So... looks like my piece of art will be a piece of cake.

Yep... I decided to stop being a wuss and picked up my brushes again.

The painting is, if I say so myself, beautiful.

More importantly, I should be finishing it today. YAY!

If I do, I'll post a picture after Christmas. Monday's post will be about this year's Christmas tree again.

Other than that, I also rewrote a query and drafted my first ever synopsis. And I must say. Both look pretty dang good.

Now I really can relax. Looks like I'll do everything I need to get done before Christmas after all.

How about you. On schedule or way behind? What do you still need to do before you can relax?

Stretch and release

I decided to finish up with NaNoWriMo, this time with another story. Still, I'm taking things slower and not pushing myself so hard. 

It's just not always so good for me. 

Yes, there's a commitment to getting things like writing done, but I just can't see how it's good to push myself too hard. 

I mean, there is a definite advantage to pushing limits. We learn a lot about ourselves by doing it. But once you cross the limit of what you're capable of, it's not wise to go too far too fast. 

Why? Well... I think about it the same way as I think about stretching my muscles. Stretching is good. Really good. It works best by stretching a little further every time you stretch, but not beyond that point. 

If I stretch too much too soon, I'm actually damaging the muscles I'm trying to strengthen. 

It's the same with life. It's not good to go through life without testing yourself and stretching your abilities. At the same time, it's not good to go too far too fast, because you might actually do more harm than good. 

That's what I seem to be doing now. I've been stretching myself out for a while, now it's time for a rest. So I'm pulling back from every non-essential activity I'm involved with. 

I'm quitting choir singing because it's not good for my voice. Also, it puts too much of a strain on my patience .

I'm backing away from involvement in church activities because it's stretching me and my faith too fast and too hard. This was of course, done with a lot of prayer, but God seems to be with me on this one. So I'm going to try and focus on learning more again. 

I'm not buying more orchids until I'm absolutely positive that the ones I have are doing well. 

I stretched my writing skills and determination and wrote a draft manuscript in 16 days. Now I know I can do it, but it makes me tired. Still, I'm continuing to write, but in a sense, as a warm-down to my intense stretching session. 

Luckily December will give me a break from all of my stretching activities. Then I get to do the exercise again and stretch in wonderfully novel ways. 

Do you also make a point of stretching in your life? Do you make sure you don't go too far too fast? What have you been up to, lately? 

Goal Review

I was thinking that I'm a bit over-due on recapping my goals for 2012. I should have done it in March already, but oh well.

These are my goals, with my comments noted in red...

Writing: 

I want to finish Doorways before 30 June. 
Not likely, since I have to depend on Crit Partners for edits. I'm approximately halfway now. 

I will query Doorways on 1 July.
Can't decide if this will happen. 

I want to finish the WiP2 rewrite by 30 September. 
Will start in July. 

I want to finish the Don't Look Back draft by 31 December. 
Not sure when I will start this, but no later than October. 

I want to finish at least one draft of the musical libretto by 31 December.
Working on this every week, but since I had no idea of the work involved, I think this one won't make it. 

I might want to look at Guardian again. 
If I have time, I will. 

Reading: 

I want to read more (crit partners' manuscripts don't count).
I'm trying to read at least one book a week. But I am definitely reading more.

I want to read Shakespeare, Austen and Martin. 
So far, I've read two Jane Austen books. Still gathering courage for the rest of them.

Life: 

Auditions, auditions, auditions. 
One audition so far. 

I want to master at least intermediate cooking.
Let me put it this way... I'll be able to feed myself on more than bread or takeaways.
I want to spend more time designing.
Haven't even looked at my designs yet. Feeling terrible about it, but I just need to finish Doorways first.

I want to brush up on my French and Mandarin (at least one of the two) and take another language. 
Lacking time and money. I'll look at this again in the second half of the year. 

I want to take classes in a musical instrument. Either piano or guitar. 
Went to my first guitar lesson last week. 

I also want to get out more next year. Cabin fever never did suit me. 
Still working on this, but I think I am getting better at getting out of the house. 

Since I achieved four goals in 2011, I want to achieve six in 2012. 
Looks like I'm on course for six. But I definitely want to try for more. 

Have you recently taken a look at your goals for this year? How are you getting along?

A to Z Challenge Reflections

Hmmm.... This is going to be tricky. Because I have to write two of these... which means I have to separate my experiences...

Which is sort of hard, since April went by in such a blur... So... rather, I'm going to do an overview on this blog and the stats on the other.

Okay... so...

I met a lot of lovely new people and discovered a lot of lovely blogs. I'm not planning to stop, though, I will work my way through each of the comments and visit the commenters. Can't wait! ^_^

As for writing the posts, I really enjoyed the fact that I only had a few struggles with topics and that, except for the times that I was out of the house for longer than expected, every post went up on time. I was only late twice, and both were on Saturdays, so they went up before the weekend was done.

Furthermore, the Challenge helped me with two things: 1) It helped me realize that I'll have to start planning ahead in order to maintain my current posting schedules and work. 2) It helped me to see what was missing from TCoML, as mentioned on yesterday's post.

Otherwise, there wasn't much to say. My Challenge was remarkably stress-free....

How did your challenge go?

I love it when my life gets busy.

I must say that there is a noticeable improvement in my general state of well-being now that I'm getting out more. 

I went to a new choir on Monday to try it out and I can safely say that I love it. Then, I decided to give my church choir one more chance before I finally quit it, but more on that later. Finally, I'm going to go for Solo classes again from tomorrow. So yes, that adds up to three days (about five hours) with singing, so I am a very happy camper. 

Also, I'll finally be able to discuss the musical with my singing instructor (who asked me to rewrite the whole thing) so hopefully I'll be able to start working on it soon. 

Also, because of the good feeling I got from rowing on Sunday, I got right back onto my healthy living kick, so I'm making a point of being more active, which is making me feel even better. Tonight I'm going to go rowing again, because I really don't want to lose momentum now. 

What about you? Anyone else starting to do more exercise? Start anything new recently that you're enjoying? 

Looking at 2011

Since this is the last Friday of 2011, I thought today would be fitting for me to look at my recap of the year. 

All in all, I think it went well. Even though I didn't get to all my New Year's guidelines, I thought I could take stop by copy pasting that portion of my very first TCoML post. My comments are in red. 



I want to finish my first rewrite of Doorways by the end of April or the middle of May. 
Done. On 25 April.

I want to do this while working. 
I did that. 

Good to know I at least managed my first two guidelines. I usually don't get that far. 

I want to be back to fluency in French. 
Cough cough. Not yet. Really should start working on that. 

Cough cough HACK cough. 

I want to revise and study Mandarin. 
Same here. Picking up French will be much easier. 

Hack hack cough cough. 

I want to speak Italian at at least a moderate level by next January. 
Probably should start this first, as I don't speak any Italian. At all. 

Uhm... yeah... seems 2011 was a linguistically challenged one. 

I want to have written at least half of Guardian by December, but this is of lower Priority, since...
Good goal, this. I just need to find the character again. And her voice. And her story. I haven't touched Guardian since January.

Never did get to this, but I did finish another book and do half of a third, so I'm not too fussed. Thankfully, only the rewrite to the former was lost permanently. 

I want to start querying Doorways by next year. 

I'm planning to start edits in May, which might make writing Guardian a bit more difficult. 

Optimism. Sheer optimism. 

I want to get back to stabbing people for fun. (For those of you that don't know. I'm not completely psycho. I fence.)
Really still want to do this. But this time slot was taken up by singing. Singing might become something serious, like... a ticket to the stage. 

And so it was. 

I want to be back on my healthy lifestyle by the beginning of February. 
Failed miserably at this. Only getting to it now. 

I did get the hang of it around October. 

I want to stay on that lifestyle indefinitely. Or at least until December. ;-P
Let's get to the lifestyle first. 

It lasted until Christmas. Hey! I'm new to the lifestyle thing. 

I want to finish my degree and get completely out of the previous phase of my life, since this year will pretty much be spent in limbo. 
Amen.

And Hallelujah!

I want to make a stronger commitment to God. 
Amen.

I do think my commitment is stronger, even if it was a lot harder work than before. Maybe God made my life a little more complicated so that I could cling to Him more. 

I might or might not want to read the complete works of Shakespeare... 
I might want to start reading again. Period. 

And I did, but still no Shakespeare. 

It's interesting to look at my goals like this, because it does pretty well to show what I achieved in 2011. Maybe it was a small portion of what I wanted to do, but what I did achieve was important to where my life is headed. The time of those things that I didn't succeed in was spent on other very important events. Such as my singing, so I won't complain. 

I'm going to do next year's goals on MFB, so if you're interested, please go check it out and let me know what you think. 

Now, let me just say: Thank you one and all for coming to TCoML and supporting me on this my first year of the rest of my life. I truly appreciated your love, advice, sympathy and support through the best and worst times of the year. I pray that God will bless every single one of you and that you will find as much meaning in 2012 as I did in this year. 

Stay safe and I'll see you in the New Year! 

Welcome to my life.

Yes... Welcome to the insanity that is me. Recently, things have calmed down a little, but only because I focused on one aspect of my life. My writing. 


Well... Now I'm done with my rewrite and the rest of me is feeling a little neglected. So I decided to start this blog to remind me to pay attention. I've been wondering how I should approach this taking charge of my life, so I thought... why not recap my New Year's "resolutions" as posted on My First Book? 


Ah yes, I referred to my resolutions as guidelines. Good thing too. I HATE goals and resolutions. Anyway... Here they are:


I want to finish my first rewrite of Doorways by the end of April or the middle of May. 
Done. On 25 April.


I want to do this while working. 
I did that. 

I want to be back to fluency in French. 
Cough cough. Not yet. Really should start working on that. 

I want to revise and study Mandarin. 
Same here. Picking up French will be much easier. 

I want to speak Italian at at least a moderate level by next January. 
Probably should start this first, as I don't speak any Italian. At all. 

I want to have written at least half of Guardian by December, but this is of lower Priority, since...
Good goal, this. I just need to find the character again. And her voice. And her story. I haven't touched Guardian since January.

I want to start querying Doorways by next year. 

I'm planning to start edits in May, which might make writing Guardian a bit more difficult. 

I want to get back to stabbing people for fun. (For those of you that don't know. I'm not completely psycho. I fence.)
Really still want to do this. But this time slot was taken up by singing. Singing might become something serious, like... a ticket to the stage. 

I want to be back on my healthy lifestyle by the beginning of February. 
Failed miserably at this. Only getting to it now. 

I want to stay on that lifestyle indefinitely. Or at least until December. ;-P
Let's get to the lifestyle first. 

I want to finish my degree and get completely out of the previous phase of my life, since this year will pretty much be spent in limbo. 
Amen.

I want to make a stronger commitment to God. 
Amen.

I might or might not want to read the complete works of Shakespeare... 
I might want to start reading again. Period. 

I would really really like to have about 1000 followers by December. 

So far so good. I'm ahead of schedule. Perhaps I might even have 1500 by December. We'll see. :-)

So... that's me. Then... I'll post a bit more about recent developments tomorrow. 


What do you want to achieve by the end of the year?