothing will develop at all.

And really, 500 words is nothing. This post is already 550 words, so there's my daily output met. More than 500 should be a piece of cake once I get rolling.

So that's the plan.

I'm not worrying about my health, since I'm poor and have no insurance and already try to avoid doing anything too bad for my body. I should probably think about drinking less, too, but maybe next year. As it is, I think we'll be cutting back to more wine than beer, and trying to keep it to our weekends as much as possible. But I don't want to make a hard and fast Resolution that I've got to try and stick to and then fail.

I'd rather make these about accomplishing things rather than cutting back on things.

Like I said, maybe next year. We'll see.