New Year
I woke up this morning and remembered that it was New Year's Eve. Filled with optimistic energy, I thought: You know what I should do? I should pull out that notebook I got for Christmas and make a list of all the good things I did accomplish this year, to remind myself that actually, there have been a lot, no matter how self-critical I get.
Then I did too much cleaning (ironically enough, in preparation for the cleaning lady to arrive - I wanted to get the living room clean so that she could vacuum it), the CFS reared up and whopped me, I spent the next hour flat on my back with my head spinning and no writing happening at all...and I found myself yelling at myself all over again with all the same old, same old phrases. You're so lame, you'll never get the important things done, you never DO anything, you're wasting your only writing time, you're such a loser...
Sigh. From one extreme to the other...
(After my hour off, btw, I sat up and wrote 714 words. It wasn't the 1000 words I'd hoped for, but at least it was better than the 500 words that made up my minimum goal.)
So.
In a (I hope) healthy balance between those two ends of the spectrum, I've come to a somewhat radical (for me) decision about this year's New Year's resolutions. I'd been planning all sorts of things to put on that list, from the impressive wordcounts I wanted to hit every week to the exact type of fiction I'd write (and yes, I would still like to write one flash-fic a month, so I was planning to make that a solid goal, to be managed OR ELSE), not to mention all the impressive other accomplishments I would manage with just a few helpings of gumption and bloody-minded determination...but instead, I'm going to pare the list down to one incredibly important (and yet, in my experience, incredibly hard) goal that I really, really want to accomplish in 2011:
I want to be kind to myself.
All too often, I don't manage to do everything I want to - in writing, in author-ing (marketing, traveling, etc), in parenting, in friendship, and in family. But this coming year, I'm going to really, really try to treat those failures in the same way I would treat them if they happened to a friend of mine who was in the same situation.
I don't yell at my friends when they screw up, or tell them that if only they had real willpower, they'd overcome illness/exhaustion/stress/sheer constitutional ineptness in some areas. I bolster up my friends when they fail, I remind them of their very real achievements, and I feel genuine faith that they are doing the best they can and will do better another time.
I don't know if I can manage to treat myself in the same way this year, but I really am going to try. And if worst comes to worst...well, even if I don't accomplish any MORE in 2011, at least there's a chance that I just might waste a bit less time beating myself up for what I haven't done. That has to be a good thing.
And in undiluted good news, Eugie Foster's story "The Tanuki-Kettle" went up on the December Lights Project today, ending the month - and the project - on a really lovely note. I love Eugie's stories, and this is quite possibly my favorite of all the ones I've read.
We've bought a year's worth of web hosting for the December Lights Project, so although we won't be adding any more stories after December is over, you'll have several more months to come back to the seventeen stories we posted throughout the month.
Happy New Year's Eve, everybody. And if you feel like sharing any resolutions here, I'd love to read them.
Then I did too much cleaning (ironically enough, in preparation for the cleaning lady to arrive - I wanted to get the living room clean so that she could vacuum it), the CFS reared up and whopped me, I spent the next hour flat on my back with my head spinning and no writing happening at all...and I found myself yelling at myself all over again with all the same old, same old phrases. You're so lame, you'll never get the important things done, you never DO anything, you're wasting your only writing time, you're such a loser...
Sigh. From one extreme to the other...
(After my hour off, btw, I sat up and wrote 714 words. It wasn't the 1000 words I'd hoped for, but at least it was better than the 500 words that made up my minimum goal.)
So.
In a (I hope) healthy balance between those two ends of the spectrum, I've come to a somewhat radical (for me) decision about this year's New Year's resolutions. I'd been planning all sorts of things to put on that list, from the impressive wordcounts I wanted to hit every week to the exact type of fiction I'd write (and yes, I would still like to write one flash-fic a month, so I was planning to make that a solid goal, to be managed OR ELSE), not to mention all the impressive other accomplishments I would manage with just a few helpings of gumption and bloody-minded determination...but instead, I'm going to pare the list down to one incredibly important (and yet, in my experience, incredibly hard) goal that I really, really want to accomplish in 2011:
I want to be kind to myself.
All too often, I don't manage to do everything I want to - in writing, in author-ing (marketing, traveling, etc), in parenting, in friendship, and in family. But this coming year, I'm going to really, really try to treat those failures in the same way I would treat them if they happened to a friend of mine who was in the same situation.
I don't yell at my friends when they screw up, or tell them that if only they had real willpower, they'd overcome illness/exhaustion/stress/sheer constitutional ineptness in some areas. I bolster up my friends when they fail, I remind them of their very real achievements, and I feel genuine faith that they are doing the best they can and will do better another time.
I don't know if I can manage to treat myself in the same way this year, but I really am going to try. And if worst comes to worst...well, even if I don't accomplish any MORE in 2011, at least there's a chance that I just might waste a bit less time beating myself up for what I haven't done. That has to be a good thing.
And in undiluted good news, Eugie Foster's story "The Tanuki-Kettle" went up on the December Lights Project today, ending the month - and the project - on a really lovely note. I love Eugie's stories, and this is quite possibly my favorite of all the ones I've read.
We've bought a year's worth of web hosting for the December Lights Project, so although we won't be adding any more stories after December is over, you'll have several more months to come back to the seventeen stories we posted throughout the month.
Happy New Year's Eve, everybody. And if you feel like sharing any resolutions here, I'd love to read them.