Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

My New Year's resolutions this year are:

• Research, write, publish and market My Wedding, My Way: Real Women, Real Weddings, Real Budgets.
  
  
• Send my poetry manuscript, As Truth to Water, to publishers.
  
  
• Lose about 14 pounds to reach my goal weight of 135, which is right in the middle of my normal BMI range.
  
  
• Every week, do something towards furthering my writing career.
  
  
• Organize the house.

The reason so many of these resolutions are career oriented is because I haven't been actively working to further my career for several years. I have no good reason not to do so, except for poor time management. If I make a commitment to it, as I did in January 2000 with my weight loss, I should see results.

Organizing the house is not my job alone: it requires some input from The Gryphon. I expect we'll be able to start this process soon, since the holidays are over. We'll begin by figuring out where to put all the wedding presents we received.

As far as my fitness goal is concerned, it's been my end goal for a while. Last year I was so busy with wedding planning that I didn't put as much energy as I might have into achieving that goal. Of course, once I had my dress, there was a limited amount of weight I wanted to lose, because I wanted to be sure the seamstress could take it in enough.

Doing something every week for my writing career could be anything from writing or revising something to sending work out or sending queries to editors. I need to work it into my regular routine, just like exercise, walking the dog, or cooking dinner.

I'm optimistic this year about my resolutions, partly because of reading a great article, "New Year's Resolutions: Friend or Foe?" by Jason Rosado. I know that often we give up and don't achieve our resolutions, despite good intentions. But I think that, if I make small steps towards these goals on a consistent basis, I'm going to see success. Really, that's the only way anybody ever does.

Copyright 2008 by Alyce Wilson

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