A Wake Up Call: ROW80 Round 1 Goals

Pardon me if I'm whispering, but Life listens carefully and mocks my best efforts. Last Wednesday, for my montly Insecure Writer's Support Group (#IWSG) post, I logically laid out my conservative plans for 2013: One Page at a Time.

A snippet...

So, each day I vow to move forward, even if it's only in some small way. But I also plan to be more realistic about time. When I overschedule myself, one small blip in the plan causes huge ripples. I don't build in any flexibility. This year, I will.

Usually New Year's is all about Yes. Yes to losing weight, yes to writing that novel. I will say yes to both of those, but I think it's more important for me to learn to say No. I truly believe I can achieve more by trying to achieve less.

Life was lurking around the corner, mocking my attempts at being conservative, knowing I don't know how to pull back. But this time, Life had an ace up her sleeve, and she played it.

This past Saturday night, after ignoring the flu for a week because I didn't really have time for it, my husband took me out to dinner... our first date night of 2013. We were discussing some of the commitments I was going to back down from this year, when the flu I'd been battling hit me like a ton of bricks. Feeling clammy and faint, we got our food to go and headed back to the car. My husband caught me three times. I then began shaking uncontrollably... five hours and some IV fluids later, and the longest date night we've had in a long time, I was sent home from the ER with stern warnings to stay in bed.

Yesterday, I stayed in bed all day. I haven't done that since... well, I can't even remember a time I was in bed all day. After canceling many things, I regrouped. I watched a movie with each of my kids. Quality time with kids: Check. I edited over 100 pages and more than caught up there. Check. I read, and almost finished, a book. Check. I even wrote 500 words. But most importantly, I realized just how much I have to reorganize my life.

So Life and I came to an understanding, which brings me to Round 1 of ROW80 2013.

Don't know about ROW80... A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) is the writing challenge that knows you have a life. We are all different and we all have different demands on our time. Why should we all have the same goal? The simple answer is that we shouldn’t. If you want to be a writer, then you have to be able to roll with the punches and adapt to your changing circumstances. If that means changing your goals when your life blows up, so be it. ROW80 is the challenge that champions the marriage of writing and real life.

This round, I'm setting attainable goals weekly. That way, Life and I can have a little sit down each week, and I can reevaluate.

For the week of 1/7/2013...

I am traveling to Colorado from Thursday, 1/10 through Tuesday, 1/15, so I'm going to have a light set of goals for this week. Light, but progress. 

• Write 500 words minimum on my Depression Cookies follow-up.
• Edit a combined two hours on Chasing Memories, my NaNo novel.
• Finish an editing assignment due 1/10/13.
• Finish Iduna's Apples by the lovely Jennifer Willis (the sequel to Valhalla, reviewed here), and read at least two more books, since I have travel time to fill.

That's it. Slow and steady wins the race, especially when you are recovering from the flu and travelling.

Wishing everyone a great Round!