Goals and Catching Up on Business Redux

On Tuesday, June 28^th, 2011, I posted a list of my goals for the remainder of 2011, inspired by my buddy, Pam Asberry. She has her personal blog called Sometimes It's Cloudy, Sometimes It's Clear:

http://pamasberry.blogspot.com/

I wrote down my goals on some scrap paper and promptly put them in the drawer of the desk and forgot about them.

I do remember that the goals, in order to be more effective, need to be "I will..." statements and have a definite date attached to them. Simply by writing them down, they are more likely to be accomplished, right? They need to be doable, which means I need to get off my fat @ss and stop playing Jewel Quest III all afternoon, while watching bad TV.

So, here are the goals I put before you on June 28^th for the remainder of 2011 and my progress (or not so much) in brackets afterward:

1. I will finish one large needlework project by 12-31-2011. I love stitching and have several that would only require a little more effort to finish. [Don’t know if that will happen. I have finished one small piece and started another for an end of February birthday gift for a friend. I’m about I’d say one-sixth through and it goes pretty quickly.]

2. I will be more active and watch my diet to lose at least 10 lbs. by my doctor's appointment the first week in September (let's say 9-1-2011). Really. It's not that hard, Julee. [Did not do it by then, but I did start. I was so sick in August, I started my radical diet and have lost over twenty pounds by the end of October. Not too shabby.]

3. I will get the boxes of cross-stitch magazines and craft stuff that I no longer have need of or want to the place that sells them on eBay for me by 9-1-2011. I've made several hundred dollars so far this year off of stuff that had been in boxes in the garage, not seeing the light of day for years. [Just got payment today (Nov. 3^rd) for the last shipment ($65 toward the new Laptop Fund!) and I have three more boxes of things ready to go. I just need to get the magazine box upstairs (oh, honey….?), seal,  label them and get them to the post office. I also have two pretty clear plastic bowls ready of Christmas earrings priced for the booth I share with a friend.]

4. I will clean and organize the dining room, kitchen and living room so that we can host a Christmas party this year, say before 12-23-2011. The dining room has been a storage room for the past year. I will include re-upholstering the six chairs I spray painted black last year. [Don’t know if this is happening. See below.]

5. I will find full-time employment I enjoy by 10-1-2011. The TV station my husband works at is being sold, so this is an issue. [Close, but no cigar. It was November 2^nd, I got notification they want my real persona to come work at the AT&T technical support call center, in their small business division. Nine (9) weeks of training, but think of all the cool gadgets I get to play with?! Yes, it’s full-time. The pay and benefits are decent and I’ll really get to help people. I am grateful. I just went to pee in a cup and talked to two people from the company that does the security checks, so that’s good. I start Nov. 28^th.]

6. I will finish editing Seven Days by 7-31-2011, so it can go to my beta readers. [Didn’t happen. I’ve divided the book into two stories. Seven Days: Will and Elizabeth is essentially done, as is Seven Days: Rob and Mary, because I just used the alternate POV scenes and stuff I had in my notes anyway. Rescheduled to the end of January, with new employment.]

7. I will finish writing at least one other novel-length manuscript by 12-1-2011. Shouldn't be a problem, because I pretty much have Seven Months done, except for putting it in first person. [I’m splitting up Seven Months too and I have so many good notes, I’m very excited about the two stories. I’m saying end of March or maybe end of April.]

8. I will research and query at least three agents by 9-31-2011. [Not going to happen. See #9.]

9. I will research and make a decision about self-publishing by 10-31-2011. [Decision was made in August or September. Definitely self-publishing, but will choose a company that does print-on-demand too . Why should I give someone else all but 17%?]

10. I will get my writing notes re-organized and get at least five notebooks transcribed into the computer and saved on flash drives by 10-31-2011. [Didn’t happen. I have gone through almost all my notebooks and flagged the pages that involve Seven Days and Seven Months story lines. I’ve also gone through and scanned dozens of magazines for pictures and articles and saved on flash drives. Copies of said flash drives are in a safety deposit box at our credit union. I’m fascinated and excited from going through these notebooks and they are serving as inspiration for little “bridging scenes” in these four books. It will get done, just not as soon as I wanted. That Jewel Quest III demon keeps popping up.]

Not terrible. What do you think? I am following Jane Friedman’s advice (Google her, she’s awesome!) of keeping my daily goals limited to what I can write on a sticky note, so I don’t get overwhelmed. I need to get a new purse notebook out of my stash and transfer phone #s, addresses and such to it. With the new job, I’ll have access to lots of new technology and will be training to use it, so I figure that will be a great exercise. I may even be :::shudder::: tweeting soon.

How have you been doing on your goals? Have you had to re-set them, as I have? That’s okay. It’s all progress.

Creative procrastination and counted cross-stitch

The Greek Cross, from Stitchin'spiration and Sally Rudkin

There was a period of time when I did a ton of counted cross-stitch. It was an obsession, where I think I really believed that "she who dies with the most patterns wins." What I didn't realize at the time was I'd still be dead and someone would have to deal with all my s#it. A friend told me he remembered me stitching while watching movies or visiting and I'd have two or three projects going at one time. Actually, I usually had about ten or more projects going at one time. We called them UFOs or UnFinished Objects and our purchases when we visited a good XS store S.E.X, for Stash Enhancement eXperience. As in, "I had some really great S.E.X. yesterday."

There was a wonderful story about a woman who dies and is led into a room with every pattern she ever wanted, all the best fabrics, all the embroidery flosses (even the special hand-dyed, like what was used on the piece here) and a comfortable chair with a fancy Ott lamp (true-color light--these old eyes swear by them!). She's happy, because she finally will have eternity to stitch to her heart's content. She says, "Thank you! This truly must be heaven!"

The person transforms to the devil and says, "No, welcome to hell. There are no needles." A bunch of us on the XS boards made a pact that we'd be buried with a packet of needles.

But, I have a bunch of pieces I've finished and have spent a small fortune framing. I used to do all my own finishing, spending a couple hours lacing or pinning the fabric to the acid-free foam core. The hardest part for me was always centering the piece and stretching it evenly. A buddy and I entered some pieces in the competition at the National Counted Cross-Stitch Festival that they used to hold at Rockholm Gardens, an Amish facility in Rockholm, Illinois. I remember being docked points because one side was two threads higher than the other.

As I've lived and learned through the years, I can either make it perfect or I can get it done. I used to try to be perfect all the time and I used to have ulcers. It's that whole adult child of alcoholics thing. Finally, I let it go and allowed myself to enjoy the experience of stitching, knowing to an untrained eye, it's still impressive. The piece above is technically blackwork, which is instead of making an "X," backstitching. I finished it in 2007 and bought the frame, matting, glass, foam core, backing, etc., from Michaels Craft Store probably in 2009 or 2010. It sat in the bag until last week when I found out that for $18.21, they would put the damn thing together for me. I was doing The Happy Dance, usually reserved for finishing a piece, when I found that out and I happily took it back in and gave them my credit card. The fine folks did a great job, it's ready to hang and even better, I didn't have to do it myself. I could spend the time writing, editing and playing Jewel Quest III. I also ruthlessly culled through my patterns and sent five boxes of stuff to a store that sells craft stuff on eBay. I've made several hundred dollars (no where near what I spent originally) that I've used to enter writing contests and for my RWA membership.

I've given my love and talent for cross-stitch to my heroine in my novel Seven Days, Lizzy/Elizabeth. The hero, Will, is the man for her when he shows an appreciation for a piece she's working on and asks if she would ever do a project for him. She knows it would have a place of honor in his office and wouldn't be sold for $10 at a yard sale. True story--I would kill. Honestly.

I've also given another trait of mine to Will. He shows Lizzy his office/library and admits he hasn't gotten a lot of his books up on the shelves because he has what he calls, "creative procrastination." Turns out, those books he did get on the shelves were smoke damaged (he gives up smoking for her), but the ones still in boxes weren't. I've learned, sometimes not getting something done is A Good Thing. In a previous job, something would tell me to procrastinate on a report and lo and behold, my boss would say we didn't have to do it.

So, I don't know why I procrastinated on framing The Greek Cross, from Stitchin'spiration and Sally Rudkin. Maybe, Michaels lowered their price on their framing service recently. Maybe, I just needed to see that I didn't have to do every bit of a project and do it perfectly to have the satisfaction of having finished it. Maybe, it was simply that I needed to get my s#it together and get it taken care of, so I could clean out that section of the room it was in and get it hung on my wall. But, I'm glad to share it with you and move on to another project. I'm almost finished with several pieces that I'll say Elizabeth did and I have another almost dozen pieces finished to frame. Writing and stitching makes a wonderful life!