Got Goals Blog Hop: Crossing the First Threshold

The Got Goals bloghop is it is a lovely blog hop hosted by the Misha Gericke and Jen Garrett. Once a month writers post about their goals: what they are, what their approach is, how they are coming along. It's a beautiful opportunity to share with and encourage one another as we plunge down the long and winding road of writerdom together.

Check out THIS LINK if you are interested in joining.

My ultimate goal is to make a living off of my writing but I'm breaking that down into more bite sized pieces. I'm moving at a snail pace but at least I am moving. 

So how did I do for April?

I have a theory that the stat of your car says more than anything else does about your state of mind. It it's the place between places. It's the place where you are all alone with no one to impress. your car is not your destination, it is your journey. 

I'm a notoriously bad driver. I'm also notoriously bad at taking care of my car. I'll declutter it, sure. Sometimes I'll even drive it through a car wash. But as soon as that check engine light goes on it's "I'll look into that tomorrow." and "Mechanics aren't trustworthy anyways, they're probably just destroy the car more." and "Well she's still running right? It probably doesn't need to be checked." 

Yeah. 

Those are the kinds of thoughts that had been going through my mind all week when I was on my way to work a couple weeks ago. I was driving on the freeway, worried because I had left the house later than I should have and was probably going to be late. 

Suddenly my car started slowing down. It completely ignored the pressure of my foot on the gas pedal. I heard a crashing sound coming from the engine. Cars were zipping past me, honking. I switched my hazard lights on and tried to pull off the nearest exit but she just kept going slower and slower until I was at a dead stop in the middle of the freeway.

In my rush to leave that morning I had also forgot my phone. I got out of the car and tried to walk down the rest of the off ramp but I was still a lane over and this was the freeway. I realized as soon as I stepped out of the car that that was a terrible plan. Car after car zipped by, honking, angry that I was in their way and making them late. If someone hadn't stopped and called 511 for me I don't know what I would have done.  

After I got off the freeway  to walk to the nearest Starbucks to use their wifi (I didn't have my phone on me but I did have my laptop) so I could message a friend from work and ask her to tell my supervisor that I wouldn't be coming in. I then rented a car so I could get home and use my phone to call a tow truck. 

The repairs ended up being way more than I could afford and I ended up having to trade the car in for a new one. All because I kept ignoring all the little warning lights that kept going off, thinking only of my destination and never of the little engine that was taking me there.

This misfortune was not only an unforeseen circumstance that kept me from getting as much done as I wanted to in April. It also jerked me out of the complacent limbo my mind has been in, caught up in a routine that wasn't making me happy, ignoring all the little warning signs in my life telling me that I am on the wrong path because dealing with them would have been inconvenient. 

Let's hope this mind shift will help me achieve more in May but to recap my April Goals:

• Reconnect with myself. Feed my soul. Find my drive

----- Yoga.  Attend nineteen classes before next update day. I went to none

-----Meditation. Meditate twenty six times for fifteen minutes each time. I didn't really count but I'm going to guess it was around ten times. 

----Go for mindful walks on my break at work. I managed this five or six times. 
----Actually use my sit-stand for a total of thirty eight hours. Again, I didn't count, but I have been doing this a little the last couple weeks. 

---- Drink a total of one hundred and eighty tow glasses of water. I downloaded an app to help me keep track of this. It added up to one hundred. 

• Find True Love. Because it exists

--- Read The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer.  I started the book but haven't finished it yet. 

• Finish writing and publish NIGHT BRIARS

--- Carve out time to write. Ten hours.

Alas, not what I wanted. I may have to push back my release date at the pace I'm going. Fortunately I haven't announced it yet so maybe that's okay. At least I'm getting SOME words done every week.

---Write three slam style poems. 

I did write one! I liked how it turned out. 

---Post on my Author Facebook page twenty five times. 

I posted more than usual but, again, I didn't count. It was not twenty five times. 

--Post on my personal facebook page fifty times. 

I did not count

--Comment on one hundred and fifty facebook posts. 

I did not count

---Participate in Do You Have Goals bloghop. 

I'm  two days late. does that still count? 


--Participate in The Insecure Writer's Support Group bloghop. 

I did this!


--Write and post a book review.

Nope

--Comment on fifty seven new blogs that I genuinely find interesting. Each comment is a quarter toward improv class.

Nope

The reward system didn't really seem to help much for April, mostly because I didn't keep track of what I was and wasn't doing. So it's time to re-strategize again. Unfortunately some of that means I just need to be a little less ambitious. With a full time job and an hour commute I don't have as much time as I did when I wrote my last two books. I know some you all are super heroes and can manage rigorous writing schedules while working full time or raising kids but I am not. 

So these are my goals for May

• Reconnect with myself. Feed my soul. Find my drive

-----Meditate Daily

----Go for walks on my break at work

---- Drink eight cups of water a day

• Find True Love. Because it exists

--- Finish reading The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer.  

• Finish writing and publish NIGHT BRIARS

--- Carve out time to write. Sunday Morning Brunch and Write every week AND an hour of writing time with dinner every night after work.

---Memorize and practice performing my new poem  and one of my old ones

---Spend on hour every night after work on social media. I have a check list for myself of what to do each day, but for simplicity's sake I'll only include the hour of concentrated social media focus in my goals. 

--Attend one writing or literary event

--Attend one Critique Group 

--Post four blog posts

I think focusing on WHEN I am going to do each thing and how much time I will spend on them will help a lot in getting me on track again. Fingers crossed. Wish me luck and I hope your April Goals faired much better. 

Blood and Kissing (Insecure Writer's Support Group)

Hello fellow insecure writers! (If you are an insecure writer but don't know why I just called you one go HERE to find out and connect with other writers!)

It's been difficult to motivate myself to write in the last couple of years. I usually blame it on working full time in the corporate world and living completely on my own and spending so much time in traffic In all honesty though, those are  the excuses I use to avoid the more difficult to admit reasons writing has become harder and harder over the years. 

When I first started writing I was thirteen. I wanted to write a book because . . . I loved books. I figured I would publish it (of course) when it was finished but didn't think much about it. 

It wasn't until I had drafted and edited my third manuscript that I got around to researching how publishing actually works. By then I was nineteen and needed to start thinking about the "What am I going to do with my life?" question in a more tangible way. 

That was eleven years ago. I've learned a lot about literature, publishing and the ever changing writing world in that time. I've written four more manuscripts and published two of them. I've written a handful of short stories and lots of sonnets. I've performed my poetry on stage. I've learned about all this social media and marketing stuff. I've moved from working at a burger joint to working in a cubicle (with lots of interesting stops along the way including the zoo and a German deli). After all this time there's a question I've begun to ask myself that I don't like to admit to anyone that I've been asking.

What's the point of writing?

Not "What's the point of literature?" or "What's the point of reading?" I have very strong beliefs on why storytelling is massively important to us as human beings. It connects us in beautiful, honest, emotive way that nothing else can.

 But why should I specifically continue to write the specific stories that I am writing? 

What am I trying to tell the world?

And, perhaps more pointedly, is the world even listening? 

When I wrote SNOW ROSES it was because I felt like I had a scream in my brain demanding to be smeared onto paper. I obeyed. I spilled the ink out onto the page like blood from my soul. When the book was finished and released out into the world the reviews were positive.

"Great fight scene at the end." My fans said. "You write such beautiful descriptions."

My little writer's heart sank. 

"But, but" I wanted to protest "Did you question the conventions of what love really is? Did you notice the Oedipal relationship between Lucille and the two girls and want to stand up to the authority of the past? Did it make you want to face your fears despite the consequences? Did it CHANGE you?"

 I'm not saying I ever wrote to teach or indoctrinate my readers but the reason SNOW ROSES came out of me with such force and intensity is that the thoughts and emotions encapsulated in it are very dear to my heart. I've read so many books, especially when I was younger,  that really made me question the way I saw the world. Those were some of my very favorite reading experiences. I wanted to create something like that for my readers. 

When you examine the writing market today it's hard not to feel gloomy. In our current society we've all experienced the feeling that everyone's screaming to be heard but nobody's listening but --for me at least--it runs deeper than that.

As a reader I am finding it harder and harder to find books I actually enjoy. The market is so saturated with stories that are all more or less the same. Even most of the covers look the same. And they're being published so fast. I really only have time to keep up with a few of my very favorite series-- mostly by authors who debuted more than ten years ago when it was still possible to tell authors apart. 

 At bookstores I find myself staring at all the identical covers decorated with author names I've never heard of and blurbs swearing up and down that they contain concepts no one else has thought of before with lots and lots of blood and kissing, trying to guess which one --if any-- are actually worth my time.. More and more I find myself steering away from the noisy, overwhelming fiction section and purchasing copies of titles like "How to Talk to Anyone" and "Being Peace". 

So why should I add to the noise? What value am I really giving the world by producing another dark romance with a rose on the cover? 

I believe in the depth behind the stories I am telling. But do my readers? Do my readers care about the depth and growth of my characters? Do they care about what sorts of mindsets and insights the plots lead them to? Or are they just in it for the blood and kissing? 

And if they don't care, should I? Aren't I producing something for them? Shouldn't I be giving them what they want? 

But I do care. 

 I will keep writing, of course. The stories want to be told whether they are ever fully understood or not. Perhaps a story --and life for that matter-- is not meant to be understood. Perhaps it is just meant to be.