New Year’s Resolutions
Okay, it’s that time of year. I’ve been thinking a lot about resolutions recently, maybe it’s an effect of getting older but each year seems more important now, less time to waste. Anyway here are my resolutions, recorded here so that I know at the end of next year whether I actually did them or not!
Writing
I’ve been following Susan Hill’s creative writing course on her blog and her last post on the matter for the year was a kind of put up or shut up ultimatum, basically a ‘are you a writer or just somebody who says they want to be a writer?’ and the ultimate thing, what writers do, it submit to be published and that in 2008 has to be my goal. So far in my ‘writing career’ I have submitted unsuccessfully three short stories and three chapters which I’m still waiting to hear on. I am currently working on a children’s picture book idea which needs more research but if I actually got down to doing it wouldn’t actually take that long (it requires some trips to the British Library, so it’s more of a trying to find the time issue), I am also still trying to finish my Egypt project. So those two projects have to take priority in my writing time, no more attempts at short story writing (although I’ll finish my current one that I’ve posted the first half of), I’m not very good at short stories, short stories require a different discipline to writing novels and I prefer writing longer stories. I am also a pragmatist, although I know my chance of making money at this is slim, there is very little money in short stories and alot more money in the commercial fiction I am attracted to. I’m sorry, typing this sounds like I’m trying to ‘debase my art’ or something poncy like that, but I need to make a living, I have a slim hope that I could do it writing but to make a living writing means having to think about money.
I need to plan my time more carefully concerning writing, researching and the all important reading. My experience doing NaNoWriMo this year made me realise that although I may long for all day to write, if I allow myself vast amounts of time I can’t actually write for that long anyway! So I need to stop feeling resentful at the other domestic chores that take my time away, as there is time to do both, I just have to be (and I hate this phrase) more organised about it. Last Autumn I was lucky, Girl Lacer was at nursery and Boy Lacer napped, so I had two hours free each day and what did I do with it? I faffed, that’s what I did. Ok I did use that time to complete a 40 000 word novella during NaNoWriMo, so I guess I did something but I then spent the whole of December recovering! Once Girl Lacer goes back to nursery I will not have the luxury of Boy Lacer napping anymore, as he appears to have grown out of them, so I need to find my time elsewhere and unfortunately I am not an evening person but all I think I need for the moment is an hour each day to read, write or research and that will be progress and my resolution.
Housework
As referenced in my previous resolution I do need to spend more time doing housework and to stop resenting it. I tried Flylady twice last year and it was successful, which annoys me even more know as I know there’s a method out there that works, so I’m annoyed at myself for not doing it. However it is so regimented and that is just not me. I think I need to find my own plan, something that works for me, using some of the tools from Flylady (some of which I still try and do even though I’m officially off the Flywagon). I spend too much time using the fact that we live in a tiny flat as an excuse, we could, in all likelihood will be, here for years, I can not wait until I get that big house I lust after. It is not just me who lives here, my children do to.
The internet
I need to spend less time on it. I am already fairly controlled with it, I know that there are some sites like Facebook, that if I got into that I’d never be off the computer and I have my messenger off most the time as well but I need to be more controlled, use my time more constructively. However on the other side of the resolution I do resolve to continue blogging! But less time on the internet means more time for housework, writing and the kids, which can only be a good thing.
Money
I’m still learning but I need to be in better control of it.
Cooking
I need to use my vast collection of cookbooks a little more often and to stop relaying on Captain Birds Eye and pasta!
Creativity
I’ve been getting ‘sewing urges’ for a few years now and so far it has totalled up to a nearly completed doodle embroidery, a toy dog for Girl Lacer, a scarf for Boy Lacer and a sewing machine I brought 3 years ago and have so far been too chicken to use. I buy books on how to make your own clothes from a vintage handkerchief or how to make a quilt and I have a collection of baby knitting books which are useless now as both my children are too big, although at the rate it takes me to knit something and with the fact that I would in three years or so like another baby, that maybe I need to start knitting now. So my resolution for next year is to be more crafty, I have the urge to knit my own socks (?!?) and I must get out that sewing machine, actually next year I do need to get out that sewing machine, the school Girl Lacer will hopefully be going to (pretty darn likely, it’s at the bottom of our road) has chair bags instead of drawers for their children and guess who has to make them? Yep, the mums, all they provide you with is a rectangle of material (which you hve to buy from them of course) and the instructions. You then sew the chair bag up (which I think even with my complete novice sewing machine skills would be better than hand sewing) and then and here comes the ‘fun part’ you have to embroider your child’s name in large lettering onto the bag, honestly that’s why I’ve been practising my embroidery! That’s what you get when you want to send your child to a ‘momzilla’ school (ok, I did not event the term momzilla, I read it in a magazine but it is very very apt, momzillas are mums who pre-kids had extremly high powered jobs and are now devoting all the energy they previously spent domineering the boardroom into domineering the playground and they come up with silly ideas like embroidered chair bags. Girl Lacer’s hopefully future school is so popular it’s one of those schools with a minuscule catchment area and the majority of the houses in the catchment area are very big and very expensive, just to give you an idea of the average parent there!).
