Patrick Alan

It’s mid way through the second work week of the new year and I am settling in. It’s pretty hard to get into gear after a long vacation.

It really started to pick up last week with getting back into the swing of things again. As far as writing goes, I don’t have concrete goals/plans for the year like write two pages a day or anything specific like that. The goal is to write more than I did last year and do it more consistently.

I did ok for me last week. I’ve said that I think 2 books per year(calling 80K a ‘book’) is repectable. That amounts to 3500 words per week. Somewhere around there. That’s about what I wrote last week. I’ll try to keep it up through out the year. That’s the plan.

The challenge is to not have large chunks of unproductivity. It won’t take 3500 words per week to be better than last year. I know plenty of writers where 3500 is less than their daily goal., but those tend to be full time writers. I’ll get there eventually. Maybe in 10 years when I retire from having a day job.

For now, the trick is not to let my travelling, home improvement projects, day job, American Idol, Castle, HIMYM, Better Of Ted, and all the various other distractions keep me from writing, or at least keep me from writing for too long.

I’ll say that the Patriots losing on Sunday, followed by HIMYM, Castle, Better Of Ted, and American Idol have kept me from writing so far this week. I also only started writing on Wednesday of last week as well, so, as long as I write today/tonight, I am ok, I think.

Now, let me jump on that conference call and then go check on the pool.

Do you ever get that feeling that one day you will finish a book and then people will read it and decide that it should be published and then it will be published and people will buy it and either like or hate it, but someone with think you should write another one anyway?

Sometimes I feel like that. I don’t know why, but sometimes I do.

Anyway, the wife is off watching that show called ‘Mercy’ on the DVR. I cannot watch. So, I’ll try writing something.

I took over 100 photos so far. You should look at all of them.

I put them here for your viewing pleasure. I know this is what you want to spend your day doing. There will be more next week, too.

If the link above doesn’t work, go http://www.flickr.com/photos/patiscool/sets/72157623015119769/show/ in your browser. But the link above works.

This is the new thing. I need to be more organized in the way I get things done. Today I have many things to do and if I don’t get more organized about it, I’ll let most of the things slide. That’s not good. I really don’t need to waste time thinking about how much I don’t want to do the things that I don’t have as much fun doing.

I’ll begin the morning today by ignoring the guys in my backyard framing out my pool. Followed by doing my day job. I have a document to write, some research to do, and communicate for my next few weeks schedule. Oh and I need to request a vacation day. Well, floating holiday. I always use my two floating holidays as the first days of vacation for the year.

Then, I need to review the first 15 pages of my MS. They’ve been reviewed, but it never hurts to clean them up one more time. I’m taking them to my RWA chapter in a few weeks. It’s time to make sure I am ready. I also will be writing NEW WORDS today.

Really, what I am saying is that I need to get my day job done during the day so I can get my night job(writing) done at night. This is one of the little challenges of working from home. For me at least. I’m a procrastinator, so it’s easy to let things slide. This is an area I’d like to improve in this year.

At some point, I might fit in the little things like preparing lunch and dinner, emptying the dishwasher, cleaing the floors that I tracked pool dirt on last night, doing a few loads of laundry, getting the camping supplies for the cubscout trip coming up, finishing the two websites that I am working on, and all the other little things that tend to add up.

And this is my cat, not my hole.

These are the ‘before’ pictures

and this is my brother with beer cap eyes.

They start digging tomorrow. Expect more photos!

Welcome back!

It’s the first Monday in January. That’s when life begins to return to normal. You know, as normal as I can be. And yet again I have discovered that I know me and that I think I can change me. I know that I don’t do much in December, yet I still thought I would try a full time writer experiment. Let me tell you, it didn’t go so well. I didn’t write. Maybe 2000 words total. Pretty lame….

But now it is January. It’s a new year. I’ve read my 2010 horoscope. Vacation is completely over. The only thing that remains is endlessly using the “I haven’t talked to you since last year!” comment to all of my co-workers.

I have to say, it’s strange for me to set yearly goals. That’s much to long term for me and yet at the same time too short. My long term goals take more than a year. My short term goals take much less than a year. So, I have an idea of what my yearly goals are, but I am looking more at January/February goals right now.

I will say that my horoscope fits how I see things happening this year though. Apparently Saturn is moving out of my sign.

“many of those around you may have come to assume that either it wasn’t as rough on you as it was, or that you are somehow made of steel. In fact, you may have come to the same conclusion yourself.”

Easier would be nice.

Welcome to 2010. What’s your horoscope say?