I make New Years Resolutions every year. I’m an intrinsically motivated goal-oriented person, so I actually do daily, weekly, monthly goal-setting all year round, but I like the pomp and tradition of New Years Resolutions.

One of mine was to do a low carb diet for 2 weeks. FAIL. I lasted four and a half days. Partly because I’m vegetarian, and the joy of eating unlimited amounts of… well, cheese… paled after 72 hours. But I think the primary reason I failed was because other stuff came up that I wanted even more than less-snug jeans. For example, friends came in from out of state and wanted to go out to dinner. What should I have said, “No, I’ll be too busy at home eating low fat string cheese”? Not this girl. Off to Evos we went.

(And besides, the jean thing could be due to the excessive heat of my overly zealous dryer, right? Right???)

Last year, my 2007 New Years Resolutions included “blog once a week” and “do something writing-related every day”. (If you read the Manuscript Mavens blog, you already know I have strong feelings on the specificity, quantifiability, realism, and attainability of goals.)

I ended up blogging close to every day between my various sites. Blogging is great and fun and I had a blast doing it, but an hour or two spent blogging each day was an hour or two not writing, and it began to creep up on me. Especially when it took me three times longer to revise one of my stories than it did to write it in the first place.

This year, I did not make a comprehensive writerly list. Why? Because, pretty much my goal is: write. Write as much as humanly possible, given the obligatory things one must do each day (like earn enough $$ for the mortgage and trips to the grocery store for something to snack on other than cheese.) Haven and the other ladies on this blog are fabulous, so I’ll remain a reader (and I’m sure you’ll see my name in the comments now and again) but this will be my last post here at Romantic Inks. It was a tough decision to make, but I think it’s the right one for me at this time, given that my goal is to be career-minded.

Last year, I had a goal of reading an average of one book a week. I read 95 books. (The list is on the left-side column of my blog, if you’re interested.) This year, so far I’ve read… one. Yes, a book. And if I don’t meet the book-a-week average, am I going to beat myself up over it? Absolutely not. Why? Because every moment of free time is spent writing. I am not killing myself to come up with essay-length posts every day on my own blog. I am not whiling away the evenings watching TV or DVDs. I am not spending my afternoons playing the Sims or Spider Solitaire. I’m writing. And it makes me happy. =)

Now, some of you may be aware of the ill-kept secret that I do plan to take over the world in the near future, and when I do so, I shall be sure to tweak the space/time continuum to allow extra hours for reading and blogging in everyone’s day (and teleportation to replace long commutes and cross-country flights). But until then… here’s me wishing you all the best in 2008, and may each of the 24 hours in your day be filled with things that make you happy!