Kristin Rides

OK, OK… they’re really resolutions. I guess. I was going to write a really long wrap up of all the crap that happened over the past year, lessons I’ve learned, yadda yadda, but I’m going to stick to my last post. This is what my novel is. While it might not be factually accurate, it tell a tale much richer and deeper than any extended blog post could ever hope to tell.

So, skipping that, I will head straight for some goals I’ve been working on and would like to make public, because as everyone knows, once everyone knows you have a goal set forth, you will do anything to avoid the ridicule of your peers. Even if that means actually having to achieve the goal; I can readily point to NaNoWriMo as a great example of this in action. If I hadn’t pronounced to everyone I know (and even people I don’t know) that not only will I write a novel, but that it will be coherent and quite possibly brilliant, well. I was pretty much fucked, and spent the last 3 days madly writing the last half of it, simply so that I didn’t have to tell everyone that I am a huge fat failure.

So. Here goes.

1. Near Daily Yoga Practice. I actually did this for a year and a half and have gotten away from it; the key is doing it right when you get out of bed. No excuses. Except maybe the weekend.
2. Find Stillness. This is way too general to be a real achievable goal, but I’m putting it in anyway, because it’s a big part of the reason for the return to daily yoga practice. I would like to incorporate some meditation into that practice as well; I have spent the last two years overly stressed, letting my frantic mind run around freely, stressing me out, making me over think everything, it’s really starting to effect me in a bad way. In some ways making myself over stressed and constantly busy is a crutch; if I were still, it means I would have to face myself. An actually actionable  part of achieving this stillness goal will be:
3. Major Reduction in Email/Facebook Time. In an ideal world, I would simply not use the internet in the evening. But given that I am often working in the evening, this is not possible. Also, if a project is really getting to me in a bad way, I start obsessively checking my email. So. I haven’t decided exact numbers here, but I’m thinking sticking to a check once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once in the evening seems pretty reasonable.
4. More Accountability, Concentration and Time Management. I tend to end up working evenings and weekends because I waffle around not working when I should be working. It would be much more efficient and less stressful if I simply worked really hard the hours I wanted to work, so I could really relax the hours I want to be off. I think banning emailing/facebooking will be a key factor, as well as setting up hours when I absolutely won’t work (for some reason this tends to be more effective then setting up hours that I absolutely will work).

There are many other things I could stand to improve, but won’t be making any life altering changes in the near future. For instance, I have absolutely no idea how much money I made this year. Not a clue. I couldn’t even guess within $10,000, that’s how little I keep track of my spending habits. Yes, I know. Not good. I’m also surprising myself by not including any eating/health related resolutions. I think I’ve made enough of those to last a lifetime, and I’m in a pretty good place with that right now. I know what needs to happen. Just gotta git er done.

I think some of the outcomes of the above will acheive my creative aspirations, which include:

1. Finish novel editing and send out for review, eventually sending out to publishers
2. Write another one, or short stories
3. Figure out this business thing
4. Start playing piano again
5. Sing and play guitar, and not sound like crap. Maybe even write some songs.

Like how I tucked in “figure out this business thing”? More on that later.