Elizabeth Drakes's Site

Fantasy Romance

New Year's Resolutions

New Year’s Resolutions – 2020

by

It’s that time of year. Everyone is discussing their New Year’s resolutions.

I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions, but I do make goals. I feel like resolutions are too easy to throw up my hands and say I failed. Goals are trickier, particularly when I map them out with tangible steps. The two things I am focusing on in 2020 are health and writing.

 

Health

I have really studied what it will take to get me downstairs and onto the elliptical machine or treadmill nightly.

Treadmill2
Very complicated.

First, I need to feel like I am still part of the family group.

  • That means whatever we are doing upstairs as a family, whether playing video games or watching something, I want to be able to do in the basement. I can’t right now as the 1990s is calling and wants its TV back.
    • Solution: We purchased a new television for the basement compatible with the new gaming systems. Yeah, our other one really is so old we couldn’t hook the Switch up to it. At all.

Second, I need to give myself permission to be bad at exercising until I can be good at it again.

Treadmill1
This  might be generous.
  • This means allowing myself to walk, slowly, as I rebuild stamina
  • It means letting myself be done after 15 minutes if I’m tired.
  • It means counting things like playing dance games with the kids rather than feeling guilty that I am tired

All the science says 30 minutes a day of just brisk walking will get us a majority of the health benefits of exercising. I need to tune out the rest of the nonsense and focus on that.

 

Writing

I have been using Wunderlist for a couple of years now, and I use it to create monthly goals with subtasks within that tell me if I’m where I need to be each month.

It allows me to set my yearly goals then work ahead in months where I have more indoor time. Hello January in the frozen tundra! So that if something is happening later, say spring break with the kids, I can plan for it.

snow-3193865_640
Okay, a little dramatic, but you get the idea. 

My goal is to publish two books in 2020 and set myself up to do the same in 2021.

  • A Knight’s Redemption, available here, will be released in January.
  • I am working on The Pirate Captain’s Daughter, and I plan to release that in June of 2020.
  • I also have specific goals related to revising The Shadowguard so that it is ready for publication in 2021.
  • I have created a timeline to write the first draft of an interconnected three novel series that takes place within the Knights of Valor world.

Yes, it’s aggressive. Particularly with a demanding day job, two kids, and a spouse. Plus, I need to sleep. Really.

But I figure its best to lay it all out, try, and fail than not to organize myself for success.

 

Anyone else out there have New Year’s resolutions? What are they? What is your plan to achieve them?

Goal Update: Month One

by

As I review my New Years Resolutions, I thought I would give a quick update of my goals to show I am holding myself accountable.

goals1

Writing Goals

Release Two Romance Novels / Write Three First Drafts

I am still on track!! I finished my January goals, and while I waited for feedback from beta readers that I need to start my February goals, I did get to work on March goals. Not a lot, but with everything else going on, I am really proud of myself for completing January at all.

WunderlistJan19

Not Wasting Food

That has been more of a work in process. There were *so* many leftovers after the holidays that we didn’t make this goal in the early part of the month. We got better as the month went on, but we were far from perfect. That’s okay. February is a new month, and I have started it by cleaning out the fridge. We’ll try again.

Moving At Least Three Days a Week

Okay, I wasn’t perfect on this. And the bar isn’t all that high.

goals2

Logging when I exercise has helped me learn a bit. With the new gym at work, I do manage to get at least two to three days of movement in. But they are all on workdays. I am terrible about exercising at home, even though we own a treadmill and elliptical machine. Time to do some thinking on how to get myself and my family into our finished basement so the opportunity to move more is at least there.

Logging Food

I have been pretty terrible about this. I am okay through lunch on workdays, but once I get home, I don’t remember. And, I have learned, I may have an after dinner sugar addiction. Hard to really see, though, as I have so little data. While I have identified the issue, I have yet to come up with a plan around it. Maybe I can set reminders or something in the app to ping me to log. Not sure. But I clearly am not remembering on my own.

 

How are you doing on your resolutions?

Achieving My 2019 Writing Goals

by

This time of year, a lot of people talk about goals. It’s almost two weeks after the new year, and if my company’s gym is any indication, many have already faced the stark reality of how difficult those goals really are.

goals3

My post here outlined my five resolutions.

To help me achieve the first two goals, I have enlisted the help of Wunderlist and a coffee partner.

No, Wunderlist doesn’t pay me for saying any of this. I use them, and I thought I would share as I had never heard of them until my sister introduced to me to the site.

Wunderlist allows me to create a checklist of goals, and as I reach them, I mark them complete.

wunderlistCapture
Part of my January list

A little bar slides across the screen, showing me how far along I am to completing my goals.

You know my OCD loves to see that little bar move…

It also allows me to set a due date (as you can see in blue above), and it will send me a reminder a few days before the due date.

WunderlistGoalCapture
Here is where I am so far in January.

This allows me to break apart all of the tasks I need to do this year into smaller chunks. It’s not write a book. More, write 1,000 works per day, each day, for 30 days. As I achieve the goal, I mark it as done.

I then mapped out everything I need to accomplish in 2019 to publish two new books and write three first drafts, along with the pain of starting to edit 2018 first drafts. I then set up these tasks by month.

Wunderlist2019Goals
Sample for the first part of the year.

What does the coffee buddy have to do with all of this?

Well, she meets with me once a month to discuss how we are each doing with meeting each of our goals. It’s a little accountability.

No, she isn’t going to yell and scream if I don’t meet my goals, but I do have to look at someone across the table and confess that I didn’t reach them. That something was more important than my writing.

She’s going to understand when the day job that pays my bills trumps my writing, but she’s going to be a whole lot less understanding about binge watching Netflix.

I have been using Wunderlist to track monthly goals for almost two years, but this is the first year I have mapped out all of my goals for the whole year.

 

I mapped out the year this time for three reasons.

  1. To mark the path I need to follow to reach my goals.
  2. To see how close I am to being on track at a glance.
  3. To stop beating myself up when work, family, or life in general interferes with my writing. This schedule lets me work ahead when I have time in preparation for long days at work. It gives me an objective view of how well I am doing year-to-date, rather than just the month. And, it doesn’t let me get too aggressive, then be disappointed later.

We’ll see how it works for me this year. Two published books and three fresh first drafts are aggressive goals, but I have a path to reach them.

 

Anyone else have a method they are using to reach their New Year’s resolutions? What is it? Have you used it before, and if so, did it help you?

New Years Resolutions 2019

by

Another New Year’s Resolution post!

res1

I am trying really hard to set realistic goals this year. And I am going to check in on them quarterly.

 

My 2019 Resolutions:

1. Release Two Books This Year

Yes, I know we’d talked about three. But as long as I have a day job, I just don’t see that being realistic. I’d rather put out two books that I’m proud of than three that I think are only okay.

 

2. Write Three First Drafts

I’ve admitted that I spend a lot more time editing than writing, and that’s okay. BUT I need to make sure I always have a fresh supply of material to edit. The longer I spend time editing, the harder actually writing new material becomes. So this still needs to be a focus for me.

 

3. Eat food before it goes bad.

Didn’t see that one coming, did you? Our refrigerator is a black hole, and too often stuff goes in and I don’t find it until it’s sporting a mold colony. By eating what we buy, it saves us money and reduces our environmental footprint. We have a new, smaller, refrigerator. While it may seem counter-intuitive, I am hoping not being able to store as much and seeing more of it will help us achieve this goal.

 

4. Move at Least Three Days a Week

Walking. Biking. Whatever. Three days a week. This is a lot more doable since my office put in a small but very nice gym in the basement for employees. They even put in showers! I have already been working towards this goal, but I am adding it as I want to keep it at the forefront of my thoughts.

 

5. Keep a Food Journal

It’s hard to know what to change in your eating habits until you truly know what you are eating. I have a Fitbit I wear daily. It comes with a tracking program on the same app. I have tried to use it with varying degrees of success. I need to develop the habit of logging food, and that’s what this resolution is all about!

 

How about you? What are your resolutions? Have you started on them? Do you think you’re likely to keep them?

I Want to Eat Healthy. Really!

by

It’s the time of year when so many people are settling in to their New Year’s resolutions. I didn’t bother with any this year. Yes, I want to eat healthier, but that is a tired refrain that never comes to much.

I actually prefer healthy foods over fast food. I like home-cooked meals better than what is served at most restaurants.

food1
Looks so much better than McDonalds

When people ask me if I could have one helper, would I want a chef, a maid, or a gardener, I never have to think about it. Chef, please!

Like every other working mom, I am time-constrained. Gone are the days when one person stays home and has the time to fix from-scratch food. Heck, we didn’t even have that luxury when I was a kid.

When I get home from work, it’s a lot easier and faster for me to whip up some burgers in my new cast iron pan and serve it on white buns (that the kids will actually eat) with some baby carrots, strawberries and a side of chips than it is for me to roast chicken.

food2
Yeah, still looks better than what I normally can make.

Taco night is celebrated in my house because the kids love it, and it’s fast.

A friend of mine tried one of those fancy new food delivery services, and she was extremely critical.

food3
Not exactly.

  She didn’t need someone to send her a box of veggies for her to chop and dice. She’d expected the stuff to arrive mostly prepared. The vegetables ready to be popped into the oven. The main dish already seasoned and ready to be cooked.

She had NOT expected to spend 45 minutes prepping dinner before it even found its way into the oven. Whoever thinks it only takes ten minutes to chop and slice all that stuff is NOT your average home cook.

She canceled her subscription to the service and strongly advised against it. Maybe that’s not what most food delivery services are like, and if they are, there is clearly a market for someone to do better.

If it doesn’t exist already (and if it does, please point me to it!), what we really need are meal kits filled with fresh, whole foods that are already chopped, seasoned and ready to go. We’re looking for the healthy home-cooked dinner that we can get on the table in twenty minutes or less from the time we get home from work.

Anyone who says forty-five minutes is a weeknight meal either has a stay-at-home spouse or doesn’t have kids. My kids aren’t going to make it to almost seven before eating supper. Especially as their bedtime is eight.

 How about you? Ever try a food delivery service? How did it work out for you? Would you recommend it?

 

New Year's Resolutions

by

Another New Year’s Resolution post!

res1

Except, I’m going to be honest with you. My three resolutions are continuations of resolutions I made some time ago. This is really just a reiteration and confirmation of what I’ve been doing.

January is an exceptionally busy month where I work. Not as bad as the end of November and into December, but it’s still year end close and all the tax work is due. That means this is one of the worst times of the year to make changes to my life, and I rely a great deal on routine to get me through it.

So, I start implementing my resolutions early. I wasn’t kidding when I said I was planner. Which is why I can’t figure out why I’m such a pantser when it comes to writing.

res2

 

My Three Resolutions:

  1. Write at least an hour a day. That can mean query letters, editing, blogging. Something in the craft to get me closer to my goal. I’ve been mostly doing this, but I want to keep up the momentum.
  2. Eat food before it goes bad. Didn’t see that one coming, did you? Our refrigerator is a black hole, and too often stuff goes in and I don’t find it until it’s sporting a mold colony. By eating what we buy, it saves us money and reduces our environmental footprint.
  3. Figure out how to get movement in despite the frozen winter. Going to the gym is a joke with two small children, a full time job, and a spouse. But I love going for walks spring through fall. Unfortunately, winter feels like it’s six months long here, and then my instinct to hibernate kicks in, especially when it’s dark both on my way to work and on my way home from work. I’ve been trying to fight this for the past month, and I’ve failed spectacularly. As I said, now might not be the best time to try to start a new habit, but there has to be ways I can get movement in that doesn’t rely on going outside.

 

How about you? What are your resolutions? Have you started on them? Do you think you’re likely to keep them?