Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
So, a quick note: yesterday’s blog post directly relates to my desire to simplify my life. It was a “quick hit” post, meaning that I didn’t have time to write a formal, longer post, but still wanted to get a post done for the day and out there, so when I’ve run out of time, I’ll use either the “quick hit” format, or the “potpourri” format to quickly write a entry if at all possible. That should both simplify my life and allow me more consistency with my entries. And now . . . back to the regularly scheduled posts.
Last year, especially in regards to school, I managed to complicate so many things about my life, from the courses that I took as well as the design philosophies of my own course. 2019 is all about simplification.
Weekly Goals
I’m okay at weekly goals. I generally have a sense of what I need to accomplish week-to-week and order my days accordingly. I’m not really awesome with Daily Goals, as sometimes I only achieve one or two, while making up for them earlier or later in the week. Generally speaking, I know what I have to do in a given week and I use the days of that week to get it done–again, how much gets done simply depends on my mood/time, but generally speaking, I accomplish weekly goals, even if I don’t always accomplish my daily goals. I’m using this to help generate rough drafts, character sketches, and pre-planning materials as well as submitting finished materials to markets.
Monthly Goals
This is (usually) where I shine. My mind is “pre-programmed” to think in “chunks” of months. From Pre-K until graduating High School, my uncle took me to the public library for books, every month. I say every month because the loan period at that time was 28 days, with one 28 day extension period (now it is only 3 weeks, with 100 renewal periods which doesn’t work for me and I don’t check out nearly as many books). My allowance was also monthly and I had to calculate my wants and desires to the monthly schedule my parents set forth. My brain is literally “hard-wired” to think in months as I have always had to decide what books I was going to read/buy in a monthly calendar, allocating enough time to finish them, or making them last depending on whether I was renting them from the library or buying them with my (limited) supply of money. I’m using these to finish stories (2nd and 3rd drafts), and draft longer works, like scenes in my Graphic Novel.
Yearly Goals
So, I’m only okay at yearly goals. Usually, these are too far out to plan for as I don’t know how much time I’m going to have available. It is easy to say in January that I will have a novel/screenplay finished in December, but there’s no way of knowing what will happen in the intervening months. So, rather than trying to focusing writing tasks around yearly goals which I’ve done is some fashion or form since the late 90s/early 2000s and been disappointed every time, I’m going to keep my writing goals nebulous. I hope to finish the Ship of Shadows Graphic Novel this year, but if I don’t, I’m not going to be disappointed and I’m certainly not going to give a time-frame. The first 3 months of the year, I know I need to be a reading, reading, reading, to prepare for a major test in the middle of March, so I’m not going to stress if very little in the way of writing happens during Jan-March. Something has to give, so there’s no need putting additional stress on myself by saying I need to write 3 scenes a week for 52 weeks or else. It isn’t going to happen, not with that very important test looming in the near future. Same with the nebulous screenplay and novel that I’d like to write. If it happens great, if not, no pressure. I do have two school related things that need to happen this year (one of them the test that I mentioned), and I’m going to put all my efforts towards those and if I happen to accomplish any of the writing ones as well then hey, bully for me!
So, finishing up, I’m really working on simplifying my life (esp. my writing life, but in other areas as well) to see if I can become a more productive writer and human being in 2019. Wish me luck!
Sidney
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Current Work-in-Progress: The Independent (Sci-Fi Short-Story – 2nd Draft)Current Work-in-Progress: Project Star (Sci-Fi Short-Story -1st Draft)Current Work-in-Progress: Ship of Shadows (Sci-Fi Graphic Novel – Script, Issue # 2, Currently on Script Page 32)
