Yearversed

Taken from nacho_cheese

Go to your Calendar and find the first entry for each month of 2008.
Post the first line of it in your journal, and that's your "Year In Review."
(I'm adding subject lines in quotes, and the first line underneath.)

January
""I have a story to tell, but then all cats do.""
I just liked that sentence.

[Whole post!]

February
"Fever"
Fever dreams.
Feverish thought.
Built up energy too weak to express.
Turns to pain, on the edge.
What if- ?

March
"Seeing the Lights (2008/03/01)"
New post: First Day.

[Whole post again! I miss that story]

April
"Word-thief cunningly conceals spoils in plain sight"
(10:37:16 PM) flynnacatri: http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=980814

May
"Day in summary"
Year's dark days arrive
Our home becomes
all hours, all places,
immersed in winter's shade

June
"This one is not called 'Stability'"
One of the things which bothers me about... trying to avoid the matter of labels and diagnoses, one of the things which bothers me about swinging down is that afterwards I cannot recall how it felt.

July
"Two"
Second
There are some thoughts which give pause when encountered, come with warning flags. "I don't doubt..." is one.

August
"Survey stolen from nacho_cheese"
Does it bother you when you text someone, and they never answer?
On those rare occasions I find it appropriate to do so, they generally answer. Unless no answer is required.

September
"The things we do to ourselves"
On June 9th I started making a series of posts. Pride, Decision, Normal, Slipping, Balance.

October
"Victory dance!"
Finally nearly finished one of my major assignments for the semester.

November
"I only sat down to write for a minute and a half or so..."
And suddenly it is dawn and I really ought to sleep for a bit.

December
"Still"
A wonderful feeling, to be able to walk abut the place, even when it is dark, and not be overcome with terror.

A few from ishottheserif

1.

YOUR REPORT CARD:
Category	Grade
Love	A+
Friends and Family	A
Body	A
Mind	C
Finance / Career	C
Your Life's Average Grade: B
'What is your Life Grade?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Better than I expected, I suppose. Let's see about improving some of those...

2.
If you saw ME in a police car, what would you think I got arrested for? Answer me, then post to your own journal if you want, and see how many crimes you get accused of.

3.

Step One:

Make a post (public, friendslocked, filtered...whatever you're comfortable with) to your LJ. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related ("I'd love a Snape/Hermione icon that's just for me") to medium ("I wish for _____ on DVD") to really big ("All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.") The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.

- If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.

- Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your LJ, or link to this post (it'll be public) so that the holiday joy will spread.

Step Two:

- Surf around your friendslist (or friendsfriends, or just random journals) to see who has posted their list. And now here's the important part:?

- If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use--or even know where you could get someone's dream purebred Basset Hound for free--do it.

You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf--to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not--it's your call.
There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

Of course this is late for its intended purpose. I do not care much about that - only one person I saw did this and that's who it was taken from - and I think something like this does need to be associated with a particular segment of Earth's orbit.

I am not even going to wish for things people could practically get for me, since that is not where my heart lies these days. Mostly am posting so other people will see this idea and maybe keep it around for a bit.

And what I want? I want to meet my loves in person. To hold them and be together without "Goodbye" looming over us. I want to find the organisation to sort my life into something which functions in a manner which could reasonably be described as 'productive' and 'independent'. I want to write and be able to enjoy those things which bring me happiness. Already have plenty of books and games and such - what point new ones unless I can appreciate those I have? Very, very much would like to see those I love who are having problems in their lives right now find ways past these into something they like better. Oh, I suppose I would like to do something creative with other people too. That would be - possibly - nice.

Quickly! Post before any minds are changed!

Writing (not II)

A couple of months ago I set about organising my life better by marking times on my calendar for working on tasks I had to accomplish, including a regular nightly time for writing. To an extent that fell apart when some of those tasks proved beyond my then capabilities (and home life factors were seriously disruptive at points) but I still think that was helpful for me. I did manage a significant amount of writing during that trial period.

Unfortunately November happened and I realised I needed to set aside writing to work on my assignments (this entity thus far is incapable of both at once). I managed that but have not been writing since, feeling overwhelmed by other things I am trying to get on top of. Except a lot of that is actually listless idling... so if I could learn to focus and direct that focus I could do a lot more of what I want to. I think I am learning this, slowly, with frequent backsliding.

And where does that lead this post? I had been intending to work on tSOW after finishing my assignments. At the beginning of the month I devised a plan which would hopefully see me both writing regularly and bringing projects to some state of completion . According to this plan I would write tSOW for a month, then in January I would edit Epic Fantasy into a more polished state.

I would continue from there, alternating between writing a project for a month (later revised to aim for a minimum of one month, but continuing until some suitable part of the story for stopping is reached [the end would do nicely]) and editing the story produced by a previous cycle for another month or two. My aim is to be productive by focusing on one project at a time, for long enough to accomplish some significant progress, but also avoid burning out by changing my focus every few months and getting me to actually produce finished stories.

Possibly I could even set something less than a full week for myself, leaving a day or two for other projects, maybe even rest and have a day of nothing in particular... that might work if I can get other areas of my life like work and school organised too. If I am getting done what I want to get done, I think I would not feel guilty about taking a day off for other things sometimes.

I was going to work on tSOW during December, but December is nearly done. New ideas, of a smaller sort just recently I have had, so the plan is to finish out the calendar year, begin the next by writing out those. Not going to name them though, make promises, until we see if they will be anything. Then we see about giving tSOW its time.