Habit

I've come to the conclusion-- perhaps a bit late-- that the only way I stick to posting on blogs regularly is by setting a small goal every single day on a very very wide topic, like "my life."

Which means that this blog and the travel blog, http://noi6.blogspot.com , fall by the wayside.

It's bad. But there's got to be something better.

The trouble is, habit can only go so far with unpredictable schedules. Today we stayed in till 11am and then rushed off to the airport and got onto an airplane to get to Antananarivo, the Malagasy capital. (that's Madagascar).

Tomorrow we'll be up at who knows what hour to do who knows what-- i'm really hoping for autonomy, but that's not likely to happen. Oh, well. I'll have autonomy for almost the rest of my natural life, which is saying something.

But let me get back on track. While the content on Write Your World is slightly astounding… most of it is, shall we put it nicely, crap. The first few posts were good, and that was it. It doesn't bother me. It's more a writing exercise at the moment than anything else, and to be perfectly honest I'm a lazy person. If it got any harder I wouldn't be updating as often— of course, if it were 'a day in the life of Character X,' we might start talking. I'd be happy to write 500 word snippets of story every day.

… I am going to do that in 2013. It will be wonderful practice. A scene a day, or something. *Shrug*

As to goals. I made quite a few last December— 101 for the time period of 2012-mid 2014— but I haven't done any of them, and frankly I'm not too interesting in doing them. I tend to get slightly obsessive when confronted with challenges, though. I mellow out about a month into the year, and start setting slightly less crazy goals.

But now I'm starting to think. Why not stop setting goals and start creating habits? It's habits that are most important, right?

So, the habits, in order, to be performed daily:

- Write a 500-word world.

- Write at least 500 words of fiction.

- Edit fiction for 15 minutes.

- Write 100 words for a blog post, either outline or actual blog-post words.

Total time shouldn't be more than an hour, but will be more like 45, 50 minutes a day. And it shouldn't be too complicated to devote 45 minutes of my day to something. I tend to have a bit more time as it is.

It's going into place today, and it's going to stay in place until next January. You eat an elephant one bite at a time, and that's exactly how I'm going to catch up with all these blog posts. I'm still writing about Alice Springs, Australia— that was in early April, if I remember correctly.

So, onward! 

Goodbye, 2011! Hello, 2012!

It's been… a great year. I can't remember anything past… yesterday, but I'm very sure that it was a good year.

Scratch that. I can't even remember yesterday. I remember disjointed occurences, of course, but other than that, I can't think of many things that made this year the best ever. I think when I was one was the best year ever. So many new things!

Some highlights of 2011:

• Taking care of a three-year-old for 3 days.
• Taking the ACT
• Spending a weekend with my best friend, walking in the gorge and studying
• Leaving on the trip (and all that it entailed)
• Reading 150 books

What will be some of the highlights of 2012:

• Writing 1,200,000 words
• Reading 150-175 books
• Finishing Khan Academy material
• Reading Les Trois Mousquetaires and Don Quijote in their original languages
• Visiting China, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and more
• Being super productive
• Turning 18.

And quite a few others. I've got my plan set out for 2012's writing schedule. I'll be working on two projects at all times— in January this will be Riddle Rose and a rewrite of my NaNo'09, In Which There is Edward (I'll also be working on a NaNo swap every day, but it will not have a posting schedule.). I'll be updating all the blogs once a week (at least), reviewing books, and critiquing pieces from my critique group.

The posting schedule is:

Sunday: Post a blog post.

Tuesday: Post a chapter from Project #1 and #2. Post one critique.

Wednesday: Post another critique.

Friday: Post a chapter from Project #2. Post short story.

Saturday: Post a chapter from Project #1. Post a third critique. Post book review.

I'm not exactly sure how I've got Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday with two or three submissions and Monday and Tuesday with none, but I'm writing about three thousand words a day (what with 750 words of 'morning pages,' 500 words of Write Your World, planning for the chapters…), which means that I should be able to stay on top of things word-count-wise.

Time-wise, I'm not too sure if it's possible. It should be— I can write 3000 words in forty five minutes to two hours to a whole day, and I can read a book in two hours to twenty four hours to forty five days.

I'll be posting updates on my Day Zero Project's goals on there, but I'll also be updating here. At some point before January 31^st, I'll have posts with goals separated by year an category (growth, reading, writing, official learning, unofficial learning, random, and travel). Those should be posted by Saturday, acutally.

Otherwise, I'm not sure what else to mention, besides a happy new year! Let's hope that those of us attempting crazy schedules and goals in 2012 will not burn out before January, Feburary, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, or December are through!