It's like deja vu all over again. Goal check time.

Happy Groundhog Day!

If you haven’t seen the movie Groundhog Day, you might be living under a rock (or in a burrow?). It features Bill Murray living one particular Groundhog day over and over again. My husband still cracks up when he sees it.

And as I sat down to make February’s goals, I had this feeling of déjà vu. Aren’t my goals for February the same as they were for January? Is it possible I didn’t meet any of my goals? But I distinctly remember working on them, and achieving a few…

It’s true, all of my goals are repeats, but most are more concrete this time. And many of them will keep popping up every month because they’re things I’d like to continue to work on. So, maybe I’ll be living my own version of Groundhog Day for a while.

How did I do with my January goals? I did well actually, but it doesn’t feel that way because the biggest beast on that list hasn’t budged.

I managed to blog 11 times in 31 days. That averages to about 1 every 3 days (1 x 2.8 days), which is good and keeping on target, but they tend to be clumped around the weekends. That’s not how I’d like it to be. One thing I’ll try more of in February is scheduling the posts to come out on Mondays, Wednesdays, & Fridays. That way I can work ahead and still have frequent postings, but not clustered postings.

I did enter the FaithWriter’s Challenge twice, and it went really well once (I think my friends across the big pond call that a one-off. At least that’s how it feels). Yay, me! for that.

My article for Purpose is happily on its way for either rejection or acceptance, and I hope it’s the latter. Although, confession time, I sent it off technically an hour and a half late (due Feb 1 and it left my e-mail around 1:15 am on Feb 2). I'm thinking that doesn't score big points with editors. We'll see how it goes. <-- By the way, super huge big deal-- my first real submission for pay.

And while I researched for hours, trying to find an appropriate home for Midwife to Christmas, I’m still stuck. The places I’d like to send it don’t print seasonal stories, and I’m hesitant to send it off into the vapors of the internet for free. So, that task remains on the list.

Which brings us to the beast. The edit of the next 1/3 of Back of My Hand. I think I managed to get 1/3 of the way through the next chapter, that’s all. And I’m feeling all the more guilty as I’ve read (and critiqued) about 2 chapters per member per week from my critique group, and I haven’t submitted a thing. And to heap guilt-inducing coals upon my head I watched Sheila Wray Gregoire tweet about the whole process from writing through finished first draft of her book (something like good girls and sex, sorry Sheila for bumbling that). Granted, it’s non-fiction and she had her data gathered- but holy moly! It’s like my neck could hardly keep up with my eyes that fought to stay glued to Sheila as she whipped past me.

But, no time to mope and pout about it. Nope. I have a time-garlic lei around my neck and I aim to keep the To Do List Vampires away and get more goals met in February.

So, without further ado… February’s Goals:

-Edit next 1/3 of Back of My Hand
-3 blog posts a week, aiming for M,W,F
-Submit next article for Purpose (this is a 1x month thing)
-Finalize Midwife to Christmas home(s) & query
-FaithWriter’s Challenge 1-2x

No, it doesn’t look much different than January, but it’s more specific, which I think will help. Baby steps, right?

I am also keeping a much stricter eye on the clock. Less time wasted means more things done. I hope.

I want to say a big thank you to all of you who keep encouraging me and help me stay accountable. And I’ll see you in March, come goal-check time.