The strange zone between Christmas and New Year, or, goal-setting mania

You may call them "resolutions." I prefer to call them "goals." Not only do I have my Gauntlet II goals (see previous post), but I've formulated a page of goals for 2008 — a page! — three of which have become my Big, Fun, Scary goals (a bit of frivol run by the NaNoWriMo folks. I've found that goal-setting really, really works for me. I just hope I don't drive myself nuts by over-goaling. I suppose as long as I'm willing to jettison goals that become unweildy or unrealistic, I'll be all right....

We spent a few days in Melbourne after Christmas, seeing family and friends. I was particularly happy to see my Clarion buddies Chris and Jess. (Alessio, where were you?) We'd been hoping to also spend some time, at last, with the horses, but they are still under the equine-flu quarantine, upsettingly enough.

In a moment I will resume work on one of my Gauntlet II goals: revising The Associates (my adventure novel). I keep getting mutually contradictory feedback from various people on it, so I need to be quite careful about frantically rushing from paragraph to paragraph, trying to fix this and fix that and fix it back again, stretching to plug all the leaks with spread fingers and splayed toes, when they might not even be leaks to begin with. I'm very glad for all the feedback, though, because it's all useful in pointing out things that need to be looked out. Writing is all about choices, and conscious choices are definitely better than mindless, lizard-brain choices. Most of the time. (Sometimes you have to go with your gut — but even that is a conscious choice!)

By the way, our treasured friends Paul and Carolyne, who were some of the friends we were so happy to see in Melbourne, gave me cookie cutters for Christmas! Carolyne, if you're reading this blog (which you have done at least once, clearly), thanks! And you're always welcome to leave a comment — as are any other lurkers....