10 Things I plan to do in 2012

10 Things Tuesday + Beginning of the Year = A List of Writerly Resolutions...

1. This year, I've signed up for three Reading Challenges (see tab above) and I plan on completing them all (they do overlap somewhat, as Alex pointed out yesterday, so that should be doable) 
2. I will be blogging at least three times a week
3. I want to be more proactive in commenting on other people's blogs - I've seriously been slagging off in that respect - Sorry guys. 
4. I've almost signed up for the Write One Sub One thingy, but then didn't because knowing myself I will just plain fail at it and I resolve not to set myself up for failure this year. Challenges, yes. Failure, no. Know your limits, I say. 
5. I want to finish/edit/submit the three short stories that have been hibernating on my hard drive for most of last year. Two of them are horror/suspense stories, one is a fantasy/romance thingymajig. And I want to do this before I start a new one. 
6. I will make notes of all Shiny New Ideas in my journal, but will not pursue them until I have time to give them the attention they deserve. By this I mean no more half-written stories if I can at all help it. 
7. My writing desk will no longer resemble the illegitimate offspring of a fleamarket and a tornado-stricken library. No, really. 
8. I will participate in NaNoWriMo again in November, but will NOT take part in any other NaNo-like challenges because quite frankly I have to do some paying work, too. That way I can really have fun in November and not just groan at the effort/time it takes. 
9. I will seriously consider what to write for a thesis. I'm close to that point in my academic career, and it pays to have an idea of what you want to do before the time comes to find an appropriate supervisor. 
10. That said, I will finish all other coursework/paperwork asap, so I can truly get on with it. 

There, that's 10 doable things for 2012! I have a couple of less realistic ones, too, but I want to stick with these for now. 

How about you? What are your writerly resolutions, or are you anti-resolution? 

A new week...

It's Monday again.

Now, I've never been much of a Monday-fan - perhaps conditioned to dislike it from bygone days of having to go to school? - but Mondays do have some positive connotations, too (believe it or not).

They are the start of something new, a beginning, almost like a new chance.

In my case, a new chance to get sorted. Weekends have this weird effect on me. I'm not the most organised person to begin with, but on weekends, things go haywire. Daily routine is abandoned, to-do lists are ignored, chores put off till later (or Monday, as it were). Particularly if the weather's nice outside.

Now, you might shake your head and give me a disappointed sigh on that, but there it is. Weekends are a toxic wonderful mixture of too much time and too little planning.

I love it, I really do. Social life happens, the weather's great for sports, nobody from the office calls with new problems/tasks/catastrophes, I get to sleep in (and as anyone who knows me can tell you, I am so not a morning person)....