I asked for it, didn’t I? And I know you people. You’re just sitting out there with your weapons of choice, waiting for me to muck it up and forget so you can poke me. You want to take out your hungover 2011-sucks-so-far misery on me.
Well, suck it up, lovelies, because I’m not giving you the chance. (Of course, knowing some of you, you’ll get me anyway. But that’s a risk I run, hanging out with the passionate people.)
So. Goals. Or methods. Plans. Plots?
Combating Comfort Food
I’ve already made a start here. When I do go for cookies, I now have five or six Oreos instead of half the package. But it’s still a bad habit, and I need to do something about it.
Anger will probably be the easy one. I will work to replace the run for cookies with a quick walk, or bike ride, or, in inclement weather, a violent drabble probably featuring Eve.
Misery will be harder. The obvious solution is to not have cookies on hand, but then I feel deprived on top of miserable, and I’ll eat everything in sight in retaliation. I think what I’ll do, is start making sure I have the makings of tea and toast on hand. That’s what my mom gave me when I was little and sick. Tea and toast, and tomato soup with grilled cheese. The most comforting of comfort foods should help me solve my issue with cookies.
As to the other things totally not good for me… Complete denial doesn’t work (see “retaliation” though against who or what, I couldn’t tell you), so when I want meatloaf or quiche or French toast, I will have it. I’ll work on the calories around it to keep things going in the right direction.
Procrastination
This is the big one. This feeds into just about everything that goes wrong in my life. Hitting Burger King after work? It’s because I put off planning dinner, and now we’re starving. Bounced check? It’s because I put off–and then forgot about!–going by the bank to make a deposit. House issues that bug the heck out of me, that the landlord would be glad to fix if he knew? Still hanging around because I never get around to calling. And when I do think of it, I figure the house is too much of a mess to show him, because I put off housecleaning.
I’m better than I was. Flylady has helped me tons. I declutter (sometimes), I pick up (sometimes), and I know that when all else fails, fifteen minutes on my timer will make a good dent in nearly any job–which makes me a thousand times more likely to set that timer and do it.
Sure be nice, though, if I didn’t let it get to that point. And if I didn’t spend most of a two-week vacation futzing around on the internets instead of editing Rafe as I meant to do.
So. I think my plan here is to figure out a calendar that works for me. Something that’s going to poke me when I need to do crap. It’ll be hard to learn to put everything into it, but then it will poke me whenever I’m on the computer. (I’m on the computer a lot, and it’s not likely that being poked to do stuff while on it will make me avoid it. Even if it does, if I get off the computer, everything I need to do is staring me in the face.)
All right. Get a calendar program, and use it. Anyone have suggestions? I know Yahoo and Google both have them, and Flylady has this thing for Cozi, which I don’t even know what that is but I can check. And there’s one in Thunderbird too, come to think of it. Anybody have loves or hates in this area?
Fear
Can’t really do more than I’m doing, confronting this at every opportunity. On TV people do things like go jump out of an airplane, but that costs money I don’t have to devote to such a thing. Can’t toss everything and hitchhike across the country, either–I have dependents. (Okay, I have one dependent and am staff to two other beings. It’s much the same.)
Some more faith would be good. Maybe I should start going to church. I know an awesome one, where they don’t just accept everyone–they welcome diversity. Tolerance, hell–they’re happy to see you.
I dunno. I’ll keep thinking about this one.
Specific Career Goals
Okay, so I’m slipping an extra in. Sue me.
One writing goal, at least, is obvious. Rafe (His Faithful Squire) is due out in August, so before then I’ve got to get through the MS at least twice more. (For major fixes. I expect I’ll be in there lots more than twice.)
I can’t spend too much time at once editing, I’ve discovered. Somewhere in the middle of the second project, it will mutate me into a wild grumpiluffagus. So…I’ll set a goal of writing/finishing one of my Dream’verse shorts. Acne, perhaps, the story between Taro (Knight Errant) and Rafe. Then…probably after a second Rafe edit, I could go after Beast, my lovely smutty story that just didn’t want to go last time I worked on it. And after that, I may well have time for another Fidelis edit. If I can just get the structure down, I think that one has a good chance in traditional publishing.
For NaNo 2011, I want to write Hiro 3, Revenge of the Trilogy. If I have any of 2011 left, I’ll…I dunno what I’ll do. Spend a month in shock that I actually followed the plan? It’s a good plan, but I tend to wander with the wind.
I’ll try, though. Unless things change, these are the things that need doing the most.
What do you think? Suggestions, stories, comments welcome! Keep your grumpy hangover to yourself, though, hmm? 😉