New Year, New Resolutions on Just My Inkblot
I don’t know about you, but 2015 really sucked for me. There were some incredible moments, like traveling to Jamaica for my first vacation in seven years, but overall the entire year was incredibly stressful. 2015 seemed to have an understanding of its own mortality, inflicting more and more turmoil as its days wound down. Just when I thought there would be a moments peace and enjoyment, on my way to picking up my baby dragon from her last day of school before winter break, stopped at the very left turn just forty-five seconds from the spot where I park the car, a vehicle slammed into me from behind–dude was clearly not looking at the street #distracteddrivinghurtspeople. Thankfully I didn’t suffer any broken limbs, and all my internal organs seem to be intact, but I’m not out of the woods just yet. Crossing fingers that’s its just soft tissue damage, but most signs point to some kind of disc issue in my spine.
Its funny how we expect ourselves to hit the ground running in the New Year, as if suddenly, from one day to the next, a reset button can be pressed. Well, not this year. Of course, a Mercury Retrograde began five days in, so there’s all that mess to deal with too. Actually, if you think about it, the beginning of the year isn’t a time for starting new things. It’s a time for reflecting about the old ones, and formulating a new one. If there’s anything I’ve learned this year, its that the most successful people set goals, and plan to achieve them. These last few weeks as 2015 ended, and 2016 was born, I’ve been reflecting, recovering, recouperating, and trying to make resolutions that I can plan to achieve, instead of fail to plan for, and I’d like to share them with you.
T.R. Patmore’s 2016 Resolutions:
Stop proofreading social media. Because autocorrect, and it’s just not very nice. I realized this after posting a link about the correct usage of “who” and “whom” on my local police department’s Facebook post, that I’m really getting out of hand. Besides, I’m not going to get people to enjoy, or even commit to using appropriate grammar via humiliation.
Read More. I tend to deny myself the pleasure of reading, because I see it as a recreational activity, when, in order to be a writer I must also be a reader. As part of a commitment to writing professionally, I need to change the old thought pattern, and recognize my need to grow.
Spend more one-on-one time with my kids. I know this isn’t a writing resolution, but the solution I’ve come up with in order to accomplish this is.
For my Teen Dragon, we are embarking on a reader dialogue journal, wherein we read a book, and respond to it. Using the bullet journaling method (we’ll talk more about that later), we’ll set a weekly reading/responding schedule. I can’t tell you how excited I am for this. I feel like I’m getting a pen pal, and we’re going to be writing about books! The biggest bonus, is that this journal will go a long way to build a bond between us, and establish a mutual trust. This is probably the most important thing I can give my son. Our first book will be The 13 Clocks, by James Thurber. Who knows…maybe I’ll even let him write a review here on the blog? What do you think?
For the Little Dragon, I bought a Mother/Daughter conversation Journal. just between us. This one has questions for each of us to answer, prompts for drawing pictures, and blank pages for free-writing. This will not only help her practice reading and writing, but this also has that bonding bonus. I so badly want for her to understand, and trust me, so our relationship can stay as strong as it is now. Especially since she’s already starting to experience the world of Mean Girls, I need her to trust me, and develop a strong sense of confidence.
Also I intend to read books with her. We’re starting with one of my childhood fave’s Charlotte’s Web.
Write more effectively. Part of novel writing, for me, has been a struggle in learning how to organize my thoughts. If only I could just download the story out of my brain.
This year I’m going to employ the writing journal I’d been using since last year, but organize my thoughts and ideas through the bullet journal (also called the doodle journal) technique–a system of list making using organizational marks, and creative layout design. I’ll be writing more substantially about the process in a future post.
I intend to create a schedule for writing, blogging, and managing my responsibilities at home.
I intend to create a system of reinforcement in order to incentivize my progress.
I intend to balance my “other” artistic endeavors in an appropriate proportion to my professional ones. Which basically means stop sewing stuff when I should be writing.
This year, I will finish my first draft of my novel. No explanation necessary.
I’d love to hear about your writing resolutions, and how you intend to achieve them. Leave me a comment below. Start the conversation, or join in.
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