Friday is Finally Here!

It's been a tough week and a half.  Mid-week last week, I was hit with an asthma attack.  They're rare, but when they come along, it's like being being slammed head-on by a semi.  No warning, just WHAM!  I struggled through the weekend, felt better on Sunday, and decided to do a little weed-eating in the backyard.  Bad decision.  By Monday, I couldn't walk ten steps without thinking I would never be able to take another breath.  I went to the health care clinic Tuesday morning, spent almost $200 on an inhalation treatment and meds, and was breathing fairly well again by that night.  It's been better each day since then.

Oh, did I mention that when I got up on Mother's Day, I discovered the power supply on my computer had died?  I ordered a new one on Monday, it arrived late Wednesday afternoon, and I had it installed just after midnight.  Four days with no computer.  It's tough enough when the internet goes down for a day or two, but MY COMPUTER?

Now you know why there have been no blogs.

My plans for the weekend?  No weed-eating, that's for sure.  Gutting my office may be the best thing to do, since I've been thinking about it for months and getting nothing done.  Or my bedroom.  Or the kitchen.  There's always plenty of things waiting to be done, aren't there?  Friday comes along at the end of a work week, then flips over to Saturday, when all the other things in life need attending.  The one thing I can honestly say that there's never a time when there's nothing to do.  I've totally forgotten what being bored is.  I guess that's what makes life exciting.

Now that school is almost done for the year, I'm looking at what I want to accomplish, beginning next Friday, the FIRST DAY OF SUMMER VACATION!  (Whatever a "vacation" is.)

I'm working on edits for a book I plan to self-publish, hopefully this summer.  Set on the coast of Maine, the 3-book mini-series follows the Divine Misfits, three high school best friends who have gone different ways, but are coming together again after the death of the fourth misfit. I'll take you along on this crazy ride into the new publishing platform and share the ups and downs.  It promises to be interesting, if nothing else.

 I also have a three-book proposal for three half-brothers, who inherit a ghost town in Texas, to work on for Harlequin American.  It's going slowly.  Agonizingly slow.  I'm hoping that by doing the edits on the ebook above, I'll get my mind back into writing again.


And I have a couple of announcements.  My next Harlequin American, THE COWBOY MEETS HIS MATCH, the next to last book of the Desperation (Hearts of Desperation) mini-series will be available in August.  This story is close to my heart, as it centers around Erin Walker and her long-ago love, Jake Canfield.

One Big Secret…

Broke and in need of a job, barrel racer Erin Walker has returned home after years of traveling the rodeo circuit. But the only job available is working for the man who broke her heart and left her pregnant and alone. Not a day goes by that she doesn't wonder about the son she and Jake had, whether he's happy with his adoptive parents or what her life would have been like if the three of them had become a family.

Jake Canfield just wants to get close to Erin again and perhaps rekindle what they once had. But is that possible? It depends on the sudden appearance of the one person who could bring them closer together!

Stop by my website, RoxannDelaney.com, for more about THE COWBOY MEETS HIS MATCH (my 15th book!) and an excerpt.  I'm planning a few give-aways and contests, so stay tuned here and on my author page on Facebook.  If you haven't visited there, please stop by. The last of the series will be available in April 2015, and then we'll hopefully be off to Hallelujah, Texas, and those ghosts!

Last but not least, my five Silhouette Romance books are available as Silhouette Romance Classic ebooks.

RACHEL'S RESCUER, my very first published book and the first of my SilRoms, won the Maggie Award in 1999 and set me on the path to publication.  It was also a National Reader's Choice Award Finalist in 2001.  You can find them at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, among others.

So there's my plan.  My Friday plan, at least, spilling over into summer.  Do you have a plan?  Have you been working on goals?  Because now is the best time to get started on those!  Feel free to share, because your enthusiasm will spill onto others, and how great is that?

The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. ~ Christopher McCandless

Crash & Burn

The past week as been...  Well, exhausting would be a good description.  A week ago today, I did a final polish on To Love a Cowboy (working title) and sent it off to my editor and agent.  One major thing crossed off a very long To Do list.

The funeral of my friend Mickie (see blog post below) was held on Thursday.  A sad day, brightened only by getting to see (and hug!) old high school friends, then a chance to spend some time with one of my BFFs.  Plans went awry, and I hurried back to the city to pick up the youngest  granddaughter and, later, the daily chore of picking up the other four g-kids from two schools.  After getting out of bed and hour earlier than usual to take oldest granddaughter to school, Friday was spent catching up on little details, then running through the usual pick-up-the-g-kids and the normal catch-up with other things, such as websites, email, Facebook...

By the weekend, I was ready to do as little as possible, but a request from my youngest daughter late in the day to run a shopping errand for Christmas things too precedence.  Then supper at oldest daughter's and off to bed.  Sunday turned out to be a sleep-in day, then hurrying to catch up on the time spent sleeping.

Somewhere, exhaustion set in, which dribbled into Monday and lasted through the day and a too-late night.  Then yesterday, momentum picked up.  Catching up with laundry and cleaning a bedroom took up the day and early evening.  At least the clean bedroom provided a catalyst to get up and move.

Now I'm back to Wednesday again, with all but one thing left to get done of the dozen on the To Do list.  The plan had been to take the week to do much-needed cleaning.  While the bedroom isn't completely finished, my office disaster, thanks to deadlines since July, needs immediate attention.  I'm still trying to find out how the belongings of others find their way into a room that should be exclusively mine.  Okay, mine, the cats' and the dog's.  Oh, and Johnny Depth, the Beta fish.

At least the center of my desk is relatively clear.  That's a good thing, because tomorrow I'll be working on AFS (Art Fact Sheets) for the book coming out next August.  What's an AFS?  It's information about and photos of the main characters of the book, with three scene descriptions and a short and sassy thirty-word teaser about the book.  All for the cover.  But that's for tomorrow and the weekend, if necessary.

If the old saying, "No rest for the wicked" is true, I rank right up there with the Wicked Witch of the West.  But even she crashed and burned.  Okay, she melted.  And that's how I'd been feeling for the past week, until, as in the Broadway play and book, Wicked, by Gregory Maguire, Elphaba rose again.  (For those who haven't seen or read Wicked, that's all I'm going to say. ::wink:: )

November is coming to a close in only a week and a half.  And then the crazy month of December descends on us.  We shall overcome!  Or at least I will.  Determination at its best.

Friday's blog topic?  Writing tips...but which one?

 Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward. ~ Kurt Vonnegut  

Vacation? Not on the List of Things to Do.

Yesterday, life changed.  Why?  It was the first day of summer vacation for our local schools.  That meant that it was also the first day we were invaded by the children of my children.  Four of them, plus the three-year-old, who is here throughout the school year, will spend the weekdays with us, until sometime in August.  I haven't yet counted the weeks.

When does the writing get done?  Whenever there's a little piece of peace and quiet.  Rare, but it does happen, even in the middle of the day.

Staying up late and working into the wee hours isn't an option for me, even during the school year.  Setting a schedule of writing from 8 to 3 or any specified time doesn't work either.  Not only are the grandchildren a constant during the week, but I also own a website design company, and requests for updates come in randomly.  But the writing still gets done, although it isn't a constant each and every day.

One of the things that helps me is the BIAW program that my writing group has twice a month.  We post our page goal for the week (first and third Sunday and ends on the following Sunday) and report the number after the last day.  My participation has been spotty this year, I'll admit, but for this week, I decided to jump in with both feet.  My goal is 40 pages.  Not so bad when factoring in that we have eight days, which breaks it down to 5 pages a day.  It's doable, but requires actually putting words to paper, sometimes after a day that screams for sleep.

This week didn't start out well.  Our group's meeting was scheduled for that third Sunday.  Because we're wrapping up a writing contest and I'm the coordinator, Sunday morning meant tallying scores sent by members who judged to determine who won.  Of course the numbers didn't add up correctly, because I was rushing to get it done, so it took more time than it should have.  With the final tally done, I had barely enough time to shower and dress, then drive to the meeting.  Except...  As I was climbing out of the shower, the tornado sirens went off in our city.  I grabbed clothes and fumbled around as I gathered the things needed to head for my oldest daughter's house, three blocks away.  The meeting was, of course, cancelled.  We were lucky and received only large hail, high winds, and a whole lot of rain, instead of what could have happened.

Monday was taken up by website work, until school was out.  After dropping off the others, I left to take my oldest granddaughter to her ice skating lessons.  Ten minutes before it was over, someone turned on the television, and I saw the pictures of the tornado that had destroyed a large area of Moore, Oklahoma.  Once home, we spent the day checking on friends in the devastated area and watching the news.  By Tuesday, the images were still burned into my brain, but I finished the website work started the day before and took donations to the ice rink for the tornado victims, while my granddaughter had another lesson.  The evening called for other things and writing was forgotten.

Along came Wednesday, with it's usual interruptions that included a Kindergarten graduation and a 5th Grade graduation.  Another day to write sinking quickly.  Once the house emptied of small people after school--the Last Day!--I sat down at the computer.  At that point, I had a total of 3 pages the day before, although I don't remember when.  It wasn't a good start, but I'd managed to write those 702 words in bits and pieces of time.  By evening, I was at my desk and netted another 4 pages (768 words), finishing a chapter.  I then moved on to a new chapter.  By the end of the day, I'd added another 7.  Wednesday's total was 11 pages.  Word count for the day was 2394.  I was up to 14 pages for the week.  Not bad for three days of sheer madness.

Thursday (yesterday) I hunkered down at my desk, amid total chaos of the first day of School's Out for the Summer, and by late night, there were 11 new pages (2224 words).  I now have 25 pages written toward that 40-page goal.  Only 15 pages to go.  I'm determined to reach it.  After all, today is only FRIDAY, and the weekend promises some quiet writing time.  Still, I wonder what and who will come along to interrupt the flow of words, because I know something or someone will.

While I'd hoped I would have the first draft of this book written by tomorrow (dream big!), it won't happen.  That doesn't mean I'll stop.  Being behind can be inspiration to keep going, to keep working toward the goal.  One bad day or even a string of them, doesn't mean it's time to quit.  Writing every day helps keep the brain in writing gear, even if it's only a page or even 100 words.  Unfortunately, life can come along and keep that from happening.

The key is to set goals.  These should be reasonable goals, set with the knowledge of the amount of time necessary to complete, along with accepting that there were always be obstacles.  Learn to work around them and overcome them.  If a goal falls short, don't toss it aside.  Continue toward it, because in time, the goal can be reached.

Once your goal is met, you can celebrate.  Take some time off to enjoy yourself.  But don't let it take over.  Even though it's summer, we still have priorities to set and work to do.  I intend to make this a prosperous time, where writing is concerned.  You'll find that life has new meaning and that pride can lead to success.

Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.   ~ Tony Robbins 

Life is Full of...Stuff

It's raining.  Not that it matters.  At least it isn't snowing, as it did this past Tuesday night.  Not just a few flakes, but at least half an inch.  In April.  Late April.  Not December or even January or February.  April.  And this after the 20+ inches from the big snow in March.  Yeah, I'll take the rain.  We need it badly...if the snow and freezing temps didn't kill off every living green thing around.

Tuesday night was the first time I had a chance to kick back and not think about anything.  I watched a movie on HBO, then another on Wednesday night.  I think that's a record.  Movie/TV watching has been at a minimum this year.  Especially the past two weeks.

The middle of those two weeks were spent on writing three chapters and two synopses.  Something like 71 pages, plus plotting-in-a-rush.  Plus a daughter with a shattered back car window.  Tape was needed to keep a little rain out, so I went to the store and bought some for her.  Then half of Monday was spent picking kids up to take to school, a granddaughter who needed a ride to school, another granddaughter to an appointment, then to school, and topped off by a call from the school nurse, who'd run out of meds for oldest grandson.  I decided I needed a vacation.  Or an award.  Or at least one day of rest.

Rest doesn't come when needed.  Not ever.  Not even on weekends.  With three website jobs waiting, I'm still at the computer with no extra time.  Oh, okay.  I took a 3-hour nap yesterday evening.  It was that or get knocked out by my head hitting the desk.  With my luck, that kind of thing would give me a concussion.

Facebook, Twitter, Linkdin, Pinterest and all the rest have taken a backseat to bigger priorities.  In a couple of weeks, the current priorities will be finished and new will have arrived.  In another month, there'll be five kids between the ages of 3 and almost 12 to watch over, keep fed, and above all, keep safe.  We'll see how well that works.

Very few people have a life--or even consecutive days--of nothing to do.  Well, kids, do.  We know that because by the second week of summer vacation, we hear a continuous chorus of "I'm bored.  I don't have anything to do-o-o-o."  Anyone with children...or who have been one in the long ago past...can remember those days.  But we aren't kids.  We have responsibilities, jobs, families, and rarely enough time to do all of those things well.

So what do we do when life is full of stuff?  We schedule.  But what happens when the schedule becomes too full, leaving us with no extra time to simply kick back and relax?  Scheduling fun seems a bit forced, but if the time comes that it has to happen, when the body is near the point of collapse and the mind is too full of "musts" and "have-tos," when we stay up later to get things done and deprive ourselves of needed R&R, we really don't have a choice.

In Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, taking one day a week for an "artist's date" is strongly encouraged.  Mandatory, even.  One day to get away (as if that's going to happen in my life) to enjoy the things around us.  Get out, take a walk, visit a museum a park or a mall, or simply sit in the backyard/on the patio/the deck/the balcony/the beach, and do nothing.  If sitting and doing nothing is difficult--it is for me--read or watch a movie, especially a favorite.  Sleep, if needed.  Let yourself go, at least for a little while, and refill the well of not only creativity, but of life.  Good things will happen.

It's definitely time to take my own words of advice.

The great omission in American life is solitude; not loneliness, for this is an alienation that thrives most in the midst of crowds, but that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incubator of the spirit.  ~Marya Mannes

Surviving the Insanity

We've all experienced those times when we wonder if we'll beat the craziness that's descended on us.  For me, it's been the past 2+ weeks.  And it isn't getting better.

For the past few weeks, I've been working on what I hope will be the last (or last two) books in my Hearts of Desperation series.  It's time to bring an end to what has become, at this time, eight books, set in and around the fictional town of Desperation, Oklahoma.  To do that, there are storylines that need to be wrapped up.  For instance, there's an 80-something woman, who's been seen following/chasing an 80-something man around town for many years.  They have their own story to tell and maybe find their own happy-ever-after.  Babies have been born...with maybe a few more to come...and the children who have appeared early on, have grown in the last five years.  Couples have married and are settling in to enjoy small town life.  I've loved writing these books and the characters in them.  They're like good friends and a part of me.  But it's time to bring it all full circle and say goodbye to them.

You're probably asking what that has to do with surviving insanity.  Easy answer.  After surviving a week+ of Spring Break last month, we now have two more days of no school with grandkids--5 of them--to keep safe and somehow entertained.  It may be mid-April, but the weather today says it's late February.  Cold.  Rain.  Dreary.  Not the best environment for fun and games.  At present, the oldest and youngest boys (8 and 5), are doing their best to destroy my living room, with help from the youngest girl, who's 3.  The two older girls (10 and 11) are across the street, avoiding the mayhem with a friend.  By the way, the "we" above is myself and my youngest daughter, the aunt of the five.

And I'm trying to write.

I need to write.  I have to write.  The characters in my head are calling to me to tell their story.  We've been down this road before.  This is the third round for them, but this time we've hit on a winner.  Or hoping we've hit on a winner. ☺  But trying to write, while blood-curdling screams are coming from another room, just isn't easy.

I've already missed two weeks of blogging, and I decided that this time, I wasn't going let that happen again.   So here I am.  No special topic today, no writing about the art and craft of storytelling.  Only a simple statement to assure everyone that there are days...and more days...when the outside world can't always be shut off from the world we live in while creating.  As the Rolling Stones so aptly put it, you don't always get what you want.

With one chapter done, I'm itching to move on.  I'll do what I can, between saving the lamp with the now damaged shade and mourning the folding table I expect to collapse from the weight of two boys, who simply don't understand that it is not made of strong wood.  It's a fort, a cave, a place to hide out, while watching a movie.  For now, it's relatively quiet, but I really should go check on that crash I heard.

It is only when we silence the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts.  ~K.T. Jong

The Downside of 3-Day Weekends

WRITING WEDNESDAYS

The first three-day weekend of the new school year has just passed, and I'm still scratching my head over what happened to all those best laid plans.

Yes, I know.  Three-day weekends are supposed to be wonderful.  This Labor Day weekend was not.  At least it wasn't wonderful in the sense that it went according to plan, that I was able to scratch things off my list and enjoy the days.

Scarlett & Allie with Darth

On Saturday, my plan was to write the last chapter of Designs on the Cowboy. Instead, #3 daughter Chelsea (#3D) decided to take me, #4D Mallory, and her two nieces Allie and Scarlett to the Star Wars exhibition in town for the final three days.  Yes, I could have said no, but miss seeing all that great Star Wars stuff?  (Remember, I'm old enough to have seen Episode IV in the theater when it first came out.)  So the hour or so that she assured me was all the time it would take became the whole afternoon.  That included about a 1/3 round of mini-golf in the upper 90s heat.  Evening was spent at #1D Sabrina's for dinner and insanity.
Saturday was blown, but worth it.

On Sunday I finished writing the last chapter aka the book is finished.  First draft, anyway.  (By the way, it went on and on and on and will have to be severely cut before calling the whole thing "done".)  Monday was spent trying to figure out where I lost control of my weekend and life.  Nothing that I'd planned, except the finish of that last chapter, was accomplished over the three-day weekend.

So here's how it went down:

• Monday (Labor Day) was a non-day.  No blog post even considered, since I was trying to discover where the weekend had gone.
• Tuesday was, well, it was Monday, but it wasn't Monday enough to blog about.
• Wednesday was Tuesday, and there's really nothing to a Tuesday, so I worked on websites due at the end of this (insane) week.
• Thursday (today) is Wednesday, so I'm writing/typing this blog.

The question now becomes:  Is tomorrow really Friday?

Next three-day weekend?  Sometime next year.  Maybe that's a good thing, after all. :)

I could easily escape to a hotel for a weekend and do absolutely nothing. ~  David Boreanaz

There's a Reason They're Called Deadlines

MOTIVATION MONDAYS

Writers aren't the only ones who have deadlines.  Many others do, too.  Teachers have teaching and grading deadlines to meet each quarter, businesses have payroll deadlines to meet, and the IRS has tax deadlines.  Appropriate for the day before taxes are due, isn't it?

Right now I'm facing a deadline to finish writing the full manuscript of a book.  This will be the seventh story set in Desperation, Oklahoma, and will introduce two new characters who are brothers and the new women who win their hearts.  Characters from previous books will, of course, make appearances and be a part of the two stories.  I've really enjoyed writing this series and am looking forward to finishing this story and meeting the May 10 deadline, so I can start on the next one.

I'll be one of the first to admit that it was easier to write when deadlines were nothing to get excited about and no one was waiting for a finished product.  I could write at my own pace, which, by the way, was much faster than it is now!  Sometimes learning how to do it better means doing it a little slower.  That doesn't mean that I didn't try to set a pace and have a finish date of some kind in mind.  Because I entered contests fairly often and always had a complete manuscript of my entry, I knew ahead of time when I wanted to have the manuscript finished.  Part of that had to do with never writing a synopsis until the "book" was finished.  Just one more thing I had to learn to do differently later on.

Deadlines are those goals we make and need motivation to reach.  My motivation at the moment is to not disappoint my editor by having to ask for an extension.  Even though I'm behind schedule, it isn't an impossibility to finish on the time.  It will, however, mean I have to work harder and faster.  It's easy to start out with a positive attitude, but it's just as easy to become more negative as time goes by.  Characters become uncooperative.  Plot points that seemed perfect before now seem weak.  Time to write becomes harder to come by and family/job/life requires more time than writing will allow.

If your goals aren't being as easily met as you'd hoped and planned; if external things have taken up time that you'd planned to spend writing or working on your goal, now isn't the time to give up. Pull up the boot straps of determination, take a deep breath, and throw in a dash of positive energy for good measure.  As we used to say at CataRomance, BICHOK (Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard) and start writing.  There's no guarantee that you'll hit that deadline, but you'll come closer to doing it, if you just keep your eye on the deadline and move in that direction.

Oh! I nearly forgot.  Why do they call them deadlines?  Because we'll kill ourselves to get to the finish line. ;)

Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than before. ~ Polybius

Motivation Shmotivation

MOTIVATION MONDAYS

It isn't easy to stay motivated 24/7/365.  Sometimes even a well-placed swift kick won't do the trick.  I was all geared up to blog about how I've been motivated to get some much needed exercise.  The weather had warmed up, and I like to walk.  I just don't like to walk when it's raining or cold or very hot.  I'm obviously not a dedicated walker.  Then my youngest daughter suggested that we get a couple of bicycles, so just over a week ago, we did just that.  After all, more calories are burned riding a bicycle than walking.  What more could I ask for?

My oldest daughter decided biking was the perfect addition to her exercise routine and got herself a new bike, so the three of us, plus youngest granddaughter did some riding this weekend.  Then yesterday that same granddaughter called to ask if I was interested in riding again.  I gave in.  All in all, over the past eight days, I've ridden just over twelve miles.  The secret?  Motivation.  Mine and others.  Did I mention that I don't care to remember how many years have gone by since I've last ridden a bike?  Yeah.  My body is still adjusting.  Oh, is it adjusting!

As long as one of us is motivated to ride, I'm sure we'll continue.  It's too hard to say no.  In fact, yesterday I should have said no, because I was smack in the middle of the WIP, with a deadline that is looming closer and closer, while I'm not making my page count the way I should.

Let's face it.  It isn't easy to stay motivated all the time for one thing, much less three or four or more.  Sadly, that deadline is not motivating me to write, and the bike riding is beginning to become an excuse to keep me away from writing.  Add two young grandkids here during weekdays, and writing time is often impossible to find.  I'm still behind on my writing schedule, in spite of all my good intentions of getting caught up and back on track.

Houston, we have a problem.  There aren't enough hours in the day to do everything and sleep, so something needs to be done...SOON!

Penny Rader, a longtime friend, passed a link along on Twitter, so of course I had to check it out.  The source blog---Left-Brained Business for Write-Brained People---also looks amazing and merits repeat visits, but it was the blog title that caught my attention. Why Don't You Have Time to Write?  Check it out.  It's definitely worth sharing, saving, printing, and re-reading.  A great reminder to all of us and especially me!

He who hesitates is lost. ~ Proverb

Time March-es On

MOTIVATION MONDAYS

Yes, I know it's Tuesday and I'm already running behind this week.  But the plan is to catch up...at least on as much as possible.  I have a legitimate excuse.  The invasion of five kids over five (make the seven) days of school-not-in-session can do a number on a person's motivation.  But Spring Break is over, and three of the five kids are back in school.  Life could return to normal...if only we knew what normal is.  We're trying.

Included in the trying was to at least make some progress on the writing goal.  My writing group's BIAW (Book In A Week) ended Sunday, and I'm happy to say that in spite of a crazy week, I met my goal +2 pages.  Although I wish it had been more, I'm not going to complain.  Progress was made and, in the end, that's what counts.

I'll be honest.  I didn't have a lot of faith that I'd make make 20 pages I'd declared as my goal.  It was mostly hit and miss, with a couple of pages here and another page there.  And then everything fell apart.  I was over halfway through it when I started wondering about details.  I called my Love Inspired author friend, Patricia Davids, and asked for help on medical points.  I wasn't happy to be told that I was right about being on the wrong track, but I didn't let it stop me.  When there's a roadblock, the best thing to do is fix it or find a way around it and keep going.  I chose the latter, and I'll return later during edits to rewrite the parts of the scenes that won't work with the changes made.  In the end, it will be correct, and I'm thankful to Pat for helping me with it.

While most of my goals are writing related, not all of them are.  In addition to writing goals, writers have others and need motivation, just like everyone else.  Each one of us could do with a healthy dose of motivation every day.

There are times in our lives when getting out of bed in the morning is nearly impossible.  Giving in to pulling the covers over our heads and avoiding whatever it is that needs facing or doing isn't going to change anything.  Getting up and moving and living might be hard sometimes, but in the long run, we can't hide forever.  It's amazing what a little action can accomplish and lead to reaching a goal, no matter how large or small.

Do you fee like you're in a dead-end job and need to look for a new one?  A new job probably won't come knocking on your door, but if you start looking, one just might appear.  Make a goal to spend thirty minutes a day doing job searches and applying for jobs you're qualified to do.

If, like mine, areas of your home need some attention, set a goal to give that attention and clear the clutter, paint the walls, or whatever needs to be done.  Remember to break down your goal into several manageable sizes, and before you know it, you'll reach it, with the reward of nicer space.

Need to lose some extra pounds, especially now that summer is nearly here?  It's amazing what even a small handful of lost pounds can do for the figure and the ego.  Set a goal.  Mallory, my youngest (who's dieting and exercising), and I decided over a week ago that, now that the weather is warming, we were going to start walking again.  And then the rain hit last week.  By the time the Spring Breakers were gone each day, it was getting too dark to walk anywhere.  That doesn't mean we've given up on our goal to walk. Unless the rain returns today, we'll pick up where we left off...at the start of our goal.

Whatever your goal, it takes working at it, even when life tries to throw a monkey wrench in the works.  Keep trying, and one day you'll be surprised that progress is being made and the goal is in sight, after all.  It truly is amazing what you can do when you try. :)

The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself. ~ Mark Caine

The Uphill Climb

The goals are set, the gathering is done, and the time to get words to paper has not only arrived, it's moving along swiftly.  Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the writing.  Words still aren't on paper, and this is Day #3.

It's my fault.  Or half of this is my fault, the other half was not being pre-prepared.  Yes, that's a new word.  It means that when you know something could happen that will cause need for preparation before starting, some preparation planning (pre-preparing) is called for.  I didn't pre-prepare.  It comes from never having enough faith in myself and thinking the worst.  One more very bad habit I am working hard to change.

I am getting words written, just not on the writing project with solid deadlines.  And while the knowledge that deadlines are met one step at a time is carved into my psyche, life has had a way of playing games with that psyche this week.

For instance, Monday was a day spent gathering.  The things that are part of preparation to write needed to be done, and I hadn't even considered doing them.  A string of rejections was the basis, but the cause was my inability to take action.  I was stymied.

Yesterday afternoon (late) had been targeted for getting caught up.  That meant not only making Day #2 word /page count, but Day #1's, also.  Certainly doable.  But thanks to my car breaking down, leading to a 1 mile walk home from the school with three grandkids, followed by worry of how to get along without car until fixed, I couldn't wrap my mind around anything that resembled the story that needed those words written.  So, okay, that could be remedied on Day #3.

That brings us to today.  Parts of it have been spent on moving said car from breakdown spot to my daughter's driveway, where my son-in-law can take a look at it.  Then there were several calls to the dealership to see if parts were available.  Uh, no, of course not.  It's an older car and part needed was discontinued.  As it turns out, this means there's a major problem, which someone (I hope) is now in charge of.  Someone besides me, that is.

I've now gone from a 4-5 page goal to an 8-10 page goal, and I'm now looking at a 12-15 page goal for today, just to catch up and be on track.  Let's face it, it happens to each and every one of us at one time or another.  I tell myself it's only 15 pages, and I've done that much before without a problem.  And then I tell myself again.  If I keep repeating it enough, as I sit and look at a blank screen, magic could happen.

But waiting for magic could take more time than I have to waste, so it looks like I'll just have to do this one word at a time.  The good that will come out of this is that once a few words are written, others follow more easily.  In time, there will be moments--long ones, even--when they actually flow without pain.

And that's what the uphill climb is all about.  From zero to tens of thousands is definitely a reach, but it's not impossible.  Am I ready for this?  You bet!  Are you ready to work on your goal today?  I hope so.  Let's get started!

"The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one's feet." - Lao-tzu (corrected translation of the popular "The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.")

Happy 2012!

Yes, I'm late.  Not the best way to start the new year.  But sometimes we don't have control over what happens or at least we can use some of those happenings we do have control over to procrastinate.

As June Carter Cash sang in the song Time's A Wastin', ♪ ♫ "A cake's no good if you don't mix the batter and bake it." ♫ ♪

While I'm not much for making New Year's Resolutions that are quickly broken, I do sometimes make goals for the year.  This year I didn't.  My goals haven't really changed, but I am looking at them in a different way.  I know what it takes to reach them.  The problem comes when it's time to take that action.  Sometimes there are things that come along to keep us from working on our goals.  That's what happened to me this past week.

Early on Friday morning, two guys arrived to put the new siding on my house.  Not long ago, we had a new roof put on, so I knew it wouldn't be a normal time while they were working.  What I didn't realize was how long it would take or how intrusive it would be.  I tried writing on Friday, because my goal had been to finish the proposals I was working on and send them to my agent.  But the pounding and hammering on the walls (especially thin ones with no insulation) was a whole lot louder than I'd expected.  Concentration--at least the kind needed for writing--was almost nil.  They were there until after dark.  The same thing happened on Saturday.  Very little writing and revising got done, and because it was New Year's Eve, we had plans to go to my oldest daughter's for the evening.  We were a tad late, but well before the magic hour of midnight.  With the thought in mind that the next day was not only a Sunday, but a holiday, as well, we planned to sleep in late, after staying up into the wee hours of the morning.

We were WRONG.  At 8:15 in the morning on Sunday, I was awakened by what sounded like a sledgehammer on the wall next to my bed.  They're baaaaack!  I was not a happy camper, but there was very little I could do about it.  I managed a few paragraphs.  Yesterday (Monday) the siding was finally in place, and the workers left in mid-afternoon.  Hooray!

The result of the past few days is a super looking house...and the fact that I'm four days behind.  I no longer have time to play and must make up for lost time.  Somehow.

Is being behind schedule only three days into the new year a bad omen?  I hope not!  I'm determined to make this the best year yet, no matter what comes along to try to mess up my plans.

For me, 2012 starts today!

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.

- Oprah Winfrey