New Year's goals

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR! It's 2015, a new year with a lot of potential. It's that time of year when people think of what they want to accomplish. It's the season of the New Year's resolutions.

I don't believe in setting New Year's resolutions. They're made with sincerity, but some people just can't seem to follow through. Some of them are too vague to really have anything done. Others are complicated and too huge to tackle without some sort of plan. Those too fall by the wayside.

I do set goals though. I figure out the small steps to take to achieve them. I don't always achieve them. In fact last year's goals went largely unaccomplished. But this year I hope to do a lot better than I have before. I don't have very many goals but I think they're important ones. At least as far as my year should go. I thought I'd share them with you, in the hopes that by putting them down somewhere I can hold myself accountable better.

Goal #1 – Mend the faults in my character that lead to nothing but trouble for me.

Steps – Identify the faults, pick one to focus on until my habits change. Move on to the second one without letting my work with the first one fall to the wayside. Rinse and repeat until I've finished as many as I can in a twelve month period.

Goal #2 – Get a story or two to the query phase.

Steps – Identify which story/stories I want to query. Edit it/them. Find beta readers to look it/them over to find where I made my mistakes. Edit again with those suggestions in mind. Ask beta readers to take one final look at them. Pull a final edit.

Goal #3 – Query one or more of my novels.

Steps – Finish editing the novels. Write my first query. Read through the Query Shark archives to see her advice on other queries. Refine my query. Have someone else look it over. Once finished, research agents and their preferences. Adjust my query to fit those requirements. Send out the query letter with the other requested information.

Goal #4 – Continue working on my mental issues.

Steps – Update my insurance information with the doctor's office. Talk to my med manager and let him know when the meds don't seem to be working. Follow through with seeing my counselor weekly. Work on the things my counselor suggests that are supposed to strengthen me.

These may look overwhelming, but I have them broken down into steps and I think if I focus on each step separately I'll manage it.

Do you make New Year's resolutions? Do you set goals? How do you go into the new year?

Holidays and depression

So Christmas is behind us and the New Year approaches. I've thought about this past year and I realized I've had a serious problem with my depression. Not just the chemical imbalance that comes along with Bipolar, but the self-induced misery that people sometimes find themselves in.

I am not a cheerful person by nature. I tend to be very serious. There are times where I don't get a joke because I don't find it funny. Or I won't even understand it. Comedy is lost on me most of the time. Himself tries to keep me upbeat and happy with his silliness and along with talking me out of my depression when I can't seem to drag myself out of it. I don't know where I'd be without him.

Holidays are never a good time for me. There have been some major things that happened that just sucked the love of the holidays out of me. I don't just mean Christmas and New Year. I mean all holidays. My depression is really bad during those times.

But this Christmas something changed. I realized that I wanted some kind of thing to mark it. Not this year, because it would be very difficult to do what I wanted. I want a fake tree, maybe three or four feet high. Nothing too big. I want some simple decorations to go on it. And I want to be able to put a wrapped gift or two under it. Even if Himself knows what he's getting for Christmas, I want to have the thrill of opening them.

This will have to wait until we have a place of our own. But it's something I want to do. Also I need to get back into the habit of eating pickled fish on New Year's Eve. It's a family tradition that I've had to let go for the past couple years but I think I'll ask my dad to share a little of his since he got a big jar at Costco so I have a piece or two. Himself won't touch it, but that's okay. This is my tradition that comes from my family.

I was also very lonely over the holidays. I had Himself, but he spent Christmas playing video games. I didn't mind. I spent my day reading silly stories and writing to try to keep from sinking into depression. But I didn't get over to my dad's to see everyone for Christmas. My dad told me that was a good thing since the visits were spread out through the entire day, the last one ending around 10:30 pm. I can handle an hour or two over there but not much much more than that. We went over the day after Christmas.

I'm really whiny in this post, and I'm sorry. This has been a kind of stream of consciousness piece, with a little self-editing here and there. I promise I'll be a little perkier on Friday. I do hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and will have a Happy New Year.