New Years Resolutions

 SO. Last year sure was something, wasn't it? 

A downward spiral of depression brought about by the scary world we live in and a serious virus that affected the very core of our day to day lives. Our world is still trying to recover as we do our best to pick up pieces of our lives and try to figure out what our new normal will be like.

I have admitted to my flaws in the past, and those meshed with the sense of impending doom and made way for a bunch of scary feelings of inadequacy to completely derail any possible good thing I had going for me. I kept having to freeze things I really wanted to work on because other areas of my life became too much for me to handle the usual way. Hence the empty promises for more blog posts. Though, I can't be sure if anyone still reads these. Who knows? Could be more negative feelings clouding my thinking. 

One thing I have learned this year is that scheduling does work. I was strong on my scheduled path for a few months and I felt so good about my productivity. However, with school taking over most of my thought process, I have only had time for my substitute teaching job, editing, and school. (Along with the weekly DND session with furries and the monthly game day! These are nice breaks from staring into the void.) It's really affected my mood at times.

There is a silver lining. Next semester features only one class, as someone is very close to graduating with a bachelor's degree. After April, hopefully, I will be able to take more time for creating things. With this, I am hoping for my mood to improve, and get rid of these feelings of inadequacy. 

New Years Resolutions are a thing people do every year to try and either get themselves to be better or possibly try something new. These do not always succeed. Every year we think, "Oh! I swear I will be better!" then the next year turns into the same thing. Oops! Oh well! "But this year will be different!" Yeah? And next week people will start to understand each other and there will finally be no problems. Yeah. Not going to happen that easily. It's a nice sentiment, but realistically, these resolutions are mostly just words. But the ideas behind resolutions aren't bad. People should strive towards goals of self-expression and betterment. I joke about wanting to love myself, but it's something I really hope I can learn to do one day.

The point of this is, I can make all of these wild resolutions (like what I am about to do) but I might not get through every single one. It will be discouraging. But, if I understand that some of these things will not get done, I will be able to strive for these goals individually instead of all together. My attitude towards my increasing creative workload needs to change if I am going to improve. 

Every time I accomplish something on the below list, I will try to come back and update it. Striking through my goals like I am cutting through it with a sharp blade. So without further ado, here are the goals I would like to strive towards completing this year. 

• Write Resolutions!
• Graduate with my English BA
• Pass my two hardest classes
• Write more poetry
• Have a new story come out in an anthology (Two are in the works! Hopefully, to be released soon!)
• Write a story for the Ocean Animals anthology (I do have an idea for this.)
• Write PJ related short stories and related things
• Finish drafting Sunnydale
• Get a new job in the school system
• Complete any commissions I have queued up.
• Do more editing (professional/personal/commissions)
• Write more Heroes Collide
• Expand "Spirit of Christmas" to a pocket shot or novella
• Complete a very special rewrite!
• Love Me (I am serious about this)
• Exercise a bit more (This is not serious)
• Play a sport? (Try again.)
• Learn how to dance! (The sport one seems more realistic. You have two left feet!)
• Write more blog post(s)
• Write another zombie story. (You know the one.)
• Finish Zombies Hate Vegans
• Finish SIR REGINALD THE HETEROSEXUAL 
• Finish Justice Served Cold
• Do some work on Jackson Pacer: Penned to Kill
• Read a book! (Maybe one of the cool flashy ones by your friends!) 
• Do some work on Calamity High

While this list looks big and daunting, it is not so bad. But only because I formed this list with the knowledge that I do not need to accomplish all of this during this year. (Especially exercise. I don't have the energy for that... Hmmm I wonder why that is!) Obviously, the most important ones, like editing, commissions, graduating will most likely be easily accomplished. And crossing each off this large list will be a huge boost to my self-esteem. And the ones I don't complete this year may be next year's successes. I shouldn't drive myself too hard, and be glad with what I can get done.

Thank you for reading if you did. This was hard to write. I don't like airing my insecurities out for everyone, but this is something that I felt would help me out in my productivity or improvement. 

Wish me luck!