Tag: New Year Resolutions

Mindful Monday, or How I Scored on My New Year Resolutions

I am posting this only to share how well I did on my last New Year’s Resolutions and to formulate the new ones. To refresh your memory in detail, I can refer you to my blog post from last year.

In short, I’ll report on each of my resolutions:
1. I wanted to make the “Devastation of the Soul” chapbook. Checked. That is ready, but not submitted anywhere. I didn’t finish it by the end of February as I’d planned, but at the end of September or mid-October. – KEPT!
2. I intended to translate 13 horror stories from English to Bulgarian – one each month plus an additional one. I completely forgot about this, and never even started it. – FAILED!
3. I wanted to write a poem every day in April and November but didn’t keep my April part of the promise. Honestly, I don’t even remember this resolution. Anyway, I’m nearly ready with the November Poem-a-Day challenge. That is, all the poems are written in their first draft and need to be edited and the ones for the final chapbook selected. OK, that’s a new plan. – HALF-KEPT!

4. Regarding this project, I won an artist on my side. She thought about it, started drawing, and then, in September, forgot about it. I’ll give it a try next year, perhaps. – HALF-KEPT!
5. Yoga once a week – sometimes, I managed, other times I couldn’t. We’ll consider this as FAILED!
6. Dieting with a journal – definitely not with a journal, and not the whole year through. So, we’ll say it’s FAILED!
7. Five new theatrical pieces and 3 new operas – I saw 3 plays and 2 more for children, so this part of the resolution can be considered kept. As for operas – I saw one new musical, and that’s all. I planned to see 3 operas, I almost bought the tickets, but for one reason or another, I wasn’t able to attend. So – HALF-KEPT!
8. Blogging once a week – actually, I didn’t until August. Then, I made an editorial calendar and started preparing my blog posts earlier, so that I have time to think and polish the content. Well, since August, blogging has been quite fine. Let’s say this resolution is KEPT!

Above, I can count 2 KEPT, 3 FAILED and 3 HALF-KEPT resolutions. I’ll consider this a successful year.
Happy New Year, everyone!

New Year Resolutions, Edition 2018

Hi there,
my friends and loyal subscribers, my favourite people in the world, my readers! That time of the year has come again, and it’s even perhaps already late for New Year Resolutions. Noooo, it’s not! It’s not. Cut the long story short, here are mine:

    new-year-resolutions-2013
    New Year Resolutions for 2018!

    1. Make the “Devastation of the Soul” poetry chapbook. I know exactly which poems will be at the core, so it shouldn’t be that difficult. I plan to be ready with this project by the end of February.
    2. Translate 13 horror stories from English to Bulgarian and make them into a book. Well, I can’t print the book obviously, or distribute it. What I intend is to have a full-length body of content just in case anyone would be interested to print. Why 13? Ah, I’m predictable. The perfect timing will be to translate one story per month and choose one month for a double score. Yet, I don’t believe in such evenness. Moreover, I’m making the chapbook during January and February, remember? So, let’s focus on getting the first six stories by the end of May, or early June, at the latest. No serious work during summer, dudes! My experience is adamant in this respect. Every single time I made plans for June-July-August, I failed. No need to get bitter on that. Just move the deadline 😉 This project should be accomplished around the end of November. It will coincide with the end of NaNoWriMo.

      3. And that brings me to my next resolution:

    3. November will be a month for poem-a-day writing, as will be April. I don’t plan to follow any particular prompts, but I’ll lay the foundations for two more chapbooks. I haven’t decided on the topics yet. This year, I will not revisit NaNoWriMo. Maybe next year 😉

      4. OK, moving on:

    4. I need help with this one. Some 5 years ago, I was thinking of writing very short poetic pieces to go with each of the Tarot Cards. Maybe just the Major Arcana, for the whole pack would become boring. If you want to see what those cards are, check this Wikipedia page. These past 6 months, however, a new idea dawned on me: write a short piece to go with the various cards used in the Dixit Board Game (To learn more about the game check their official page). I need your help, because I don’t believe it’s reasonable to think I can do both this coming year. So, which one? The deadline is my birthday, that is end of December. I plan to focus on this in the second part of the year. Let’s hope the general mood will be favourable.

      5. Now, to the less creative resolutions:

    5. I will do yoga once a week.
    6. I will continue my diet journal and scheme.
    7. I will see 5 new theatrical pieces and 3 new operas.
    8. I will blog once a week, at least.

    I think this is enough. Maybe it’s a good idea to add something about cooking skills or baking intentions, but you know the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so I won’t be tempted.

    Perhaps I should pin this post somewhere to get reminded of it and check my progress regularly. It’s so good to be back in this blog *hug*.

    Before you go, I’d like to remind you that I need your help with the 4th item in my list. Which one should it be: Tarot or Dixit?

New New Year’s Resolutions

Last year, I used Adi’s blog to make my NYR. Let me account for the results:

I wanted to take part in NaNoWriMo again. This one was a great success! Not only did I participate and won, despite of all the trouble I was into, what with me travelling and being off from my laptop, but I also FINISHED my novel. Yes, believe it or not, I completed it and put down the coveted THE END at the bottom of it, centered, all caps 🙂 Oh, and even though it’s still unedited, I published it. On Smashwords. It’s still free. 😉 Once I finish the edit, it won’t be free anymore. As of now it has a lot of emptiness, especially in the beginning, while I was still honing my pen 😀 The artist is still working on the cover art, so the picture you will see is about to be replaced by the real one.

I also planned to take part in Nov PAD Challenge. This one was a partial success. My travelling and study schedule allowed for only one big event in November, and I made that NaNo. Anyway, I poemed steadily somewhere till Day 18, and then faltered a bit. I believe I miss around 5-7 poems.

My other resolution was taking part in NaPoWriMo, Apr PAD, or 30Poems30Days, which is just like November Poem-A-Day, only done in April. Uh, it was a failure. I started very strong again, having a lot of inspiration and sweet memories from November PAD. Sometime around Day 8 I faltered and could not get back in line for about a fortnight. Apart from having a tough time at work (which is not an excuse, as a poem could be a couple of lines and as such should not take that much time to write), I think my greatest mistake was that I tried to follow many prompt sites that cooperated in the NaPoWriMo. Having so many prompts to choose from, one has a hard time. While in November I only had the Poetic Asides, whether I like the prompts or not. Next April I will choose one site and go for its prompts only.

My other project was to complete my first NaNoWriMo novel. Well, not really a success. It still needs a lot of work. I actually think I will start editing the text, for I need to make major changes in it, and then I will move on to finishing the story. It’s not like I have no idea what to do. I even thought out the ending.

Well, now to the complete failures: translation projects. I had many. One of them was translation of a paranormal fantasy book a blogging friend of mine wrote a couple of years ago, which I started just after she posted it on her blog. Unfortunately, I never made it past Chapter II.

The other project was translation of short stories. Uhm, I have completed all the translations which I have started, in fact. Some of them still need editing and there are some that still need to be typed in, for they were hand-written. As for new translations, I don’t see it in the future.

So. My major mistake in NYR was that I made for unfinished work from previous years, while I should have left some space for new things to to.

What I managed to do, although it was not on my list, is the Sombre Chapbook. It’s ready, complete, edited, beautiful and is also on Smashwords. Well, it has been approved for other sellers, as well. So, Apple and the rest will start selling it soon. 

Next year

1. I will edit and complete Orange.

2. I will make one more Chapbook. Maybe it will be a Lover’s Chapbook and out for St. Valentine…

3. I will publish my works in more sites.

4. I will again take part in NaPoWriMo. Hopefully, to a better success.

5. November PAD – same,

6. and NaNoWriMo. I am thinking of writing a book for children. Yet, I still have ideas around the Lemonpie sisters. We’ll see.

7. I will continue doing sports

so… what else? Learning to cook or improving in something… I don’t know. I think I’m pretty satisfied with what I do and how I do it. I can only wish I have the good luck to be fit and able to continue doing it.

What are your New Year Resolutions?