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ventaOK, OK, I've thoroughly missed the bus on this one. I made new year's resolutions, on new year's day and everything, but never got round to doing my annual bookkeeping post. Resolutions are now so passé that you're welcome to pass over all together.
Last year I resolved to carry over two of the previous year's resolutions. They were:
1. Do More Creative Stuff
Yes, writing, music, etc. But really, I'm still just keen on stuff. I'd like to have achieved Things over the course of the year, I'm willing to be flexible on the exact nature of the Things.
Now, if I'm going to be strictly accurate my Great First Novel has still not yet been completed. Or, er, been significantly worked on at all.
Achievements for 2007 are largely limited to things like organising the Advent Game and a Photo Competition, neither of which demonstrated any great creative wossname on my part. I've done bits and pieces of sewing, but really nothing to brag about.
I did say last year that if I failed once again on this resolution I was going to give up any hope of ever being anything other than a drone and consign myself to the imagination scrapbin. However, I have a new strategy, which I shall elaborate upon in a minute.
2. Sort My Room Out
Now,anyone who's, er, ever spoken to me might well be aware that "tidy my room" has been on my to-do list since about 1999. I'm not talking about just a quick tidy-up here, but a redesign of lifestyle is really required to sort it properly. I have a lot of stuff and a small room,and achieving long-term tidiness isn't that easy.
Finding myself with some unexpected spare time in the summer, courtesy of a sudden redundancy, I spent a few days doing some fairly hardcore tidying. However, despite chucking out what seemed like a mass of stuff, the problem remains that I still have too much stuff in too small a room. Thus it can be made tidy, but requires continuous attention to keep it that way. Which is the bit I'm bad at, and thus June's frenzied attack might not be noticeable to the casual observer.
So, what am I going to resolve this year ? Well, I think there's a problem with my former resolutions. They've been big, over-arching kinds of things which are ill defined and hard to quantify. Just how much creativity would I have required to continue (1) to be a pass ? Was every day in which I didn't write a great novel a failure ?
Accordingly, here are the same two resolutions rearranged in bite-sized quantifiable format:
1. Spend five minutes (minimum) writing every day.
This is intended to be some form of creative writing; waffling on LJ and writing letters home don't count. This resolution is really stolen from a Guardian kick-start your resolutions page, but it seemed reasonably sensible. I can tell every day whether I've kept it or not, and hopefully something useful might even come out of it.
2. Get up when my alarm goes off every morning, and spend the spare 15-30 minutes I would thereby gain doing bits and pieces of tidying.
Again, I can tell each day whether I've done it and with luck there will be an incremental improvement in my bedroom's state over the course of the year.
So, er, since we've actually had a twelfth of the year already, how's it going ? Variably, actually. I didn't realise that I'd secretly made a third resolution, which was to have splitting headaches on a regular basis (no, mother, I haven't booked an eyetest yet but this has just reminded me and I will). So quite a lot of my spare time has been spent lying down in darkened rooms; sleeping hasn't always gone well, and I've not always felt up to getting up in the morning.
The writing was going reasonably well in the first half of the month, but has faltered in the last week or two. There are obvious problems when - say - away with the rapper team at weekends as I look like a pretentious twat flipping open my notebook to "write". And I have to admit that several days last week I actually forgot. However, a short story has been finished, and odd bits of other things are getting scribbled down.
Of course, by the end of the year I may well still have no Great First Novel and a scruffy bedroom, but at least it's a different approach :)
Last year I resolved to carry over two of the previous year's resolutions. They were:
1. Do More Creative Stuff
Yes, writing, music, etc. But really, I'm still just keen on stuff. I'd like to have achieved Things over the course of the year, I'm willing to be flexible on the exact nature of the Things.
Now, if I'm going to be strictly accurate my Great First Novel has still not yet been completed. Or, er, been significantly worked on at all.
Achievements for 2007 are largely limited to things like organising the Advent Game and a Photo Competition, neither of which demonstrated any great creative wossname on my part. I've done bits and pieces of sewing, but really nothing to brag about.
I did say last year that if I failed once again on this resolution I was going to give up any hope of ever being anything other than a drone and consign myself to the imagination scrapbin. However, I have a new strategy, which I shall elaborate upon in a minute.
2. Sort My Room Out
Now,anyone who's, er, ever spoken to me might well be aware that "tidy my room" has been on my to-do list since about 1999. I'm not talking about just a quick tidy-up here, but a redesign of lifestyle is really required to sort it properly. I have a lot of stuff and a small room,and achieving long-term tidiness isn't that easy.
Finding myself with some unexpected spare time in the summer, courtesy of a sudden redundancy, I spent a few days doing some fairly hardcore tidying. However, despite chucking out what seemed like a mass of stuff, the problem remains that I still have too much stuff in too small a room. Thus it can be made tidy, but requires continuous attention to keep it that way. Which is the bit I'm bad at, and thus June's frenzied attack might not be noticeable to the casual observer.
So, what am I going to resolve this year ? Well, I think there's a problem with my former resolutions. They've been big, over-arching kinds of things which are ill defined and hard to quantify. Just how much creativity would I have required to continue (1) to be a pass ? Was every day in which I didn't write a great novel a failure ?
Accordingly, here are the same two resolutions rearranged in bite-sized quantifiable format:
1. Spend five minutes (minimum) writing every day.
This is intended to be some form of creative writing; waffling on LJ and writing letters home don't count. This resolution is really stolen from a Guardian kick-start your resolutions page, but it seemed reasonably sensible. I can tell every day whether I've kept it or not, and hopefully something useful might even come out of it.
2. Get up when my alarm goes off every morning, and spend the spare 15-30 minutes I would thereby gain doing bits and pieces of tidying.
Again, I can tell each day whether I've done it and with luck there will be an incremental improvement in my bedroom's state over the course of the year.
So, er, since we've actually had a twelfth of the year already, how's it going ? Variably, actually. I didn't realise that I'd secretly made a third resolution, which was to have splitting headaches on a regular basis (no, mother, I haven't booked an eyetest yet but this has just reminded me and I will). So quite a lot of my spare time has been spent lying down in darkened rooms; sleeping hasn't always gone well, and I've not always felt up to getting up in the morning.
The writing was going reasonably well in the first half of the month, but has faltered in the last week or two. There are obvious problems when - say - away with the rapper team at weekends as I look like a pretentious twat flipping open my notebook to "write". And I have to admit that several days last week I actually forgot. However, a short story has been finished, and odd bits of other things are getting scribbled down.
Of course, by the end of the year I may well still have no Great First Novel and a scruffy bedroom, but at least it's a different approach :)
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-28 10:12 pm (UTC)A good approach to the writing though. And the tidying - although isn't there a long term Buy A Flat plan? Although I suppose finding more space for stuff ultimately amounts to more stuff, so maybe the tidying is better.
Any chance of being able to read the short story?
no subject
Date: 2008-01-28 11:28 pm (UTC)Our place is a cleanish tip. Already. Oh dear.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-29 10:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-29 10:39 am (UTC)Not a plan as such, no. Obviously I'd prefer not to live in
Any chance of being able to read the short story?
When I said "finished", I really meant that I'd scribbled something down from start to end. I didn't mean it was actually finished or made into something good :) When it is, though, I'll send a copy your way if you're interested.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-29 07:04 pm (UTC)