Belated Goals

Hubby is very supportive of all my odd habits.

On October 2, I posted about what was keeping me from writing that day.

The idea, though, is not to justify the lack of writing, but to identify the issues and figure out how to avoid them. I grew up with a father who constantly stalled out whenever the tiniest thing got in his way; as an adult, I try my best to get past the bumps in the road and finish what I start.

My 4yo is the biggest distraction. Or rather, the most important. My job as Mom is to take care of her. Although I’m able to write when she’s playing, when she needs something, I have to be there for her. My best writing time comes when she’s in Pre-School a few hours each week. If I want to treat writing as a full time job, I need child care. Now, it’s hard to justify that when I’m not yet making money off my writing. But hubby is willing to take over when he gets home, so I could use more of those hours for writing. It does take time away from family though, in particular from the after-dinner hours I spend with my hubby.

The phone is the next most important. I would love to ignore it, if I can just justify to myself that it is OK. If I was out of touch for 3-4 hours at a stretch, I wouldn’t ignore the phone, but I should be able to do it if, for example, I’m in the middle of doing a #1k1hr.

Then there’s the little things. Yes, I can take a moment for the cats or dog without getting derailed. I can change a load of laundry (although I hate the fact that the bedrooms are on the 2nd floor and the laundry is in the basement.) Dishes… that takes longer, and they have to be done, but it doesn’t have to interrupt writing time.

I meant to write a goals post for A Round of Words in 80 Days last Wednesday. Technically, since it’s just after midnight, I’ve already missed the Sunday link-up for #ROW80.

~sigh~

I’m not going to let it derail me.

Here’s the goals, pretty much the same as last round:

Continue with the regular blog commitments. This is so easy, I won’t bother going into detail. The “regular” stuff I do on my blog is all routine now and fairly easy to manage.
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Write every day. OK, I’ll allow myself one day a week where no #AmWriting happens, but it can’t turn into falling off the wagon. Although adding to the WIP is, of course, most desirable, writing counts as blog posts (both real and fictional ones) responding to prompts with short little things I share with other writers, or jotting down something in a notebook because I’m away from the computer. Here’s what constitutes writing every day:
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I still have one elusive goal I’m chasing… I can usually do #1k1hr as long as I’m warmed up and in writing mode. But I have yet to break the #2k1hr barrier. I’ll keep working at that!
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I’m not going to add in exercise goals or anything like that this time. Just writing. I need to make writing a priority, not something I let myself do when everything else is finished.
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This round contains NaNoWriMo. I need to finish the first Pangalactic Sojourners book so that I can spend November writing the second one.