The Evolution of Plans

On New Year's Day, many people make their resolutions. Some are more serious about it than others, but in the end, what you plan to do is usually not exactly what you end up doing. Some people give up before long, but others find themselves having to make adjustments after a little while. Today, I'm starting to see what those adjustments look like.

In Endings, 2012, posted on the last day of November, I was already making a few promises, mostly regarding The Third Face. I outlined my schedule for this year, which included finishing that draft mid-January. In fact, I actually did finish it a few days ago, as some of you noticed. Why didn't I write a post about it? Well, I was still in the midst of the "Obscurity" talk that started with my post on struggling authors and culminated in launching the Obscure Authors Alliance. Already, there's something that wasn't in my plan. Not only that, but I've decided to refrain from my lonely Script Frenzy in April, instead focusing the month on marketing The Third Face, as well as possibly recording an audio edition!

Then, in Looking to 2013, which I posted on New Year's Eve, I outlined my actual resolutions: to publish two novels, beta read four, and, each week, read a book and write three blog posts. I was lenient with myself on that last one, and you can see why--though I wanted to do a Drabble Thursday for each of those weeks, well, it's Thursday and there are no drabbles. I don't plan on doing one every single week anymore, but I do still want to do three blog posts, counting entries both on this blog and on Obscure Authors. When I do post the drabbles, it may not always be exactly a week's worth--just a few, here and there.

All in all, though, I'm sticking to my goals. Already, in the first few weeks, I've made a lot of progress on some of them. I've changed them in small ways, in order to make them possible and to root out the things that are just not realistic or useful, but they're still essentially the same ones I started with. That's what goals are all about: sticking with things, seeing your progress, and making little fixes to your plan. We can all learn a little bit from this.