In which I set some goals

One of the things that came out of my pages today is a personal goal to be a more active listener, especially with family members. I was specific about what behaviors I was aiming for, and I hope I can follow through with this. (I did not tackle the mental behaviors yet, but took aim at the more doable physical behaviors, like providing full physical attention. We'll see how the mental attention follows, and work on that separately, since that will be harder. Most people talking to me have to compete with the rather "loud" and constant litany of thoughts running through my head....I'm *always* trying to sort out at least two conversations when people are talking to me... )

Anyway, that brings up the whole idea of goal setting, something else I would like to improve at. I'm better at setting vague unreachable goals than I am about setting well-defined, concrete goals. One nice thing about that snowflake method is that it gives you well defined goals to reach for, in fairly do-able increments. My long-term goal is to write a novel. But, like eating an elephant, it has do be done one bite at a time, and one actually has to get around to taking the bites in order to get anywhere. So my goal for friday is to do up the character sheet for a minor character that isn't as minor as it was starting out, and to expand the character sheet for one major character. I think, barring everyone self-destructing from work-related stress, that this is doable for Friday even though it's already Wednesday. So that's my goal. And if people care, I can update them on the listening goal as well. I think being a better listener will make me a better writer. I could be wrong about that, but I am hoping it will expand my point of view and help me with character variety.

In which I have an idea

Well, I started up the morning pages again, now that my wrist is feeling a little better. Got some wide ruled paper to minimize the writing so hopefully I can handle it. Anyway, most of my thoughts haven't been so much about writing, but family related stuff, so there isn't much to say. I did have an interesting idea related to both. I thought a "story night" where we make up stories might be a lot of fun. Kind of a round-robin thing, where we could get as silly or serious as the mood took us. And who knows, maybe some of them would be worth expanding on later.

In which some writing happens

Well, I made some progress on my story yesterday. Got the broad plot outline and the character outline for the two main characters down. Some interesting interactions going on, and I can see what the themes are. Cool. I seem to be pretty consistent in my message at the moment.

I confess I haven't been doing the pages the past two days. It's the longhand thing. I really have trouble with the wrist right now, and 3 pages of longhand hurts.

In which I stretch

Well, did the pages again. Still mostly stuff that isn't particularly useful at the moment. Pondered the state of my imagination a little, but the rest was minutae.

Read some stuff I'd written last night. This was the thing I did for NaNo a couple of years back. Some pretty good stuff there, if I can just figure out where it's going.

I'm reading Thale's Folly by Dorothy Gilman. There's a character in it who writes stories. But she only writes beginnings. She doesn't bother with middles or endings. Kind of like how I feel. Got a ton of beginnings, I'm very good at them. But I'm not as interested in? good at? middles and ends.... I'm good at sarcasm and parody too, for that matter. Maybe I should write the book of beginnings....

In which nothing much happens

Well, so far so good on the shredding thing. I'm still being cautious about what I say, but I'm venturing slightly more to opening up. I'm not going to push myself, though. I am going to need to trust the process first.

Not much in the way of writing lessons in this one either. That may take some time. Mostly just dumped a bunch of worries about other stuff. Did realize that one thing I really like about my favorite author is that the firm belief that light and air heals wounds--they fester in darkness and ignorance is very clear throughout her stuff.

Read The Dark Hills Divide last night. The author notes talk about how it started out as a serial story for his kids, and that he'd write a new installment for them every week. Hmmm. Now there's a plan....