2012 Photo Challenge: Week 9

Week Nine of our 365 Photo Challenge!

Spring has definitely sprung here. Which flowers are blooming are changing and I had some wild surprises this week from daffodils I thought were completely dead last year to a lizard taking a dip in the pool. The iceplant is just starting to bloom, soon the hillside will be one giant fuschia patch of buzzing bees. The hill beyond the roses behind the pool is a riot of color as well with the gazanias and the white and purple daisies blooming. Amazing what a different a week or two makes.

What you see below are links to my flickr set for the photos I’m posting for this challenge. Click on any photo below to go to flickr and then you can navigate through the set with the “Previous” and “Next” arrows at the top.

Sun: Feb 26, 2012		Mon: Feb 27, 2012
Tue: Feb 28, 2012	Wed: Feb 29, 2012	Thu: Mar 1, 2012
Fri: Mar 2, 2012		Sat: Mar 3, 2012

5 Steps from Dreams to Completed Goals

Last week in my accountability group’s HOW I WRITE series, we posted 5 Things That Made Us Smile that week. This week’s topic is “Share tips on how you successfully set and completed goals.”

I had a very specific set of writing goals in mind for last year and this year, with the RWA National convention in Anaheim for 2012. I’ve felt like I wasn’t getting any farther on my own and I needed some extra guidance and cheerleaders along the way. So that’s what 2011 was all about. Moving forward with taking baby steps so I didn’t freak myself out.

A few of my 2011 goals were intended to up my writing game (not in terms of craft, but in networking and path to publication):

1. Complete my manuscript (BHT for those following along).
2. Join Romance Writers of America (nat’l, RWASD, & Beau Monde chapter)
3. Submit my manuscript to at least ONE agent.
4. Apply for RWA PRO status.

1. Separate Dreams From Goals.

Dreams are good. They’re the moon and the stars. The most important thing to remember is that they have to be YOUR dreams and goals. If you’re doing them for someone else or they don’t exactly line up with your values, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Take the time to think about who you are, what you want, and why you want it. Don’t rush figuring those things out.

Dream: I want to be published author and see my book on the shelf.
Goal: This year, I want to complete the first draft of a 90k Regency Set Historical Romance novel that’s suitable for Avon Books.

Dream: I want to take amazing photographs on purpose.
Goal: This year, I will publicly do a 366 (It’s leap year!) Photo Challenge with a couple of friends to improve composition and learn to use my camera without relying on the AUTO setting.

Dream: We want a comfortable retirement.
Goal: We need to accumulate X amount of money by a certain date in order to get a return on the principle that’s equal to our current income.

With the dreams, there are many paths I could take to get there, most of them involving a whole lotta luck. The goasl, if they’re good ones, are going to be much more precise and can be broken down into tasks. A dream is what you want, but a goal is what you need to do to move toward your dreams.

2. WRITE S.M.A.R.T. Goals.

Have someone who knows you and what you’re trying to accomplish go over them and sanity check them. Skimping on this step just sets you up for failure. You can rationalize anything if you aren’t crystal clear about what you want to accomplish and you’ll find all sorts of loopholes, especially if you don’t write them down. Another thing that writing them down and putting them through this checklist can do is find and resolve conflicting goals. I don’t have exact dates for these goals above, but on my master copy, they had precise dates of which they were to be accomplished. I don’t think I went over by more than a week on any of them.

Are the goals [S]pecific? How are you going to accomplish it, if you don’t know exactly what you want to do?
Are they [M]easurable? How are you going to know if you’ve done enough to complete it?
Are they [A]ttainable? How are you going to achieve this goal? What steps do you need to take?
Are they [R]ealistic? This is where having a partner in crime or accountability helps most. We often bite off more than we can chew and they’ll call us on it.
Are they [T]imely and/or time limited? Do you need to do it now? How long do you have to do it for? Do you have a deadline? Even a self-imposed one is better than leaving it open ended. Make sure you know of any other steps that must be completed first.

3. Group Similar Goals.

Make sure you have all the steps necessary and the order in which they need to be done to achieve what you want.

I knew I wanted to be in the PRO groups for RWA in 2012. This means on the PRO mailing loops, attending the PRO breakfasts for my local chapter before meetings, and going to the PRO Retreat in Anaheim. I couldn’t just do those goals in any old order. Ok, the first two I could, but 1 definitely had to come before 3 and 2 before 4. A nice neat little stack of dominoes, if you will. They just tend to fall in slow motion.

You should also be thinking in terms of SHORT TERM GOALS and LONG TERM GOALS. You may also have some medium range goals in there as well. It’s often helpful to pick a date 5 or 10 years in the future and dream big, but true. Then, start dividing that time frame up… What do you have to accomplish to reach the that big goal in half that time? In a quarter of that time? In the next two years? In the next year? In six months from now?

4. Keep Moving Forward.

Keep your goals list handy. Check it frequently. When you’ve completed one task/goal on your list, move on to the next one. Celebrate your victory, but don’t lose your forward momentum. Love that motto from Meet the Robinsons.

One thing with keeping tasks/goals in a logical order for completion is that you don’t have to backtrack. Even if you aren’t planning to accomplish the next step in the current month, quarter, year, 5 years or decade, you should still know what you’re going to need to do to get where you want to be. You need to be prepare if your world suddenly shifts beneath you and you’re left without a plan? Or worse, you have a plan, but it’s irrelevant. By having a forward-looking plan that stretches out farther than you think is necessary, you give yourself something to work towards and you just might find you have to readjust. Likewise, the ground can shift and suddenly you’re back to square one with certain goals. Pick yourself up, dust off the plan and get moving. You’ve already decided you want to be somewhere better. Every journey begins with that first step. Take it.

5. But, Don’t Look Down!

Why do we set goals for ourselves anyway? We want to grow, to improve, to enjoy life more. If you shoot for the moon and miss, you’ll still be among the stars. Trite, but usually true. One way to set your goals up for positive change and increase your chances of success is to frame them in positive terms. “Losing weight” always seems to fail… why? It’s not will power, genetics or even that extra slice of cake. Ok, it probably IS the cake, but that’s a different argument. The problem is that it’s a NEGATIVE goal. Look at the wording… LOSE that’s not a positive word. If you want to lose weight you need to think of it terms of what you’ll be gaining and then find the steps to accomplish that.

If you are trying to set goals that push beyond your comfort zone, you need to sneak up on them. Make progress at a rate you’re comfortable with. If I can push myself to do something once, the next time is easier because it lacks the apprehension and built up fear the next time. This is why I made a goals of submitting to at least ONE agent. I gave myself permission to set the bar VERY low and not build expectations into the goal.

One of the PRO Liasons in my local chapter said to me today: “Just like, when you’re climbing up high, don’t look down. Keep looking forward so you don’t get overwhelmed by how far up you are.” I’m really trying not to think how fast things are moving, so I can keep up. Lots of metaphors would fit here — gotta keep those plates spinning!

YOUR TURN: What tried ‘n true tips would you recommend for setting and achieving goals?

And if you’d like to read more about goal setting tips from the rest of my group this week, you can find their blogs here:

* Alexia Reed * Kimberly Farris*
* Angeleque Ford * Danie Ford * Emma G. Delaney *

5 Things That Made Me Smile

Last week in my acountability group’s HOW I WRITE series, we posted our take on writing advice and mine in particular struck a chord with readers. This week’s topic is “Name up to 5 unexpected finds/treats/treasures this weeks. Things that caught your attention that you may not have noticed normally.”

It could be a book we’ve read, a movie, joke, funny story, a quote, a commercial, a t.v., a compliment, etc – basically anything that happened this week that was out of the ordinary that made us stop and take notice and/or smile.”

1. How my kids still get out of the car at school and say “I love you” even in front of other students

This isn’t an unusual occurrence, but it did make me smile to actually notice it this week.

2. The strong smell of guavas that have ripened after they were brought to us to try

I’ve never had guavas before. Did you know they’re called “guayaba” in Spanish? I didn’t. They smell wonderful and we need to eat them soon before it’s too late.

3. How when it’s cold enough the hedges and mailboxes will “steam” when the sun hits them

Similar to how a pond will steam, but weirder. I dunno, I don’t recall noticing this when I was younger. It’s definitely from thinking “What am I going to take a picture of today?!” I’ve noticed that I get a lot of compliments on my photos (*whispers* you know I only pick the best ones, right?) but it’s not something I’ve been working hard at. It’s all intuitive. I’ve got to do some thinking on why it works for me with photography, but not writing, but I suspect it has to do with 3 factors: practice, internalizing some rules and quantity of output. I’ve thrown away far more pictures than I’ve written pages.

4. The way my friend answered the phone when she recognized my number”

I could hear the smile in her voice when I called to check up on her. She’s been sick, but brightened to know someone was thinking of her.

5. “Shit the Dowager Countess Says”

It amuses me that the hysterical comments that Dame Maggie Smith’s character on Downton Abbey says has basically turned into a meme. I love the way that character is written and how she’s played. Love her.

YOUR TURN: What have you discovered that tickled your fancy lately?

And if you’d like to read about what caught the attention of the rest of my group this week, you can find their blogs here:

* Alexia Reed * Kimberly Farris*
* Angeleque Ford * Danie Ford * Emma G. Delaney *

When I’m Not Writing…

This week my accountability group is blogging about our hobbies and what we do when we’re not writing. Last week’s post on Writer’s Block is also part of our How I Write series.

Some days I don’t think I have time for hobbies. But then I remember just how much I spend reading. Mostly Science Fiction, Fantasy, YA, Historical Romance and some contemporary and paranormal romance as well. We need more bookshelves but don’t have room for them.

I have a bunch of other hobbies that I enjoy puttering around with, but am not very serious about: cooking, gardening, sewing. None of those ever felt like something I was passionate about enough to pursue in any real sense.

I like to cook and bake, but it’s more of a way to share with family and friends. I’d judge myself a competent if sometimes uninspired cook. Gardening, I’ve posted a lot of pictures lately about it, but the plants either live or not. I’m enjoying the process, but I’m not tied to it.

I learned to sew in 7th grade for a home-ec class. Picked a fairly difficult pattern and beat it before it defeated me. When my daughter was a toddler, I made many of her dresses. I even made a pair of overalls for my son with an adorable cow print. The most ambitious project I took on was my daughter’s colonial costume for 5th grade. I know where the flaws are and I beat myself up about them, but it came out pretty well. But again, competent but not passionate.

I’ve always been a gamer. I’m a sucker for a puzzle that needs solving. I managed to work two years as a professional game designer and ran an online text adventure game based on world history and mythology for over ten years. In some ways, I was TOO passionate about that one. Again, I was competent, but I could see more than I was able to implement or direct. So now, I just play and complain to DH who’s still doing it for a living. Hey, he gets a free sounding board!

The other hobby that I keep coming back to and seems to run in my family is photography. My great-grandfather was an art collector. My grandfather was a professional photographer in the ’30s and always seemed to have a camera at hand. My father seemed to collect cameras and my mom still has a kazillion and three boxes of slides in her hall closet. One of my cousins has also been bitten by the shutter bug and I’m astounded by the stuff he comes up with.

I asked for and got a SLR camera as a high school graduation present. Before then, I’d had dinky little box cameras, and even a disc camera. But I wanted a REAL camera. That thing was HEAVY. I drug it all over the place. I even got additional lenses for it. I spent hours setting up “art shots”. I took pictures of the people around me. I loved taking pictures of cityscapes and landscapes.

But when I graduated from college and got married, for some reason, I decided it was too heavy and cumbersome and what we needed was one of those little idiot proof cameras. Yep. Pretty much killed my desire to take pictures. Oh, we’ve got the requisite pictures of the kids when they were little, but not much else. At least from my point of view. DH takes a camera with him when he travels and he’s got some gorgeous ones to show for it.

Anyway, I decided this past year, what I wanted for my birthday was a digital SLR camera. It’s so LIGHT! ok. It’s still kinda bulky, but it’s got a lot of bells and whistles I missed with the point and shoots. So I’ve been playing with that just about every week since I got it. Most of the photos I’ve used in the posts lately have been mine. I find that some work, some don’t, but I WANT to learn how to use it better.

I gave in and upgraded my flickr account to PRO because I’d overrun the 200 photo limit for the photostream.

Alexia Reed, Kimberly Farris and I are trying to talk each other into doing a 365 project next year, which because it’s leap year, it’ll actually be 366. I think they’re more convinced than I am, but I think it’ll be a good way to learn my camera and do a bit of local tourism at the same time. There’s got to be a reason I keep coming back to this.

Your Turn: What hobbies do you enjoy?

And if you’d like to read about what the rest of my group does when they’re not writing, you can find their blogs here:

* Alexia Reed * Angeleque Ford * Danie Ford *
* Emma G. Delaney * Kimberly Farris *