Happy 2013! I hope you are blessed with something wonderful to look forward to this year. My family will have our first wedding, with our oldest getting married to wonderful young man in the fall! Yes, that’s her ring pictured. Clearly he has excellent taste. (Duh, he fell in love with our daughter!)
Our youngest has fled the nest and is happy at Louisiana State University. Granted, I would be happier if LSU wasn’t a two-day drive from home,
but she loves life without snow. She is doing an outstanding job of keeping her grades up, making friends and finding activities, and earning a stipend with work/study. We are extremely proud of her! Except of course for developing a football allegiance to the Tigers.
That, however, is a subject for another post. 😉
The year’s biggest challenge will be time management, but that’s always a challenge for me. :p In the face of a new job and some unexpected, but welcome, freelance work, my main goal for 2013 is: Protect the writing time! On the bright side, I spent November working out the plot of a new book that I can’t wait to get started on, so there’s something to fill up the writing time.
New Year’s resolutions have never worked for me, so I try to focus on goals, personal and professional. Also, I know myself well enough to understand that my brain goes on the fritz as soon it sees a long ‘must do’ list. It’s best to keep the goals few and simple.
In 2013, I want to drink a glass of water for every glass or cup of caffeinated beverage. Believe it or not, this is a challenge. I’ve never been someone who can just down a glass of H2O, but the benefits are more than just staying hydrated. Water will help cut down on caffeine, which keeps me awake at night, plus according to WebMD, it’s good for the skin, helps make a person feel less hungry, and keeps the kidneys and bowels in good working order.
As mentioned above, my most important professional goal is to protect my writing time. This means adjusting my daily schedule so that there is always a block of hours to spend at the computer. I don’t do change well — just ask my family — and I’m going to have to start with something truly drastic: not hitting the snooze button. I make no promises, but I’ll keep you posted on how well I succeed (or sleep in).
So those are my 2013 goals for now. Short and laughably simple, but both chosen because they’re doable, they’ll have benefits on more than one level, and neither is something I do now. (Or rather the snooze button is something I do too often.)
This year, I want more sleep at the start of the night, and enough time to write. What about you? What do you want out of life this year? What steps are you going to take to get it?
Ann Stephens 
I can attest to the benefits of water! 2 years ago I gave up carbonated beverages. Water is the first thing I drink in the morning and about the only thing I drink besides coffee and the occasional adult beverage. Some people I know warm it in the morning with a slice of lemon to help them get it down easier.
As for my own goals this year, I hope to eat healthier, write more consistently and be more daring.
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I’m not at the point where I can give up carbonated beverages completely, but I’ve been telling myself to move away from them and toward water for ages. Time to do it.
Eating healthier will make you feel so much better inside and out — good for you! Until December, I was sticking to a good writing schedule, but of course I completely fell off the wagon during the holidays. And now I’m curious…what were you thinking of for ‘more daring’?
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What time do you hit your snooze button? I’m trying to get up at five to write. So far….no… but that doesn’t mean I won’t. My goals are the same as yours, and to find an agent.
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I prefer to get up when my hubby leaves after 7 a.m. Some people need noise in the background to concentrate, I work better in mostly quiet surroundings.
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