Reflection and Hope

Happy New Year to you and your family. May this year be a blessing for you all.Copyright 2018 Boston Globe

I’m typing this via an iPad, by the way. So let’s just blame Apple for any typos, omissions, grammatical errors and stupidity, m’ kay?

Honestly, I hadn’t planned on a blog post until the new season of the #WordCountPodcast launching in a few weeks.

Then I saw one of my handwritten PostIt notes with the words “write more blog posts 2018” scrawled on it.

Might as well kick that off right now, then—it being the first day of 2018 and all.

Reflection

2017 was a year with highs and lows like each year before it. My cognition hasn’t improved much since the strokes 2 years ago, and I developed new DVT blood clots a couple weeks ago.

But with both of these issues, I’m choosing to look at the silver lining.

My cognition hasn’t improved, but the work-arounds I’ve been learning and practicing under the watchful eyes of the brilliant folks at BWH Neurology continues to improve. The DVT’s, while worrying (no one seems to know why my blood acts up occasionally), the clots were caught and the situation is being managed pharmacologically.

There were many more triumphs this past year, and that is what I want to focus on in this post as the wins of 2017 will springboard me into 2018.

Highlights from last year include:

• My Wife started her own consulting company in 2017 and she already has two clients.
• My sister is shortly moving into her brand new home in Florida with my Mom. Construction began in 2017.
• My son began his Junior year at Albright College and is now living off campus.
• My daughter began her senior year in High School and she has already been accepted at college for the fall (announcement pending her final decision).
• Four published stories, one in an award-winning anthology.
• Completed the brilliant Contemporary Dark Fiction online class offered by Richard Thomas
• Met new friends in the class, and here I want to single out S. L. Coney and Becca Borawski Jenkins who have been and will continue to be marvelous friends, writing Sherpas and over all brilliant and delightful people.
• Was accepted at Emerson College and began my online MFA
• My first semester consisted of two graduate courses—a writing workshop and a literature course—resulting in a 100.00 and a 95.88 respectively.
• The Emerson Writing, Literature and Publishing department chair along with the Popular Fiction director at Emerson have added teaching courses to my curriculum which I also begin this Spring.
• I read 68 Books last year. Check out that list if it interests you over at my Goodreads site.
• I attended the Gamut Magazine Writer’s Workshop in Chicago—finally meeting both Richard Thomas and Mercedes M. Yardley. Those two were on my “must meet” bucket list. I was delighted to ALSO meet: Joe Meno, Jac Jemc, Lindsay Hunter, Jan Bottiglieri, Casey Frechette, Sarah Read, Rena Mason, Ashleigh Gauch, Alec Fugate, Pamela Dugan, and Alana Southwood.
• I attended BOSKONE and ReaderCon (and will be at both again in 2018) and signed up for StokerCon (coming this March).

That’s just the “highlights reel.” Friends and relatives came for visits, I finally decided to give up my car (as driving is a focus issue for me) and that was an incredibly free feeling. I have the love of an amazing partner, and a support system in place that I am incredibly great full for.

Focus on the positive. That is one of the mantras for 2018. The other is “be better.”

The Future-2018 Goals & Hope

There will always be things I want to accomplish and don’t get done over the year. I spend the first few days of the new year reflections on what was done and on what was missed. Are the missed things important? Are there things I need to logically accomplish first before I can tackle a specific goal?

These questions and more go into my planning for the next year.

I expect this list of future goals to be a “living” document. The first page of my new bullet journal contains the list I’m about to share with you. I do expect that it will change and morph as the months slide by. But has of today, January 1st, here is what I hope to accomplish in 2018:

• Attend my daughter’s high school graduation.
• Continue to grow and nourish the relationship Tina and I share.
• Build and execute a health regimen that takes into account my physical and mental limitations, yet allows me to work toward improving my physical situation.
• Continue to write every day. My goal: 500 words a day. Whether on a story, revision, blog post, what have you.
• Build a Social Media platform that makes sense yet doesn’t become the typical “time suck” that platforms like Facebook can become.
• Build a writer’s identity/Marketing plan.
• Write 12 short Stories (“publication ready”) and one novel. 500 words a day X 365 = 186, 500 words. At 5 k per short story (60k) and 90k for a novel, that should be doable if I push it.
• Determine the final direction for my “Arcana Chronicles” series.
• Crush another 24 credits toward my MFA. My goal is to graduate in May of 2019.
• Attend three writer conferences and one workshop beyond Emerson.
• Remap my finances—medical expenses has eliminated any hope at retirement, so I have to figure that all out this year and execute a financial plan.
• See my children as much as possible.
• Visit with my family in Florida for a week without the travel/health trauma I experience now (Currently I cannot travel more than an hour without significant anticoagulation—and I still ended up with more DVTs. A Solution must be agreed between my doctors and I).
• More author networking
• Sign up for and actually read TWO trade magazines
• Map a daily schedule that will allow for meditation, exercise, rehabilitation, writing, networking, school work and “down time.”
• Attend more Emerson events and plug into the WLP department more.
• Blog once a week
• Better planning, effective time management (which has been a joke since the strokes), and a more positive outlook.
• Be kind. As kind and loving as my wife is to me, her family, and all our kitties.
• Be Better. Be better at SO many things…

I’m sure more will be added to the living version of this list. But it’s a start.

I counting on y’all to keep me on task.

Peace and Love,

Richard