Getting a handle on 2012

by Donna Andrews

I’m embarrassed to admit that it’s already January 15 and I still haven’t finished sorting out my goals for the year. There’s nothing magical about January 1, of course, but going two weeks into the new year without having my annual road map done—it feels a little feckless.

And I realized tonight why I haven’t done it yet.  I remember hearing Barbara Hambly speak at Crescent City Con in 1997.  She mentioned a writer friend who had trouble getting himself to write because as long as the book was in his head, it was going to be the best thing he’d ever done.  And the minute he put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, what he wrote fell short.  However brilliant his draft was, it never lived up to the book of his imagination.

Been there and done that myself.  With books, with a whole lot of projects—and in the last two weeks, with my goals for 2012.  Right now, I’m still fantasizing about all the things I could do or learn.  The places I could go.  I could do anything this year.  Anything!

And it doesn’t help that I went to New York this weekend—I’m serving again on the MWA national board, and this was our orientation weekend.  Hanging around with other writers and hearing about their adventures always makes me feel like a chameleon, wanting to try on bits of other people’s lives. 

We talked about travel—Hilary Davidson is taking a trip to Israel soon, and Charles Todd mentioned that his mother, Caroline, is very close to hitting her 100th foreign country.  Yeah, I should travel more.  To cool, exotic places where I can take fabulous photos for my 365 project.

Fellow Femme Fatale Dana Cameron was in town, getting a museum fix—the Dead Sea Scrolls are in New York until April. I should catch more exhibits.  And more ballets.  I want to catch up on all my writer friends’ books.  And all those favorite movies they keep recommending.  And write more short stories.

The uncluttered comfort of my hotel room reminded me that I had a long way to go in organizing and decluttering my house.  My knee was acting up, making it hard to keep pace with the fast-paced New York pedestrians, reminding me that I need to get back into the gym to exercise my torn meniscus back into submission.  And why does extremely cold weather always make me want to curl up with seed and plant catalogues and plan the perfect garden?  All things that go into the hopper for 2012.

I can, indeed, do anything this year, but not everything.  And it’s time I sat down and take a hard look at all those daydreams and fantasies; all the wants and musts and oughts.  Put them on the table with the things I’m already committed to do—I have a book due, and responsibilities to people and organizations.

So it’s time to sit down and plan my year.  Get serious about this 2012 thing.  Set some goal for the year and figure out what I need to do for the balance of January to achieve them.

Well, almost time.  I’m setting an appointment with myself for 9 a.m. tomorrow.  Tonight I’m going to spend one last evening building castles in the the air.

 

Comments

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Yeah, Dennis Lehane (;-) ) is funny about his... He says he thinks about his books-in-progress all the time..then he gets home and can't figure out why the manuscript hasn't gotten any longer!

(And Donna...we look at YOU as the role model. So there.)

[Donna Andrews]

Hank, if I am your role model, you are in trouble!

[Mary]

No, no, you're a good role model. :)

It always takes me a few weeks to get moving on a new year's to-do list.

[Donna Andrews]

A good role model in at least one thing: just because you haven't figured out your goals (or resolutions, if you prefer that term) by bedtime on January 1 doesn't mean you've missed the opportunity to do them.

[krisneri]

This is what we've talked about before in our blogs around the end of the year. Change and growth is hard, and to succeed at it, you need to be in a good place mentally to accomplish it. Why should that necessarily fall in line with a date on the calendar? It takes me a while to get going on my goals for the new year, too.

[Donna Andrews]

Good point, Kris, and for a variety of reasons, I wasn't in the right place to do this on January 1. Or January 2. Or . . . you get the idea. But yesterday I made it my number one task of the day, working out those goals. Strangely enough, all day I went back and forth between working on that and procrastinating by doing other small but useful bits of work. Now I'm breaking down the big goals into smaller chunks. Where do I want to be on this one by month-end? And what small chunk of that can I get done TODAY.

I know that I could revise my goals as soon as five minutes from now--I could change my mind, or life could throw a spanner in the works. I'm about as okay with that as I can be.

And strange to say, having a non-trivial list of things I want to accomplish this year doesn't make me feel weighed down--I actually feel lighter. More focused.

[Dana]

Ooh, the thing that slows me down is the "I shoulds," Donna. It takes a bit of brute force and habit to decide, "no, that's not going on the list, not when I have these other things I need to do and want to do." Sometimes, downtime gets the priority.

And...it takes a bit of brute force to decide to DO something, too. The trip to NYC was great--Dead Sea Scrolls and the Renaissance Portrait exhibit at the Met, a book signing, meeting up with MWA friends--but I kept saying, I should be home, getting stuff done, editing a story, doing laundry. Yeah, I'm doubling up on work now, but that sudden "emergency museum fix" impulse was a good one, and charged me up.