New Years Resolutions

Somebody told me they don't believe in New Years Resolutions today, because they are concerned about being saddled with unnecessary guilt.

I believe a New Year is an opportunity to set the tone for the next year. It's not about saying "I will lose 10 pounds." It's about saying "This year, I want to be a better person." "This year, I'm going to focus on being holistic."

It's not about specific goals, but about ideas.

So in that vein, here are my specific goals for the year. I'm intentionally aiming high.

1. Lose 50 pounds.

2. Rewrite Ashram.

3. Complete a new book/project.

4. Take a ferry.

5. Go to an NFL game in person.

6. Beat my record of blog posts (109).

7. Complete my Space Marine and Lizardmen armies.

8. Win a tournament with one of those armies.

9. Get 3 Stars on all Angry Bird levels.

10. Surprise my wife with flowers at least 1/2 dozen times.

11. Visit the Space Needle.
12. Run a 5k.

13. Get less holes in my socks.

14. Pay off our PT Cruiser.

15. Be published on a website (not blog).

16. Triple my monthly blog visits.

17. Create a 5 year plan for my life.

18. Move into a new apartment/space.

19. Engage better at work.

20. Rewrite the instruction manual at work.

21. Create a home budget.

22. Get a desktop computer.

23. Win a fantasy football league.

24. Improve my NFL picks.

25. Listen to more sermons.

26. Get internet for my home.

27. Try a new restaurant every other month.

28. Create a list of movies/books that I own.

29. Create a list of movies/books that I want to own.

30. Create a list of movies/books that I've seen/read.

31. Own all the Animorphs books.

32. Create 2 short films.

33. Write 3 sermons/devotionals (that aren't for anything specific).

34. Get Ashram printed/published (self publish if necessary).

35. Own a sportcoat.

That's good enough. We'll start there!

2010: Year in Review

2010 was a good year. A decent start to a decade. Let's look back on it:

I'm anticipating 108 blog posts on the year. That's nearly double the year before (only 62 posts). That's not really that great, seeing as I didn't really accomplish much else in writing.

January: Slow month. I spent the month predicting the NFL playoffs (6-5 total) and also making Lost predictions.

February: Lost Season 6 starts.

March: I unsuccessfully start participating in 750words.com, and write some more Lost Reviews.
April: I have vacation, and it's my wife 1st Birthday since we've been married. Red Wings burn out in the second round.

May: The Lost Series Finale destroys my soul.
June: First time I was Best Man in a wedding. I also wrote a series on quantum physics that didn't go far.

July: Inception rocks my world. I create a short film for a film contest and then promptly forgot about it.

August: I start a few new writing ideas. I do my first guest post and my first blog giveaway. I also turn 24.

September: The NFL Starts, and I start making picks.

October: The immensely popular NFL Bias Rankings make their first appearance.

November: Second married Thanksgiving. I enjoy it even though the turkey doesn't come out as good as last year.

December: Christmas was a great time. I really enjoyed it. It was a good blend of intimate and public, small and large.

So that's the year in review. Later this week tune in for an NFL column and New Years Resolutions.

Doing the Guest Post Deal

Hola loyal readers!

Today I'm blogging at Journey of a Dad. Come over and read it!

(P.S. No, I'm not a dad yet.)

Writing

I've been musing about writing again for some time. I've been thinking about what I should be writing; which is encouraging. Too often I fall into the trap of I should be writing and stop thinking about the why or the content.

I see it on this blog. Other than my NFL posts, which aren't what I consider writing, the blog has been pretty sparse. Occasionally I'll break through and write something meaningful, but I'll confess that sometimes it feels like pulling teeth.

I've long believed that life moves in cycles. Specifically, my creative impulses move like the tides - there is a definite ebb and flow. I will go through a period where I absolutely devour books; another time where I am literally writing so much for the blog that I have to plan it out and think about what meshes well; and other times I'm very engrossed in gaming and strategic thoughts. Certainly, I do all of these at the same time; but one of them will tend to dominate my free time. For example, just because I'm reading a ton, doesn't mean I won't be playing Warhammer.

I think the cycles each represent something for me:

a) Reading is my input cycle. I devour books when I'm in this cycle. It's not uncommon for me to hit up a used book store and bring home four books of different genre's and read them in the space of a single weekend. I think this is what opens me up to new ideas and new thought processes. I let thoughts and concepts enter my brain and soak in.

b) Gaming is my vegetative cycle. I'm shutting down the input and output sections of my brain and testing what I've learned. Sometimes this plays out on a tabletop or in a video game; sometimes it just plays out in my imagination and thought processes. This is a period of testing; of divination; of sorting out the wheat from the chaffe.

c) Writing is the output cycle. After learning and after testing, I can go through a period where I find new ways to express and create what I've learned. I pour out what's been rattling around until I'm empty again.

Right now, I feel myself pulling out of the gaming cycle and moving towards a writing cycle. I'll still 'game' and still read, but I think I feel major creative potential welling. I'm planning to take advantage of that and write something; perhaps something more than can be contained on this blog. A few projects that have been more or less on hold:

1. Ashram - Needs a rewrite to get to a third draft.

2. My Mom's Story - Only ever wrote two chapters.

3. 337 - Mostly defunct at this point. Would need a few other life changes to get back to this.

4. Various Fictional Ideas - No work done besides preliminary dreaming and basic plotting.

Writing those out, my gut leans towards writing more of my Mom's story. That's hard, but the other projects seem harder in my mind. And it would be good to have this particular story out of the way. I think my goal will be to have something new completed (first draft) by Christmas.

Anyway, that's a bit of a peak into the creative process for me and a bit of my thought process currently. I would appreciate any encouragement you have!

Blogging at Taking Jesus out of the Box

Hey everyone,

I'm continuing my series on Taking Jesus out of the Box over at... Taking Jesus out of the Box. Click over and let me know what you think.

Guest Star

Hey everyone,

I'm writing some guest posts over at "Taking Jesus Out of the Box" - head over and check them out. The first one is up today, and it's about what boxes we put Jesus in.

Go check it out!

Importance

I really like the cloud that appears at the bottom of the right column on this blog.

What the cloud is is a ordering of what I've tagged different posts to be about. So anytime I wrote a post about choices or abortion and tagged that I did, it is referenced in the cloud. The more often I refer to something, the larger the link to that tag becomes.

So here are some of the largest tags:

Random Thoughts

Movies

Reviews

Somebody Smarter Said

Hey Neat-O

The last two are long running "series." Random Thoughts is just thought - random musings. Two of them - including the predominate heavyweight "Reviews" refer mostly to movies.

Why is that I spend so much time musing on movies? Even my most recent series "Signs" was headlined by movie quotes.

I think it's because in some ways movies can say things that are true even when they are a fictional enterprise. Books can do this too; but books are entirely a visual medium. Movies are increasingly multisensual - stimulating vision and hearing and even olfactory and taste senses.

There are true aspects to movies. Sometimes I wonder if I could ever get involved with moviemaking. I read a book recently and all I could think about was how cool of a movie it would make - how I would frame the shots for maximum suspense, what sort of music, how to avoid being cliche...

I wrote a screenplay once. It was four pages long and was a love story told between different types of IHOP syrups. I won an award at school, and briefly thought about continuing down that path. But I never did. You can found the original video on my facebook page (I believe the youtube page has had the audio track removed for copyright violations).

I just recently created my first animated film. It's below, and I entered it into the Million Miles Short Film Contest. Didn't win, but I didn't really try.

I guess what I'm wondering and rambling on about is whether I should continue this path. It could end up with me winning an academy award someday, or perhaps I'll create dumb little skitvideos for church use.

I have no idea what this post was going to be, and this is what it is. Strange world.

750 Words

New Favorite Website:

750Words

A daily private journaling tool, which encourages you to write 750 words a day. It gives you points if you make it, and also fun statistics about what you write.

I like it, a lot. Some of the content may end up as blog posts. We'll see.

Random Thoughts - 13

Here's a curious question:

Why do I seem to do fine with new posts on this blog when I'm not expecting to do any,

But when I write out a plan or an idea, my posts immediately drop in content/quality?

For your review:
September: 31 posts.
October 01: Post reviewing 31 posts, promising even more for October
October: 10 posts.

Same pattern in 2008.

It's weird. Maybe it has to do with this idea that I recently read - our brains need spontaneity, in order to stimulate the correct brain side. The book (Intuitive Leadership, review coming soon?) talked about how in any creative endeavor, more time and more effort do not equal more of a succesful endeavor. You can't force creativity, you can only nurture it.

If you can't "solve" your creative puzzle, go read a book / play football / watch simpsons. Then come back and be amazed.

State of the Blog Address

I did it.

September has 30 days.

As of yesterday, Thoughts on Life had 31 posts for the month of September.

The major contribution to those posts were our running series, which will be shaking up this month. Some of those series will now be on a "when it comes to mind" basis - most notably "In Honor Of." Trying to think of something to honor each week is harder than it sounds. Writing Tips should still happen on a weekly basis. Somebody Smarter Said and Hey Neat-O should hopefully be just whenever I feel like it, or whenever I find something worth posting. I did have one "guest" series - One Step, which reached it's natural and always-purposed conclusion.

So to recap what to expect this month:
Writing Tips on a weekly basis
Somebody Smarter Said / Hey Neat-O on a regular basis
In Honor Of / Watch This on an infrequent basis
And a new "guest" series - "Jacob Workout," which will be about wrestling with some faith concepts.
Oh, and Nerd Files on a regular basis.
Also, a bevy (yes, that's right, a bevy) of Random Thoughts and Reviews.

The Return

Well, it's time.
Time to return to blogging, and eventually, writing. I've been away for 8 (!) months now, but I think I can plead extenuating circumstances.
In 8 months I've:
Got engaged.
Moved to Jenison (5 miles).
Quit at Dick's.
Hired at DFCU Financial.
Hired at Big Apple Bagels.
Got married.
Moved back to Grand Rapids (5 miles).
Quit my jobs.
Moved to Seattle (2300 miles).
And thus is my story.
For the next week, expect a couple of new features - journey reviews, to start. Also, a return to quotes is probably in order. I should also take stock of my writings.
Here's to another step in the journey.

New Post Schedule

Here's some of what you can expect on this new blog initiative:

Random Thoughts - Random musings on random events and news. These will technically be published randomly, but they'll comprise the bulk of my postings.

Hey Neat-O - A cool website I've found. Expect one every Monday.

Writing Tips - Something I'm learning about writing. One should appear every Tuesday.

Somebody Smarter Said - Quotes from somebody smarter than me. There will be one at least every wednesday.

In Honor Of - A tribute to someone or something meaningful in my life. I'll post a new one every Friday.

Also, you can expect infrequent updates about my writing projects and life in general. I also learned the fine art of scheduling posts from my good friend Jim. So I should be able to post even in the midst of crazy life stuff and other writing obligations. (Nanowrimo, I'm looking at you!)

So hope you enjoy it.

Back

I've come to a decision. If I fancy myself a writer, I should probably actually write. So I'm committing to writing on this blog every day FOREVER. Okay, not forever. But at least the next month. So for the entire month of October, I am committing to writing a post every day. For the post to count, it can't be a review or an update, like this one. We'll see how it goes.

Other Updates:
I have started sending Ashram to agents. One rejection so far.
I am a third of the way through 300. It's now called 337.
I started writing about my Mom's death. I'm through 2 chapters.
I am planning on attempting nanowrimo this year. Basically, I need to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November.
I have written 3 poems in the last month. More will come as inspiration comes.

Post Schedule

Here's the general time frame of what I'll be posting and when:

Saturday: Movie Review.
Monday: Cool Link.
Tuesday: Random Thoughts.
Wednesday: Book Review
Thursday: Quote.

And other random stuff to appear... randomly.

Update 10/10
Ignore everything above. Check the New Post Schedule.