Posts Tagged ‘ToDo’

It’s the last day of my holidays…

Oh Ford, how the time passes quickly. It seems like only a fortnight ago I was finishing up work and getting ready for my time off. I wrote a vague list of things I wanted to do or finish during my holidays. It was about five or six items long.

Number one and two was about working on my novels, or at least getting started. What I like to call dirtying the page. – I’d like to say I did a lot of work on my novels. I’d like to say I put a big dent in my work load. But…

I would be lying.

I did a little planning on one of my projects, but for the most part I didn’t even think about them.

Number three, however, I did do. It was to finish Dah’min. I did a bit of a rewrite and a whole lot of editing and finally – I gave up.

Number four was to work on a short story that I started writing a couple of weeks ago now. This got pushed aside temporarily. While rummaging through my old writings and notes and scraps of every description, I found a discarded first chapter that I though would make a good short story. I spent a day writing it, which became two days. Then I edited it one morning, which became a couple more days. That story was Alterations.

After I finished Alterations I went back to work on the short story, but it’s still a long way from being finished yet.

and finally – Number five. I was planning on writing a couple more Doug of the Darkness scenes. I did finish one but I really wanted to do two. I’m also thinking of giving myself a deadline for Doug, so I update at least once a week. (the last two updates have taken almost a fortnight)… I’m thinking of Thursdays. Or maybe Wednesdays. Nah, Thursdays.

…or maybe Wednesdays…

Nah… Thursdays. Okay then, we’re agreed. Every Thursday Doug of the Darkness will be updated.

I did a few other things while on holidays. I got a hare cut, new glasses, my short story Icy Dead People won a competition to be published, and my dog gave birth to three kittens and a frog.

Okay, that isn’t true… It was only two kittens.

Wahoo!

By this time tomorrow I will be unofficially on holidays. The day after – I will be.

A whole two weeks without work. Am I dreaming?

No.

I still have all the work that I’ve set for myself to do. (Re: Previous couple of entries) – And, as though I hadn’t set enough things for me to work on, I actually found more things for me to do.

Going through some of my old files from last year, I found some fairly reasonable stuff that I’d abandoned for some reason or another. One piece in particular, I had forgotten, was the beginnings of a time travel story. In those days I didn’t think in terms of short stories, everything was novel this and novel that. But I came across this first chapter/introduction and realised it might work nicely as a short story, It’s less than a thousand words and very rough around the edges but a nice little short short story it will make… I think.

I found some other old ideas and notes for things that I had forgotten about. Plans for a story about a serial killer that begins with quite a sinister line about the protagonist having quite a lovely morning if only it wasn’t for the corpse by the coffee table that I found hilarious, A comedy about a superhero that was turning out more dark than funny, Plans for a fantasy story about a man who climbs off the edge of the world to see what’s underneath and a story set in a small town where odd things keep happening.

If I had finished everything I’d ever started, well I’d have quite the library of work.

oh well, finishing stuff is somewhere on my priority list.

Other things to do over the holidays include –

I need to work out better categories for my blog, most things seem to be going into the same two categories which means if someone ever actual wants to read this stuff they’ll have a hard time finding things. (I’m talking about you, future reader!)

Read. I’m halfway through Brave New World and I picked up Jasper Fforde’s second Thursday Next book today which I’m looking forward to reading too. I still have a lot of books on my To Be Read list, so don’t worry about me.

That’s it from me, for now.

Don’t forget to bring a towel.

It’s the end of another year. It happens faster and faster these days.

I think I only wasted about 80% of it this year… A huge improvement on my 99.99999% of recent years!

I’ve written up a list of New Years Resolutions for next year. I don’t usually make resolutions but since I’ve made a few changes that turned out good for me this year, I want more…

Here’s a quick round up of my year in quick point form to make it seem like I did more than I actually did.

- Moved house, Now have a larger room. Enough to set my water bed up again.

- Made a major cut back on T.V. watching. – I used to watch a whole lot of crap and now I just watch a moderate amount of crap.

- Read a lot more good books – (it’s easier now that there’s a good book store in the area)
Changed my mood. Been down for so long, I’m trying to be Healthy and Happy now. – The beer glass is half full.

- Wrote a short story which is being put into an anthology – updates to come.

- Made a good start on one of the novels I’ve been trying to write for years. (although, now I’m stuck again)

- Got a cool Doctor Who poster.

- Started my website – www.JeremyBoland.com

- Entered in NaNoWriMo (although failed when I lost interest in the story I was writing but it did give me the boost I needed)

- Build a huge bookshelf. – Link

- Bought a Sega Master System II – Am I up on the latest or what?
Got a Cappuccino Maker for christmas – (not really something I did but It’s worth a mention because it ROCKS!)

That’s about it. I’m going to try and double it next year.

Here’s the resolutions I’ve made for next year, the may be overly optimistic and probably unachievable by year’s end but hey, who actually keeps these things? Well I’m going to try.

#1 -Complete Two Novels. – Well complete one and at least the first draft of the other. I’ve had these two rolling around in my head for almost 4 years now and it’s time to finish them. I’m trying to figure out which one to focus on though. One is Mal Macabre which I’ve already started but have gotten a little lost on which direction to go and the other I’ve had the complete plot in my head for about 3 years now and have come up with a few details along the way as well. I might focus on the latter, but I’m not sure yet.

#2 – Keep to a sleep schedule. I’m terrible at sleeping – I’m lucky if I get to bed before two or three in the morning and only get about four hours sleep. So I’m going to try and get more this year.

#3 – Complete 3 short stories. – More writing, yes, but the more I write the better I’ll get, and even more importantly – the more I’ll stick to it and stop procrastinating.

#4 – Loose Weight. – If you know me, I’m a bit of a fat bastard. But I’ve gotten fairly healthy before and it always feels better than being the lazy couch potato. So this year I’m making plans to stick to my plans.

#5 – Cut down my smoking. I’ve cut out all drugs (including prescription) from my life and have no interest in them anymore but I still smoke. I’m not going to say I’ll quit just yet, but that’s something I’ll come to later in the year but I do want to cut down on the amount I smoke at the moment.

#6 – Save Money. – I do have a tendency to spend frivolously , especially when I go to the corner store for a pack of smokes and end up also buying a couple of red bulls or ginger beers and frozen pizza and salami sticks and scratchies and ice cream and stationary and (well you get the picture) – So I’m going to stop doing that now and save my money for more important things, like frozen pizza and ginger beer and salami sticks and scratchies… wait a second.

#7 – Get out more – I’m a bit of a hermit and really prefer spending the time I’m not working at home alone… in quite a coincidence that’s where I am now!

and that’s about all I’ve come up with. Any more and I think I’ll overload myself and that won’t accomplish anything.

I’ll be making regular updates here on my blog that nobody reads. so make sure you check back here – because your the only one!.

So then, See you next year. I’m hoping it’s a good one.

for a change.