My new year wasn't full of its regular resolutions. I think I threw a few together in my drunken state some evening before the ball dropped but I haven't taken anything seriously in the week+ since 2016 made its appearance on all of our calendars. So this morning, while laying in bed, trying to squeeze out a dozen more minutes of lazy half sleep, I realized that I'm not doing anything to dedicate time to what I really want to be doing with my life. And now I have all the gadgets I could ever desire to facilitate that process and I'm still pretending I can just wait until another, less busy, time of my life. But that's such a delusion. So I've decided to put aside another chunk of daily time to dedicate to writing or the process or editing. Any time throughout the day is almost impossible to set aside without inconsistency or other equally important priorities like exercise and children and work and doctor's appointments interrupting the schedule. Right after the kids go to bed would take away a good chunk of real quality time with my spouse, so I had to sacrifice that possibility. I'm more anti-morning person than anyone I know and would fight it and skip it regularly with excuses like "my kid woke me up for no reason at midnight"...so that leaves me with the one true time I have ever successfully managed to set aside for writing. After 10 pm. But instead of the 2 hours I dedicated nightly back when I did NaNoWriMo in 2014, I'm going to set aside 1 hour and look at this as a permanent, year-long solution. From 10 pm (or 10:15, depending on if my husband miraculously stays awake for a whole movie) until 11 pm (or 11:15 pm, depending again on the husband, who is usually drooling with his head to the side in front of the TV by 9:30) every night, starting tonight, I will sit on this beautiful, convenient, reliable (knock on wood), Surface tablet and either edit my Earths Project manuscript or come up with a plan for a new book...or both. And if I want to stay up later working, all the better. All around I think this will leave me feeling more satisfied with my days and my choices with time. I think it'll make me more mindful throughout the day, and it'll give me more motivation to research agents, edit my query letter, etc., during my daytime hours.
Today, I'm going to the Apple Store in CO Springs to see if they can please find it in their hearts to replace the screen on my beloved iPod Nano (mostly lightly used with no screen crackage of any kind but suddenly there's a bleed in the ink under the screen, which I'll live with if they don't replace, but it'll make me really, really sad). If they say it's not covered under warranty, it could cost up to $100...which is just ridiculous.
Maybe I'll head over to Barnes n Noble after this trip for a little extra writing time...still staying up tonight for it though!
Super psyched about my new plan!! Love feeling the resurgence of motivation!
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