Archive | January 11, 2015

A New Year, some new goals (a blog post)

Jan11

2014 didn’t exactly suck for me, it just – happened. I seem to have lost large parts of it, didn’t get a lot done until the last three months, and gained a bunch of weight.

But new years are a lovely time to start fresh. So this year, I’m going to try to be more aware of lost time and of lost plans.

Of course, as I’m writing this, I’m sick as a dog, and my only plans for today are to rest, drink lots of fluids, and take a short walk out to the barn for some firewood.

But starting as soon as I’m better!

Writing:
I’d like to submit 4 stories for publication/month.
I’d like to earn $200 from writing (donations, commissions, publications, etc)/month or $2400/year: this is an arbitrary figure picked because it’s possibly-doable while being a challenge.

I want to finish a rough draft of Rin/Girey.
I want to do the first Addergoole Kickstarter
I want to draft one other novel.

Health
I would like to lose 3 pants sizes in my preferred brand/type jeans. That’s about 14lbs/pants size for me, or 42 lbs over the next year.

I’d like to exercise at least 2x every week for at least 30 minutes

Other
I’d like to have an updated author page done by end of February.
I’d like to make significant progress (finish a stage) on a house/home project for three weekends out of every four I’m home.

Very Other
I’d like to have a process in place for handling failure that is more adaptive than “man, I suck,” panicking and moping.
I would like to leave more detailed and helpful comments on others’ writing.

I think that’s enough 🙂

What about you? Any changes for the New Year?

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Thimbleful Thursday – Mad in Atter, a story of Foedus Planaterum

Jan11

This belongs to the Foedus Planetarum setting and the Tod’cxeckz’ri Paper Story.

Previous in Story

“I suppose we could try my father,” Yira Trembane had suggested. They needed an acceptable relation to void their contract, and visiting Yira’s mother had turned out messily-at-best. “It’s just… he lives on Korsakoff. I don’t think he’s going to be much help.”

“I visited Korsakoff once.” Jahnan wince. “It was…”

“Memorable?” Yira’s teasing come out rough-voiced.

“Ouch. Yeah. Something like that.” She leaned back in the seat of the Maru and closed her eyes. “I landed…”


    Nehanani Jahnan set down her little star-bouncer on the neglected landing field of Atter, Korsakoff’s largest city. There were only two other ships in the field – a Foedus bureaucracy ship, probably census or taxes, and her quarry. There was dust over her quarry’s ship, but Korsakoff was known for its heavy dust that coated everything – he could have been here a day or a week.

    She fitted a filtered mask over her face. Korsakoff’s air wasn’t exactly poisonous – but it wasn’t any fun, either. Not if you wanted to leave anytime soon. Chances were, her target was just down the road. Unless he’d thought to mask, hoping she’d – ha – forget.

    She found Fess Entiror in a bar, just inside the city limits of Atter. The bartender aimed a desultory wave her way, and passed her a drink. Jahnan paid and headed for the table where Fess Entiror was already talking.

    “…and so I headed into New Malibu…”

      And there, in the middle of the town, there was this statute, this giant thing, larger than life, of a naked woman, with her hand… well, there’s ladies present. And there, sitting at the base of the statue, with his hand… sorry, ladies, well, there was my target.

      And the moral of the story is, never go into New Malibu drunk, or you’re just going to end up a sitting duck for whoever’s hunting you.”

    There was no point in talking to him; he had the glazed eyes and rambling speech patterns of someone already suffering from Korsakoff Syndrome. Jahnan couldn’t resist, anyway, as she slapped the cuffs on him.

    “And the moral of the story is, never go to Korsakoff when you’re on the run from the law, or you’re going to end up mad-ass in Atter, waiting for whoever’s hunting you.”

Yira coughed. “Or, well. Maybe we could just visit my stepfather, the first one.”
~

To January 8th’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt, approx. 400 words

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/883945.html. You can comment here or there.