Closing the book on 2014 reading and starting my 2015 reading

I spent last week visiting Mr. Fraser's family in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Between travel time and the odd quiet moment, I was able to finish 6 books--3 in 2014 and 3 in the new year:

The last of the 2014 reading:

140) Lighting the Flames by Sarah Wendell


A Hanukkah romance set at a Jewish summer camp trying to make a go of a winter break camp to build enthusiasm between terms. The hero and heroine have known each other since childhood, but almost exclusively as campers and then counselors. They're now in their twenties, just stepping into their careers and feeling out a newfound attraction and what it means in their outside-of-camp worlds. Definitely the first book I've read where the hero is a mortician, and by the end of the book I found his career awesome rather than off-putting.

141) Yours Forever by Farrah Rochon

A fun, quick romance about an aspiring politician who wants to keep family scandals going back generations buried and a history professor who needs his family records to keep her faculty position.

142) Ancestral Journeys by Jean Manco

The simple summary: People have constantly been migrating, as DNA increasingly reveals. A little on the dry side, but worth a read if the topic is of interest to you.

And the first of 2015:

1. Yes Please by Amy Poehler


A generally entertaining and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny memoir (though it gets a bit rambly at times). The chapters on focusing on creativity above career had a lot of resonance for me.

2. The Resistance Man by Martin Walker

The latest in Walker's endearing, food-porny mystery series. I pretty much guessed the murderer--at least, I suspected him before the sleuth did, which left me feeling clever.

3. Gunpowder Alchemy by Jeannie Lin

A really excellent steampunk alternative history set in 1840's China. Plenty of adventure and a nice thread of romance.

It's already feeling a bit late to do a "best reads of 2014" list, but I might do one anyway sometime in the next week for the sake of reviewing the year and in case anyone is looking for some recommendations and, like me, doesn't have any particular compulsion to read new books the instant they appear. (Unless they're sequels to books that ended on cliffhangers, in which case GIVE GIVE GIVE NOW NOW NOW.)

For 2015, my reading goals are the same as always--read a lot, and read a good variety of genres and topics.

One week till RWA

With just one week till RWA '12, I've gone from resolutions to to-do lists and schedule-making. I won't bore you with an accounting of my multiple lists and spreadsheets.  Suffice it to say I'm the type who plans out my outfits for each day and has a schedule of workshops with second and sometimes third choices for each hour should the first prove less intriguing and useful than the title and handouts led me to hope.

The last six weeks have led me to reflect, glumly, on my habit of making vows to eat better, exercise more, and really-o, truly-o stick with Weight Watchers this time, only to give up after a week or two, as soon as some mini-crisis upsets my precarious equilibrium.  It makes it hard to start over again, because why should I expect myself to do better next time?

But I don't want to give up, either, and say, "This is the body I have, and these are my eating and exercise habits, now please pass the potato chips." I've got the family history, and I'm starting to have the cholesterol and triglyceride numbers, to tell me what a bad idea that is.  Not to mention that I'd really love the wider array of shopping options open to me if I were at my goal weight, two or three sizes smaller than I am now.  Plus, I'd see my cheekbones again. I miss them.

Yet somehow I don't think deciding to start Weight Watchers again the day after I get back from conference and really meaning it this time is the answer. I'm still figuring out what the answer might be, but I think it involves A) starting with smaller steps to give myself some victories, and thereby build in some new habits that won't collapse as soon as I have a deadline or a fever or something crazy happens at work, and B) stepping back and doing some serious brainstorming about what a healthy life would look like for someone with my combination of gifts and constraints, and then planning what it would take to get there.  In other words, plan my healthy lifestyle the way I plan my writing schedule for a new manuscript, or my ever-evolving 5-year writing career goals, or the way we tackle backlogs at my day job, rather than grabbing some one-size-fits-all plan and trying to force it to fit.

I've got some ideas for both A and B, and I've also got a new, marathon-distance goal for myself: the big European trip I'm planning for the summer of 2015.  I'm planning to be at Waterloo for the bicentennial of the battle, and I'm hoping to spend at least a month in Europe on either side of the anniversary. That's just a little less than three years away, and a smidge over 1000 days.

So that's the new goal.  1000 days from now, I'll be making lists and schedules for the trip of a lifetime instead of an annual conference.  I want to be ready to jaunt around the Continent as the healthiest, fittest, and most energetic version of me as I can muster. All I need is the right plan and steps to make that happen.

Resolved

Ah, another new year (and for me, another birthday). I can never resist the impulse to make resolutions, even knowing that the combination of diehard old habits and my busy life will make it difficult to really do all that organizing and exercising and so on.

So I've done the same this year. My 2012 goals list is long, and I probably won't meet all of them. However, the most important ones boil down to:

1) Have a productive year as a writer.

2) Live a more healthy life.

I'm not going to share the rest of my goals, or even the exact steps I've delineated for productive writing and healthy living (though I may blog about them if/when I succeed).

BUT, I decided to give myself two challenges that ought to be easily achievable within 6-7 months, talk about them publicly, AND set up consequences for failing to meet them:

Challenge the First: After I turn in the manuscript for my WIP, due April 1, I want to work on a short novella. Key word here is short: I'm shooting for around 15,000 words. Once I've done a bit of research and settled on the plot, I should be able to complete the first draft in less than a month. So I'd like to finish the draft no later than 5/15 or so, and have it submission-ready by mid-June. But life happens, and my editor will most likely send me developmental edits for the WIP sometime within that window...so I'm giving myself till July 23, the day I plan to fly down to Anaheim for RWA National, to finish that first draft. And if I don't? I will wear a shirt like this on the plane:



Challenge the Second: By that same date, July 23, I want to lose 20 lbs. and/or enough to drop at least a size in my favorite jeans. (Which ought to be one and the same, but I'm giving myself an out in case by some freak chance the weight decides to come off everywhere BUT my waistline.) If I do not do so, I will wear this hat on the plane:



For me, those are some dire consequences for falling short of my goals. You see, in my real sports fan life, I'd wear this hat with this shirt:





Anyone want to pick their own sports gear nightmare and join me? I got the idea for this after hearing a pair of coworkers, one a UW grad and the other WSU, challenge each other to quit smoking with the threat of having to wear a Cougars tee for the former and a Husky one for the latter.

The fine print: the bet is off if some dire medical, natural, financial, or similar disaster interferes. F'rex, if this is the year the Seattle Fault or the Cascadia Subduction Zone is destined to slip, I'm not going to inflict Bama and Yankees gear upon myself on top of everything else.