Considering Big Audacious Goals again

It’s my birthday eve-eve-eve

It’s three days before my birthday. I’m almost 59, or almost-almost 60, so I don’t have a “birth month” any longer. I have an extended celebration, bits and pieces here and there.

This last weekend my husband and I traveled to Kansas City, in part for a writing retreat and in part for my birthday. I got to see a Studio Ghibli double-feature and spend quality time in coffeehouses. We postponed the visit to the classic, elegant steakhouse until the future when we could get reservations in on time, but we ate Middle Eastern and Indian food.

My actual birthday is on Sunday. I’m expecting more coffeehouse time and maybe dinner at the local steakhouse (which is not as fancy as The Golden Ox in KC). Maybe a Kris and Kates’ Birthday Cake twister, although I’m off sweets right now.

Making Big Audacious Goals

What I really want for my birthday is a good day, a calm day with a little joy. A day with a little surprise, hopefully pleasant. Hugs and kittens. I don’t ask for much. Besides, Sunday is not a day for Big Audacious Goals to be met.

I will make the Big Audacious Goals for the next year on my birthday, because it seems to be the right time, avoiding the treachery of the New Year and the spookiness of Halloween. (There’s also Asian New Year and Rosh Hashanah to select from for New Year, if we want to get more complicated.) But instead of correcting bad things (resolutions) I’ll make Big Audacious Goals.

What are Big Audacious Goals? The name spells it out — they’re gutsy and magnificent and perhaps harder than we expect them to be. The idea is to use them to push ourselves beyond our notion of ourselves.

A Big Audacious Goal is best when it specifies the action you’ll make rather than the result you will get, because we have less power over what results from our actions. For example, writing this blog twice a week (which I have only done consistently lately) is a better BAG than getting 100 followers, which is something I have no control over. Coincidentally, I have over 100 followers. I didn’t get to my goal exactly, but close enough to celebrate.

Choosing Big Audacious Goals makes us feel more powerful, as if we have chosen something heroic to perform. I read somewhere that dogs define themselves by what they do: “Hank, fetch!” Now the dog’s name is Hank, fetch! I argue dogs become heroes in their own minds by what they do. We do too by adopting Big Audacious Goals.

What if you don’t succeed? It was a Big Audacious Goal; attempting it in the first place puts you a great deal better than before you adopted it. One of my BAGs was to indie-publish Gaia’s Hands, which I did. Not too many people have read it, though, which was the other half of the BAG (I should have known better). But look at the BAG of indie publishing it. Gaia’s Hands is a highly personal novel, and the one which I found hardest to write, so publishing it is a grand step. Putting it in front of readers, even if they don’t read it, is a grand step.

I don’t know what I’m going to adopt as Big Audacious Goals this year; I’m going to talk about that with my husband. Writing something I’d already planned for writing is not a BAG; the goal should be above the ‘do’ level and into the ‘dream, then do’ level. If it’s another book, it has to be something I think is beyond me. Maybe it’s doing something dramatic in marketing like better TikTok or a podcast (if only I had something to talk about!) A few cups of coffee and I’m sure it will come to me.

Glorious Break

I’ve missed a couple days writing this blog, but that’s because I spent a couple days in Kansas City on a writing retreat. Writing retreats consist of soaking up coffeehouse atmosphere, eating good food, and writing. This writing goal was to clean up some formatting and language on Gaia’s Hands that I missed the first time around. Luckily, uploading corrected versions on Kindle is so easy that I did it in half an hour, and 20 minutes of that was tweaking the cover.

I have editing to do with Avatar of the Maker, especially as I’ve separated it from the Maker’s Seeds plot. That’s something I’ve learned over my years writing, that there is such a thing as too much plot. As I have one-third of the book written, this will probably be painful. Maybe I will rescue it later. I have another book, although a fluffy one, waiting in the wings.

I get intense focus on writing retreats, even though I’m writing in a crowded coffeehouse. Or, as it so happens right now, writing in a quiet hotel room while my husband snores. (Oh yes, Richard, you do snore).

Today, I will write my newsletter and get caught up on my promotion tasks. And feel rested for the week to come.

The Recitation (updated)

I officially do not believe in The Secret or manifesting anything, even if I did before, which I didn’t. I recited that I wanted a good class, a productive class — and my computer went on the fritz. My lecture wended painfully slow and nearly content-free.

What now? I think the recitation still stays, because it focuses me and perhaps keeps my inner saboteur at bay.

Let this be a better day …

The Recitation

Let this be

A good day
A productive day
A rewarding day
A beautiful day
A day that gives me hope.

Lately I have been using this to start my day. I don’t think it’s a prayer per se, because I have very mixed thoughts about God answering prayers, as much “Should God answer prayers” as “Does God answer prayers?” I see this more to focus myself, to choose the actions that will best advance the day the way I want to.

Left to myself, I have good days and bad days. I have productive days and days where I do little but surf, largely influenced by what is due that day and how I feel. This works great when I feel possessed by an idea, in creative mode, perhaps even in a micro-mania, or if I’m down and have the time to relax. Right now I have classes and emails and panicked students and struggles with the writing.

With the — meditation? Litany? Shopping list? My days haven’t changed so far. On Wednesday, I had a good, productive, rewarding day at work with students right on target, work getting done at a good clip, an affirming conversation with a student. On Friday, my students couldn’t focus on class, and I felt argumentative.

Today, Saturday, I started the recitation again: “let this be a good day, a productive day, a rewarding day, a beautiful day, a day that gives me hope.” The blog has been the first productive act, and I will put up a tik-tok and start editing a problem child of a manuscript by noon today. Hopefully, it will be a day that gives me hope.

Nothing Left to Lose

I’d like to get to where I have nothing left to lose with my writing. Not to stop writing, but to write without an external reason. Not for readers, not for recognition, not for money, not to see my name in print. Just for the sheer joy of writing (when it is joy; sometimes it’s tedium).

I’m not there yet. I don’t care so much about the money, having probably earned only a couple hundred dollars so far. But I want people to read my books, comment about my books, and like my books. I have books with five reviews or fewer (and I have no way of knowing how many copies they’ve sold).

My dream is to have people want to write fanfic about my books, which I would let them do, keeping in mind the restrictions of the world I’ve built. I’d like to be a non-evil version of Marion Zimmer Bradley. This is far from the desire listed above.

Maybe the desire not to care is because there’s such a gap between where I am and where I’d like to be. Like I shot for the stars and ended up in the neighbor’s backyard. On the other hand, the freedom of not caring is exhilarating.

A Quiet Day

It’s a Monday, a quiet Monday, with no visitors and an hour till class. I’m prepared for class, as prepared as I’m going to be. I even cleaned the sticky residue of stickers from my employer-supplied laptop. No chaos, no disasters.

Knock on wood.

It’s the first full week of classes, and if I think things will stay quiescent, I have learned nothing from my 23 years (24?) here. Something will happen, whether it’s me passing out from the residue of Goo Gone fumes, a student with an out-of-commission car (Oops, already happened!), or the Internet crashing. I don’t trust the calmness.

Frighteningly, I don’t relish the calmness. Not wishing a disaster on someone, but I like at least some activity in my office hours. The student who can’t find the supplemental book at the bookstore, the visitor asking for direction to an office, or the visit from a former student —

None of which is happening now.

I’ll keep you posted.

Taking Stock

I have readers!

I’ve discovered in the past few days that 33 people have read Kel and Brother Coyote Save the Universe. I don’t know how many people have read any of the Kringle books because I only find out about those who have reviewed it, but I have a few reviews on each. There are a few reviews on Gaia’s Hands as well. There is hope.

I would like more readers. Of course I would. One purpose of writing is to have something for people to read. I could act selflessly and deny that, but I don’t do selflessly well. My goals are to have a readership and maybe make enough money to defray the costs I incur for writing and editing programs, the occasional book cover, and conferences.

Mission and vision

My mission and vision are important. My mission is what I want to accomplish now and my vision is the dream.

My mission: To write books for geeks of all ages who like their fantasies romantic and their romances fantastic.

My vision: To write worlds interesting enough that other people want to play in them.

I’m definitely fulfilling my mission. I need more of a readership to fulfill my vision, although my husband has written in the Archetype universe.

From here

I think I need to post my mission and vision statements on the office wall, along with my two posters from books I created. This should focus me toward what’s important to me — the writing and the connecting.

Weather and the Writer

I’m sitting by the window at Starbucks. My husband sits across from me, finishing his first screenplay, based on my first Christmas novel. The Kringle Conspiracy has sold a few copies, and I have distributed free copies to almost 5000 people on BookFunnel in exchange for registration on my mailing list.

It looks like it wants to rain out. It rained earlier, but we could use more rain. I could use more rain, wind, and petrichor to remind me that summer will be over soon. I talk about the weather a lot, because the weather always surrounds us and engages our senses.

Writers use weather to inform their scenes, but not always in the way we expect. Do happily ever afters always happen under sunny skies with rainbows? I can see scenarios where the last scene, the big kiss, happens in the pouring rain, or in a snowstorm. Each of those would communicate two different feels — the pouring rain might be tempestuous or cathartic, the snowstorm cozy or threatening. A battle in a torrential rainstorm would be grueling, but on a sunny day, be ironic.

I want you to take a moment and imagine some weather, either some that you love or some you hate. Then tell a story about what happens in that weather, describing the air, the sky, the precipitation (if any). Make the scene about the weather and what happens in this weather. Write it down.

Photo by Ralph W. lambrecht on Pexels.com

You are now a writer!

Rituals (again?)

The semester is approaching, and I’m sitting in the neighborhood Starbucks. Two days until my freedom (such as it was) ends, and my fall semester begins.

Rituals and the new school year

Fall semester, for faculty, begins with an all-faculty and staff picnic at the Pavilion on campus. It’s a ritual, one of many that start the school year. The Friday meetings (I’m booked from 8-4 and expect my eyes to glaze over by then), fireworks, even cleaning my office and buying office supplies I don’t need are my beginning of semester rituals. (I tried to convince my husband that a new iPhone fit the category of something I didn’t need but he didn’t jump on it.)

Rituals as a part of my life

I am a great fan of rituals. Perhaps this comes from my childhood as a marginal Roman Catholic that helped me spot rituals in the least likely places (like a Quaker meeting) and caused me to make my own. Rituals help me focus, help me change my direction or rededicate myself to my intentions.

For example, let’s take the shopping for office equipment. Even though I do almost all my work on computers, I still associate pencils and pens with cognitive work and scissors and markers with creativity. Hence my ritual of buying those for the new school year. To be honest, I do use them (although with the markers, not as often as I should.)

Applying this to writing

I’ve been struggling with writing lately, focusing instead on marketing and this blog and TikTok. I wonder if rituals would help me in writing as much as they help me at the beginning of the semester. A new start, a refocus — I need this in my writing because I have drifted away from writing again.

What would be a good ritual to start me writing again? I asked my husband, whose response was “I don’t know”. Guess I’m on my own for this.

I don’t think I need new pens for motivation. I might need to do something in the office to make it feel more mine and less like some place my husband has sentenced me to. I used to work in the living room, and I felt more motivated because I wasn’t alone. The office is small and cluttered, and there is little to be done about it because much of it is items needing to be filed with no room to file them.

A ritual … I’m going to have to think about it.