Be It Resolved That... (or, The First Check In)

I was poking around the internet, trying to find out a bit about how well the world does with keeping their New Year's Resolutions.  It doesn't look good, blogglings.  It depends on where you're looking, but anywhere between 36% and 98% of people have already given up their resolutions.  Let's see how I'm doing so far...

1. Drink more milk. I usually only drink milk when my parents are here (or I'm visiting them), and we drink milk at every dinner. Specifically, I will drink milk with a meal once a week.
• Not bad!  I'm drinking milk more often, but I've modified my resolution: instead of just drinking milk once a week, I've resolved to finish every container of milk I buy before the 'best before' date.  So far, I've managed to meet that goal.  Yay!
2. Cook dinner. And I mean really cook, not just reheat leftovers or zap a TV dinner. Specifically, I will cook myself at least one meal a week.
• Check!  Tonight was the first night in about a week that I stopped by and picked up take-out for dinner.  I've been making pasta and chicken and other pretty yummy stuff, and I've definitely saved money, which is a bonus.
3. Use 'so' less. I use the word 'so' an awful lot on this blog. So much, in fact, that it's started sticking out to me. I will use it less. But I have no specifics on how much less. ;)
• I think I'm doing okay with this one... I've been making a concerted effort to use that word less, and I've been diligent in my editing.  If you think I'm wrong, please, let me know, and I'll step up my efforts.
4. Be on time for work. I am really bad about clocking in at 8:02. All I have to do is wake up 2 minutes earlier (in theory). Specifically, I will clock in to work at 8:00 or earlier at least 4 days a week (which is an improvement over my current one-day-a-week trend).
• Umm.... Well, I clocked in before 8:00 twice last week... Okay, okay.  This one needs work.  Lots of work.  LOTS of work.
5. Drink more water. Over the last few weeks, I've been drinking a lot of pop. A LOT. Like, 3 or 4 cups of Dr. Pepper at work, then a Cherry Coke with dinner, and a Dr. Pepper later in the evening. That can't be good for me. But I got a fancy new plastic cup with my initials on it, and I find that I drink more water when I'm drinking out of that. Specifically, I will have more water than pop while I'm at work (even if that means guzzling two glasses of water in the last ten minutes of my day!).
• For the most part, I'm doing pretty well with this.  Monday was a mess - the computers were stupid, and I drank a LOT of Dr. Pepper at work.  But aside from that, I have been drinking just as much water as pop, so I'll call it a win.
6. Finish Partners. I HAVE to finish this play. I've run it through the critique group once, and I've made some major changes, but I need to finish this next draft and submit it to the theatre if I want to have a chance of having it produced next season. Specifically, I will finish this draft by the end of January and I will have it to my crit partners by mid-February.
• Haven't touched it yet.  Crap.

I'm getting there, I think.  It definitely helps that I've set specific goals, rather than just wishy-washy "I wanna get healthy" resolutions.  I can work with a goal.  I'm not so good at the abstract. 

How about you, blogglings?  Have you joined the ranks of the given-up, or are you still slogging along?

A quiet weekend

I'm ready for a quiet weekend.  Sure, last weekend was somewhat quiet, but that's because I was so sick, I couldn't do anything at all.  Well, okay, I went to Savannah, but Sunday and Monday were fairly immobile.

This weekend, I don't have a lot planned.  I like that.  I've got the usual stuff - dance class, gaming, crafting - but not much that should keep me up late or wake me up early.  I'm looking forward to sleep.

More importantly, I've got a Shiny New Idea that's been percolating for about three weeks, and I think I'm ready to write down the bones of it!  I really do need to finish up Partners before I get deep into a new project, but I want to write down the basics of this new idea.  Maybe I'll finish the current draft of Partners this weekend!  That'd be awesome, because then I could get it out to my next set of readers, then edit some more, then take it to the theatre!

Hmm.

I have a new goal for the weekend, apparently.

Creative juices starting to simmer

I can feel it. Just below the surface of my mind, there's a story brewing.

I love that feeling. I don't quite know what it is yet. My subconscious is working on it, creating something, getting it ready for my conscious mind. Is it odd, that I recognize that? Any sort of story that I write, I come up with before I consciously work on it.

I'm hoping that I might figure out a better ending for "Partners"... I want to finish it so badly. I've re-written Act I, moving some things around, and I'm much happier with where intermission falls. However, while I know what needs to happen in Act II, I'm having a hard time getting there. I need a more defined ending than I had at first. In the first several drafts, the play ended with a rather... vague ending. The two MCs had been working on their problem, but it wasn't truly resolved. They basically said they would work on it. As much as I like that ending artistically, leaving it up to the audience to decide if they lived happily ever after or not, it's very unsatisfying to the audience. If you've just sat through an hour or two, investing some interest in these two characters, and you get a wishy-washy ending, you're going to be unhappy.

There's another story that I'm hoping is brewing: Meliora's story. If you want to browse back and look at the stories, I apologize - they're going to be removed in the next few days. I don't really like to remove blog posts, but I've reworked the stories I've already written, and I'm going to submit them to a magazine, but they require first e-publication rights and request that the work not be available anywhere else online. If I don't get accepted, the posts will go back up. Aside from the few bits I've written about Meliora, I want to write some more about her. I don't really have a full definition of what kind of a creature she is. I mean, she's definitely not a vampire, although she does have some vampiric traits. She works with fog in some way, and she feeds off of people, although not physically... I need to figure out just what she is. If she doesn't fit into any sort of already-established creature type, I'll need to define her more emphatically and name her type. I can't wait to work on that one!

Of course, it may be something else entirely! Maybe I'll just get back into blogging every day!