{"id":148,"date":"2008-04-03T22:21:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-04T04:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/03\/new-years-resolutions-quarterly-evaluation\/"},"modified":"2012-02-18T08:26:42","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T14:26:42","slug":"new-years-resolutions-quarterly-evaluation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/03\/new-years-resolutions-quarterly-evaluation\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year’s Resolutions–Quarterly Evaluation"},"content":{"rendered":"


The Negative Goals<\/span><\/p>\n

1) Have no tight deadlines<\/p>\n

I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. The recent copyedits saw me rushing to Fedex at 7:45 in the evening to make the 8pm deadline for overnighting. And to ship a measly 5 lb of paper cost me $59.95. Why for a few more dollars I could fly myself, along with the copyedits, from Austin to New York City.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>2) Not write 1,000,000 words to get a 100,000-word novel<\/p>\n

Haven’t written any 100,000-word new novel yet. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>3) Not be constantly behind on laundry, yard, and house cleaning<\/p>\n

Gah! At the end of the copyedits, the abode resembled what my suburban, disney-fied imagination thinks of as a crack house. Kidlets were scrunching for socks in the laundry chute. And I just finally mowed the lawn yesterday morning, with some portion of the grass up to my knees.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>4) Not exercise only when I have trouble fitting into my clothes<\/p>\n

Haven’t had trouble fitting into my clothes. Have been forgetting to eat rather than eating too much. But what awful shape I’m in. Rode bike the other day to kidlet’s school because he forgot something at home. Half a mile, and I was about ready to dial 911. Must exercise more.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>5) Not neglect this blog for months at a time<\/p>\n

Gah again! If not an F at least a D. True there have been various updates in the past two months, but very little proper content. One reason is that all the contents have gone to other people–I guest-blogged at everybody and their great-aunt’s place during March. The experience was excellent, but my sluggish mind can only originate so many blog posts in a given time period. Guess whose blog got the shaft?<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

The Positive Goals<\/span><\/p>\n

1) Spend so much time with Hubby that he runs away when he sees me next<\/p>\n

He is still walking towards me whenever I see him. So must do better.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>2) Get my bike repaired and serviced so that I never drive my car again for distances less than three miles, which should cover the grocery stores and the library and the most of the rest of my life when I’m not working my accounting job (which is 10 months out of 12).<\/p>\n

Was all set to go Monday past, then it rained. And then the senior kidlet was sent home from school with a nasty bug and he’s been recuperating at home ever since. Will do next Monday.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>3) Improve my grasp of the languages I already know.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Ummm…<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>4) Learn Spanish.<\/p>\n

Maybe next year.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>5) Make some money from writing. I made a grand total of $1,450 in 2007, from the Russian sale of Private Arrangements.<\/p>\n

Well, what do you know? A goal accomplished! The delivery&acceptance check for Delicious came last month and surprised the heck out of me. I had totally forgotten that I was owed any money for it; I was just so happy that the book turned out right.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>6) To make 5) happen, I should sell 4 books on contract.<\/p>\n

Sold two more historical romances to Bantam. And given the snail’s pace at which I write, I’m going to call this a goal accomplished too. Lots of people would lose sleep–not the least of which me–to know that I have more than that many books under contract. If I ever manage to write a book in under six months again, I’ll revisit this one.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>7) Have five foreign sales. I had three in 2007–Russia, Germany, Spain. Foreign rights sales are the awesome. Every one is like a little Christmas.<\/p>\n

Sold French rights to PA in March. Not bad.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>8) Become a better person. I’m actually not a bad person at all, but there is always room for improvement. (And I wonder what it says about me that this resolution is way down on the list. Ha!)<\/p>\n

Uhhh…no halo around my head yet, so still a work in progress.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>9) Buy a pair of skinny jeans. By the time this happens no one will be wearing skinny jeans anymore. But I’m patient. I’ll hold on to them until they come back into vogue again.<\/strike><\/p>\n

I actually went out and tried on a pair. I looked stupid in them.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>10) Care enough to be upset when my resolutions languish from casual neglect. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/span>Casual neglect, check. Casual indifference, check. Nope, still same old me. Well, I did hate that the house got so messy while I was on deadline. So perhaps there is hope for me yet. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Negative Goals 1) Have no tight deadlines I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. The recent copyedits saw me rushing to Fedex at 7:45 in the evening to make the 8pm deadline for overnighting. And to ship a measly 5 lb of paper cost me $59.95. Why for a few more dollars … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[33],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1370,"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/1370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}