Home - is where I want to be / But I guess I'm already there /I come home -
she lifted up her wings /
Guess that this must be the place...
- Talking Heads, "Naive Melody"

Friday, December 14, 2012

2012 Goals Revisited

This has been a weird, weird year.

I went to Taos Toolbox and spent two weeks in the company of other writers. I learned a lot, I saw a lot of new things, and it was awesome.

I got a new job, which pays me more than I deserve and is an opportunity to learn new professional skills.

I wrote 45k words of a new novel, then decided that this one requires actual research, so I'm trying to do that (it takes a lot of time). I wrote 80k words of Avengers movie fan-fiction; I'm still not sure why, but it's been interesting. I've never really understood the phenomenon of fandom, and I'm not sure I do even now that I am part of it.

I've read a lot of comic books, trying to educate myself about the history of the genre.

I look at this list and get horribly depressed and feel like I have failed at life. I do recognize that this doesn't make much sense.

A lot of stuff didn't get done. My "things to do" list got completely neglected. The apartment is in a perpetual state of chaos (and maybe with three kids just can't be any other way). My commitment to other people's birthdays never seems to make it through the summer. Every time we get some financial progress, we get hit with some unplanned expense. My weight has if anything drifted upward. Cooking has been scattershot.

Blogging has, of course, entirely disappeared from my life.

I don't know what goals to set for 2013. I feel under-accomplished and over-stretched at the same time. I am looking forward to the holidays; due to the timing, I'll have a pretty long stretch of time off, and can maybe use some of that to figure out where the problem is and make some plans.

4 comments:

Brian Rogers said...

I understand the sense of being overstretched and unaccomplished and suspect that it has to do with stress management, both good and bad. The trip to Taos was stressful but in a good way because you were pushing yourself so it ate up a lot of time and energy. The need to look for a new job, never mind actually doing so, also stressed you and ate up time and energy. When things get like that your brain hunts for things to do that aren't high energy and are both comforting and novel at the same time - hence reading old comic books and writing fanfiction rather than cooking an making sure the house is safe from the depredations of three entropy elementals, no matter how much you actually like doing the former and like the effects of the latter.

In my case I'm dealing with stresses by reading fewer comics, playing fewer games and cooking more. I find I quite enjoy the cooking but really miss the gaming and hoping to get back to it. Hrm, looking at that we may have just traded.

Rebecca said...

It's tough sometimes to remember past stress vs current stress, but yeah--the job thing is probably more of it than I realize.

I spent much of yesterday beating the kitchen into a semblance of cleanliness and doing actual preparation for this holiday thing, so that helped quite a bit.

Annette said...

Rebecca you had an eventful year. Sending hugs. I missed this post when you first posted and I am just visiting it now. Think of all you did this last year and how huge it really was. It's hard to find a new job and you found one that paid better and is a better situation. Bravo! You wrote over a 100k words. Never mind in what format, that's alot of words and good solid practice just in writing and maintaining writing as something that you do. And raising kids? Pat yourself on the back.
I am sending you hugs and happy new year wishes. You can make this year whatever you want it to be and how cool is that?

Rebecca said...

Thank you, Annette! Things got a little weird, but I seem to be on a better path at this point than I was when I wrote this. Hope you have a wonderful year!