Some Goals for 2009

I thought I should probably get around to making this entry before the new year was more than a week old.

More writing. I set a goal in 2008 as well, and I met it. Now I want to expand on it. I found that setting one goal for an entire year is far, far too broad. I need to set specific weekly and monthly tasks for myself as well. I may or may not make those public; I'm not quite sure yet exactly what kind of system I need to establish. But I'm working on it.

And this extends beyond my fiction-writing activity as well. Take this blog, for instance - I don't think it's too much to ask myself to put up at least one post per week. Even if I'm busy, I should be able to find time for that much, at minimum. I do it during football season, after all.

More reading. This one shouldn't be much of a problem, but it is something I want to keep in mind. I have a tendency to go through stretches of time where the PlayStation seems to command all my free time. Not that there's anything wrong with vegging out for an hour or two, or even a whole evening here and there, in that manner, but not to the exclusion of curling up and getting captivated by a good book. One intermediate goal in this regard is to create a list of books I want to pick up so I'm never floundering for what to read next. I keep hoping that LibraryThing will roll out a wishlist feature so I can keep (and share) a list in conjunction with but separate from my own library, but I guess I'll have to devise another solution in the meantime.

More sleep. Not sure if I can deliver on this one, as it may be mutually exclusive with the last one. I have a tendency to read before going to bed, and when I really get into something, well...last night, for instance, it was after 3:30 a.m. when I finally put down the book (The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett) and turned off the light. Even under normal circumstances I struggle to get six hours of sleep per night during the week, and while that generally doesn't bother me on a day-to-day basis, it occasionally catches up to me in spectacular fashion.

More time spent with family and friends.

More water, less pop. More exercise. Better health. You get it.

Now I just have to find the time to accomplish all of this.