bated-breath.net

New Years Resolutions often come and go, and rarely do they ever get finished. My best friend, Talen Lee, has decided that he’s going to try to write a short story a week until the end of the year, so that he has something that could be considered an actual novel type – he mentioned not wanting to say “I’m writing a novel.” because it feels pretentious, but the boy has the writing chops to actually make something that I think would be highly marketable.

It got me thinking that, even though I’d be hard-pressed to keep up with the idea of a deadline like that (though I really should go for deadlines like that because they’ll keep me on my toes and keep me on track.) I feel like I kind of want to go through with the idea of writing a short-story or something of that like every week, or couple of weeks, and try to keep my instrument sharp.

I know that even that statement sounds ridiculously pretentious, the idea of my writing being some kind of instrument, like I’m an artist that needs to keep her shit finely honed otherwise she’ll start to fail at it, but I’ve gotten over some of my trepidation about my writing skill. I’ve had someone who has been encouraging me more than a lot to keep my writing up, to get my writing out there, and telling me that I am, in fact, quite good. It’s a nice bit of a boost to keep me from spiraling out of control, and with that kind of support I do feel like there are at least three people in my life who would always love to read what I’ve written. So with that in mind, that is my biggest goal for this year. I want to write a short-story every week (or every other week, I haven’t decided) and while I realise it’s a stolen idea, I doubt Talen will mind at all if I keep up the idea with him.

With that in mind, here’s the resolutions I’m going to try for again and we’ll see just how well they go.

1. Write a story or blurb (something creative, either about characters I’ve already established, or something I wish I had) every week or every other week.
2. Try to, for lack of a better phrasing, get in better health. Not just lose weight, but do more to get myself healthier. I’ve made strides in the last four years, but I’m not there yet (and I’m still wicked overweight, so that’s an issue.)
3. Read a book a month – this one will be easy for me, and it’ll keep me up in the idea of variety. I love reading, and I need to read books (some that I’ve read before, and some that I want to read… and maybe even some I don’t want to read but probably should) and keep my mind sharp.
4. Spend some time coming to terms with me, who I am, and the people around me that I love so I can clearly define where I am in my life.
5. Find at least three new artists, musically, that I want to know more about. I don’t do this often enough and I end up getting in music funks because of it. The year I found Poets of the Fall was one of the most amazing musical experiences of my life, so I want to try to find that kind of gold again.
6. Try to crack through the games in my Steam games list, and some games I’ve been meaning to replay for years but never seem to get to. I also want to dedicate a bit more time to focusing on some of my RP characters in various MMOs. This might seem an odd resolution or goal, but screw you, I’m a gamer and people have spent money on these games for me, so I want to make that effort.
7. Tell the people I love that I love them every day, or at least attempt it. These are things that are free and might make someone’s day brighter when they didn’t think it could be. Not that my love is all that great (it’s fine, I’m not self-deprecating, just also not self-boasting) but sometimes… any love is better than none.
8. Start working on website design a bit more. I understand that I’m finding myself less into fanlistings and what have, but I want to be able to keep on top of some ideas for designs and the like. I know I’ll never be amazing (I’ve barely improved over the years) but I don’t want to get worse, in case the mood strikes me for something aesthetically pleasing.
9. Which brings me to the project of making a site to host my writings and other such stuff. This blog would be fine, but it gets sometimes wrapped up with other things, that I’d like a more dedicated place to do it. For now I’ll likely just pop another wordpress blog up somewhere and start there, but later I’d like to formulate my own site around my writings with more of a portfolio style, so I can use it in resumes or references.

That, at current, is all I can really think of that is remotely of any use to me. I’m sure it won’t be anything too interesting to some, but it’s a peek into what my mind is going through right now, and what I hope to accomplish within the next year. All of these things seem like little nothings, or little nods to self-improvement, and I’m hoping it’ll be the latter.

Anyone who believes they don’t have any room to improve themselves is missing out on the chance of a life time to go further than they thought possible. So yeaaaah.