Take It Easy

I'm starting my New Year's Resolutions early this year—or late, depending on how you want to look at it. In the spirit of my last post about planning and organization, I've really been making an effort to do just that. I even pre-planned 12 blog post topics, 12 songs to go with them, and set a goal to try to do one blog post per month. However, the beauty of setting your own goals is also having the prerogative to modify them when you need to.

Over on the Books and Writers Community Forum, I've been participating in the Monthly Goals thread. It's one thing to have goals, but a little accountability does go a long way. Somehow, when other people see your "to-do list," it seems more official and adds a little motivation. This month, the theme is to "celebrate" anything and everything but especially all we've accomplished in our writing, and we are to set this month's goals with that idea in mind. As I thought back over what I've done this year, I realized how letting my priorities get skewed just a little bit throws everything else completely out of whack.

So, my goal for this month—and I challenge you to do the same—is to relax. Take it easy! Yep, you heard me—Slow Down and Enjoy December 2013. I assure you, daily life and everything that exists to stress about will still be there in January. Until then, bask in the glow of your Christmas lights. Sit on the floor with your children. Get Enough Sleep!

As I mentioned in my post on the forum, the past couple of months have, for me, been a long, miserable exercise in "10,000 ways how NOT to make a light bulb." In other words, there's been a lot of trial and error in how to not find time for writing and get so overwhelmed with everything else that the light at the end of the tunnel completely disappears. So, this is my month to re-group. Not every plan is a good plan. Plans tend to be living, breathing entities, always changing and evolving. Flexible. Even if you start with Plan A and work your way through the whole alphabet, the end result will still be the same; the important thing is to keep trying until you find something that works.

The most valuable lesson I've learned this year is that no goal is worth the amount of sleep lost in order to accomplish it. Another lesson is that time is too precious to waste it doing things that make you miserable (laundry and cleaning bathrooms are exempt from this category, unfortunately). For me, this means cutting back on the number and type of jobs that I accept for proofreading and editing. Because fiction is my first love and what I want to write, I made the decision to stop accepting new clients for anything other than fiction writing. Had I imagined how at peace I would feel about this, I would have done it a long time ago.

And that's it. Relax. Enjoy. Celebrate! Marvel at the amazing things you've accomplished this year. Learn from what didn't work, and plan to do better—starting fresh in January. I wish you a wonderful, stress-free, relaxing month and a very Merry Christmas!



I bet you were expecting the Eagles, weren't you? <g>  Nope, this is a genuine 80s song, straight off the American Anthem soundtrack. A Karate Kid-type movie but with gymnastics, it stars Olympic icon Mitch Gaylord and Mrs. Wayne Gretsky, Janet Jones. In true 80s fashion, I loved it. And I get extra giddy about this song because it's performed by Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor. It just doesn't get any better than this. "Take it Easy" by Andy Taylor—Enjoy!


# of Proofreads: 24
# of Edits: 66