road trip wednesday: 13 goals for ’13

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway‘s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody’s unique take on the topic.

This Week’s Topic is: What are your goals for the new year—for reading, writing, or other?

Perhaps goal #1 ought to be something about keeping up with this blog. Whoopsie? This seems to happen every fall/winter, though: I get too gloomy, then I go out of town, then I just plum forget to update again. Next year, I promise to do better. Next year, I plan on having made a name for myself, so my fans will nudge me into updating more. (Wishful thinking!)

This is a tough list to whip up most of the time for me, but for some reason, making goals has come fairly easy to me recently. Maybe I’m growing up. Maybe my brain’s calming down. Who knows. Anywho – list!

01) Get an agent. Or self-pub if getting an agent doesn’t work out.
02) Finish at least one manuscript – Either reset 2, AoA, new idea or some fourth thing.
03) Exercise more. (Not writing related, but I just kind of need to. Already conquered drinking more water and cutting down on sugar intake significantly.)
04) Attend a writing conference.
05) Make more connections with other writers even though it feels awkward to try.
06) Read at least one book a month. AT LEAST.
07) Learn a language. Hell, learn two.
08) Publish that anthology that I haven’t mentioned on the blog but will shortly.
09) Keep up with this blog more frequently.
10) Learn how to use Scrivener beyond the basics.
11) Take better care of my hair/skin. Already got a head start on this one!
12) Attempt to be less awkward.
13) Enjoy the year!

So what about you? Any goals for the new year?

long time no see

Holy Christmas, I haven’t posted in four months! I’m really sorry, y’all. I have been working super hard to get my novel done, on top of life just generally hating me, as life is wont to do. But hey, it’s October! The most wonderful time of the year! And so, I’m going to try and post more often, as I did last year for this lovely month. And hey, I’ll be participating in a blog hop, too! Isn’t that exciting?

The state of the novel currently is that I’m about 75% done with the third draft, at which point I’ll go ahead and start harassing agents into pitying me enough for a shot at a book deal. My plan is to be 100% finished by Halloween, at which point I will then begin NaNoWrimo! I’ve already got an idea in mind for it and I just hope that it a) comes together well and b) isn’t complete crap. I won in 2010 and 2011 with the grounds of what has become reset, so I’m hoping 2012 will be equally kind to me.

In the interim, in case you don’t follow me on Twitter (seriously, why don’t you? You should.), here’s a brief rundown of things that have happened:

• I went to a cat show. I did not get to pet any cats, though, which is kind of tragic.
• My grandfather gave me his cool Canon AE-1 SLR camera. I’ve been taking pictures but haven’t gotten anything developed yet. Fingers crossed that they don’t suck.
• I still have a job! My contract was renewed again, so now I’m coming up on two years at this place and I’m kind of excited about that.
• Basically, I’ve become a semi-social hermit. How does that even work?

Also, today would have been my lovely mother’s 50th birthday. Happy birthday, Bettye! I’d go get a drink in her memory, but she drank really crappy beer and I am not here for that.

new digs

Well, after a lovely little SOPA blackout, I’m back to show my new place. I moved out of the other house for a variety of different reasons which all boiled down to – I needed my own space. And space I got! I was approved for an apartment last month and paid my fancy down payment then, and on January 7th, the day after I returned from my awesome trip that I promise I’ll write about later, I moved right the hell on out.

On the surface, moving doesn’t seem THAT expensive. All you need is a bed-type surface, your toothbrush, maybe a fork, spoon and plate, and bam, you’re done. However, when you add up all the little things, moving is a pain in the ass, and in the wallet. Want to cook dinner? You need pots and pans. Carpet? Need a vacuum. Surfaces get dirty! Must get cleaning supplies. Let’s not even talk about dining tables, sofas, microwaves…

That all boils down to me essentially squatting in this apartment that I’m actually paying for, until I can afford to actually buy things. It’s been kind of a depressing couple of weeks, but I’m hoping to pick my chin up and fill this place up so that it feels a bit more like home. As it stands, I’m already loving being pants-free and bother-free. It can only go up from here, yeah?

oh hi

So…I’m kind of terrible at this. Not because I don’t want to update, mind you. I’m terrible because I think up posts in my head and never actually make them. It’s why I’m terrible at writing; the effort it takes to go from my brain to the computer is great, and I don’t have it in me all that often anymore.

I wandered away to do NaNoWriMo (I won) and then just got out of the habit of updating. In the meantime, I’ve:

• Gone to NYC for the holidays
• Met Anna and Mari in person for the first time (OH MY GOSH AMAZING aside from my stupid stomach being stupid)
• Harassed Massiel…again…but with no creepy Connecticut haunted roads this time!
• Managed to actually keep in touch with (part of) my family
• Moved into my very own apartment on my own!
• Bought a Kindle Fire, which is amazing and I love it
• Single-handedly pushed to bring back letter-writing (It hasn’t worked so well, sadly. Write me letters!)

And now, I’m back. I’ve got tons and tons and TONS of books to read and review. I’ve got a bunch of pictures from my trip to share. But for now, I just needed to say hi, and I’m still here.

PS – That image? Is a giant sloth. A SLOTH. Yeah. History is awesome.

happy birthday bettye

My mom would be 49 today. My grandmother (of sorts, kind of a long story) gave me this picture during my trip to Memphis. It was taken at her wedding. She brought up the trip to Georgia for the wedding and I’d said I didn’t recall going, so she spent the majority of my trip searching for this picture and found it the morning I left.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t like looking at pictures of her. I realize it’s been almost four years, and I guess I should be over it, but I’m not. At the very least, I don’t cry anymore when I do glance at pictures. Funnily enough, I carry one in my wallet everywhere I go; I just never look at it. It’s nice just to have it.

Birthdays were never a big deal for her, so I’m not going to make a big deal, either. Next year for the big 5-0, though, maybe I will. It’s incredibly lonely without her.