Tags
Band, Blogging, Goals, Inspiration, Life Modelling, NaNoWriMo, NaPoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, National Poetry Writing Month, New Years Resolutions, novel, novella, Self-publishing, To do list, wasted monday, Writing goals
Last Friday I went to a workshop that I found through Meetup.com. I frequently attend Meetup events that have highly variable outcomes – some have been really great and positive, like one group for artists which was really positive and motivating for several months. Other times, like a board game night I went to recently can be full of people who make it not fun. But to get back to the point, this workshop was to create a vision board. These are essentially a big seven year plan with pictures. I’d heard of vision boards before, I thought they were mainly nonsense, but it sounded like it might be fun.
When I got there, a room full of women did a meditation and then cut and pasted pictures out from magazines, some of which where twenty years old, onto big coloured cardboard sheets. I’m going to re-do it – either as a list or with pictures from the internet which more closely match what I’m looking for. The magazine pictures were a bit too commercial and a bit too old school for me.
Traditionally one of the first things I do in the new year is make up my goals for the next twelve months. Many of my goals remain the same from last year; I’ll do NaNoWriMo again, and NaPoWriMo, as they both generate a good amount of first draft material.
I’m not going to do a fringe show this year, but Alex and I are planning to work on another top-secret project instead. We’re also looking at writing a sitcom and will do a show in 2020.
I have a couple of maybe goals in there too. I have a manuscript that I started last year but abandoned because I couldn’t get the pacing right; I’ll go back to that project to see if it’s salvageable as a short story or novella. I’m also thinking about publishing one of my other back-catalogue manuscripts in the last quarter of the year, but that will depend on how much time and energy I have by then.
My 2019 Goals!
- Publish ‘Discovery of the Franklins’
- NaNoWriMo 2019
- Finish manuscript from NANoWriMo 2018
- NaPoWriMo 2019
- Sitcom
- Top Secret Project
- Wasted Monday performances
- Blogging
- Life Models’ Society Exhibition
- Life Models’ Society 30th anniversary
Maybe/if I have time:
- Self-publish one of my other manuscripts
- Finish/rework shorts story/novella
I’m glad I did the vision boarding workshop. Long term goal setting exercises are important to undertake every so often; it makes me feel less like I’m making things up as I go along. I’ll re-evaluate against the long term and annual goals as I go to make sure my priorities and values haven’t changed along the way (this happens at work all the time!).
I hope you’ve all had a productive, happy, and positive 2018. I wish you all of that for 2019. I’m starting to make my own luck and I’m really loving it.