Updates...Gina and the last goal update of 2008

First off, thanks to all of you for your well-wishes for my cousin. Gina ended up with broken ribs, a couple of broken vertebrae, and a punctured lung. Her lung didn't collapse though, which made things slightly easier. She's in a lot of pain but she's been conscious and lucid enough to talk.

The doctors have been running a lot of different tests to check for permanent damage, especially spinal cord damage, but everything so far indicates that though it'll be a long and painful road, she will make a full recovery. So again, thanks to all of you for your support, and for putting up with me being a total mess the last few days. <3

Now for a quick goal update. This is the last of the year, so I'm going to see where I stand on all of the goals I haven't yet finished, based on what the original goal was. Overall, I'm impressed with how much I got done. When I started this at the beginning of the year, I was hoping to finish maybe four or five. I never thought I would add so many goals and yet manage to complete the majority of them. I'll definitely be putting up a new set of goals at the beginning of 2009.

1. Nano novel. Okay, the initial goal was to finish my Nano novel from 2007, and edit it once. Technically, this didn't happen, but I'm still thrilled with my progress. I'm probably 3/4 through the first draft, and I've already edited some large chunks of the story. I may actually finish a story, for once. >_>

2. Write every day. I didn't write every day, or even close to every day. I'd say I probably averaged 3-4 times a week. Considering before this year I'd go 6+ months without writing a word, it's an improvement. I may end up carrying this goal over to next year and trying to work up to every day.

3. Let other people read my writing. Much better than I expected with this one. I still have to work on it, but I managed to get over my terror of letting others read my writing a little bit. I even let my mother read something.

4. Learn Japanese. I've made a hell of a lot of progress with this. If I continue this or try another language next year, I think I need to set a more specific goal so that I can measure my progress a bit better.

5. Start buying less stuff, and finish what I have lying around the house. This is and probably always will be an ongoing battle with me. I have my times where I buy shit I really don't need, but having this as a goal I was consciously thinking about helped me to curb my spending a great deal. I've also managed to finish a lot of things I've had around the house for ages. And overall I think I've finished more than I've bought. Except for maybe books. >_>

6. Organize my stuff and get rid of unnecessary clutter. This is probably the only goal left on the list that I'm not satisfied with. I got a lot of this finished, but I still have a long way to go. I've made some more progress the last few days, so maybe I'll make it a goal for next year to finally finish.

7. Get through borrowed stuff. Very happy with this one. I don't remember what the original goal was, if I wanted to finish everything I'd borrowed or just get through as much as I can so I could return stuff. Whatever, I'm probably through about 3/4 of what I had, and I've been doing well not borrowing so much from people. I limit myself to the few things that really interest me so that I don't get completely overwhelmed with other people's stuff.

Like I said, overall I'm thrilled with how much I managed to get done. Even the goals I didn't complete, I made noticeable progress. Once I come up with some new ideas for goals for next year I'll start the posts again. I think having the blog and posting regular updates kept me on track with my goals, unlike regular New Year's resolutions which are forgotten in a week. Plus, if I stopped doing these updates, I think Jade might hurt me....

What the fuck =\

So I was going to make a happy post talking about what a great Christmas I had, and all the neat things I got as presents. However, I just got a call that changed all of that.

While my cousins were on their way home from our grandmother's house, they hit a patch of ice and wrecked their car. I'm not sure on all of the details of the accident yet. All I know is that my brother just talked to my dad, and one of my cousins is okay. She's in the hospital here and might have to stay overnight or whatever but she'll be fine.

My other cousin, who was driving, is not okay. They had to life flight her to Pittsburgh and they're not sure whether she is going to make it. Again, I don't know all of the details yet, just that it's VERY serious.

I don't have any idea what to say or do right now. I don't even know if this post is coherent. I'm just a wreck and needed to get it out there.

I just wish there was something I could do. But there's not, so I just have to sit here and wait for the phone to ring and pray it's not bad news....:(

Goals Update 18

1. Nano novel. Been working on this fairly regularly. I haven't had much free time but at least I'm getting a few minutes in here and there.

2. Write every day. Been keeping on my newest novel. It's been hectic with work and finishing up with this semester at school so I haven't spent as much time on it as I'd like to. I hope to get back into it more as class ends and I get through with my overtime at work.

3. Let other people read my writing. I let my mother of all people read a few bits of this year's Nano, and she seemed to really like it. This gave me a self-confidence boost considering she's an English professor with English and writing degrees.

4. Learn Japanese. I have yet to make any more progress here. I've been too swamped between Nano, class, and work. I have, however, kept going through my notes so I don't forget everything I've learned so far.

5. Start buying less stuff, and finish what I have lying around the house. I've done fairly well with this. I still buy more than I need to, and Christmas is going to add a ton to my "to do" pile (damn you Doug and your starting me on three more book series...), but I'm getting through a good bit.

6. Organize my stuff and get rid of unnecessary clutter. Managed to spend some time on this one since my last update. I'd love to get as much as I can cleaned out and organized by the end of the year. I'm coming up on five days off work due to the holidays. And there are still two weekends left, so I will hopefully get my ass in gear and finish this one while I have the spare time!

7. Get through borrowed stuff. Done well with this. I'm caught up on the Stephanie Plum books, and only have a few books out from the library. I finished a lot of my friends' stuff as well. Book wise I don't have more than a book or two from each person (with the exception of Doug). I have no more movies, and Roswell is the only series I have.

8. Nano 2008. Goal accomplished there.

So there's not a lot of time left in the month, but I don't have many goals left to complete. There are only a handful still even on the list, and of those most are ongoing efforts. I'll probably do one more update around before the end of the year, and then it will be time for me to decide on my goals for 2009! I already have a bunch of ideas....

Three for three

There isn't really anything else to say on that subject. I'm surprised how much I still want to work on my novel. Of course, I will be taking a few days completely off to give myself a break and some time to think how I want to progress on a few parts of the story. ^_^

Also, I realized this is my third year of Nano, and also the third time I've won. I'm so glad that I found out about this through a few people on CAD. It's given me far more motivation to write than I'd ever given myself. Now if I could only finish one of my stories....

Day 27

Happy Thanksgiving!

Also, I just hit 45,000 words. WOOOOOOOOOO!

I really have little to no motivation to write at all right now. However, it would be a tragedy to get this far only to quit at the end. So I'll keep plugging away...I'm past today's required word count and it's only 3pm, so hopefully I can get ahead this evening. I'd love to finish by about tomorrow but we'll see how that goes.

On another note, my grandmother wants me to run errands for her tomorrow. Why? I told her she should do her own errands as I was not going out on Black Friday, but I'm sure she'll manage to guilt me into it somehow. *shakes fist*

Day 24

Gah, still need to study a bit for my exam tomorrow before I go to sleep, so this is going to be a short entry. I'm not sure if I'll get to write tomorrow though I'm going to try and get about a thousand words in. Of course, I have to stop at Barnes and Noble after class to pick up a new book, so who knows if my novel will even end up opened tomorrow. Oh well, at least I'm ahead! And I have Thursday and Friday off work...

Needed word count: 40,008
Current word count: 42,271
Words left to 50k: 7,729

Day 21-23

So I didn't bother blogging all weekend again. Not surprising really, I write at such odd times that regular posts are difficult. At any rate, I passed the 40k, though I didn't get much more than that. Still, I'm nearly done, and I'm more than a day ahead.

I have a big exam on Tuesday so I don't know how much I'm going to be able to write, but I'm going to try and get in as much as I possibly can. It would be nice to get the last 10k finished sometime during this week, and then I don't have to worry about it over the weekend. Considering I have Thursday and Friday off due to the holiday, it's entirely possible.

I can't believe Nano is so close to being over. Here's hoping that I actually continue with this novel once I've hit the 50k and am not obligated to write daily!

Needed word count: 38,341
Current word count: 40,515
Words left to 50k: 9,485