Lowering My Standards!

IMG_0439I had an epiphany last week. “Oh, no, not another bloody epiphany!” Yes, another one. Once again I realized that if I lowered my expectations (and standards) amazing things happen.

My writing goal for the year is to write 5,000 new words a week. That’s a measly 1,000 words a day, five days a week. About twice as many words as this blog post. Maybe an hour or two at the computer.

Last year, I had much larger goal – or so I thought. But they were story goals. Write one every two weeks. I thought I’d easily write twice that many words in a day. NOT. I wasn’t happy with what I ended up with at the end of the year, but thought at least I could do 5,000 words a week this year. Even during school breaks I could manage that measly amount.

So, as it turns out, I sit down to write and after a thousand words I’m into the story and my brain says, ‘well maybe I’ll write just to the end of this scene or another few paragraphs’. And I’m finding that I’ve been adding several hundred or maybe an extra thousand words each day. So that after four weeks I’ve written over 26,000 words and have finished four stories! Woot!

I’m feeling very happy about all this. I still have to wrap my mind around learning some new software to get them published, since my old software, Pages from iworks, has failed me with their last update. They screwed up too many things for me to use it anymore. But I’ll get to that next month after I’m done digging out all the paperwork and numbers needed for taxes.

As for the other resolutions, I’m doing okay with some of them. However, I’m failing miserably at the getting outside and exercising thing. I sifted sand once this month. That’s not going to get the patio done soon. Gotta step up the pace. The cold weather isn’t encouraging and I’ve been a total cold wimp this winter, preferring to sit inside at my computer, huddled in front of the heater. But it’s still on my calendar and the days are getting warmer, so I haven’t given up totally, mostly because I really, really want to sit out on that patio and write this summer!

The garden’s waking up with Hellebores (the photo above is of one of my favorites, just coming in to bloom), witch hazels, Sarcocca, Cyclamen, snowdrops and all sorts of other little goodies. I love this time of year, when the trees are bare and every little bloom is precious. It feels like yes, it’s possible the ornamental plants might win over the weeds this year. By May I’ll feel totally disillusioned by all that. No time for weeding. There are patios to make!

So that’s it for now. I’ve got to go find papers with numbers on them and get everything organized. Want to get the taxes done as soon as possible. There are braces to buy for the child!



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