Ten Years on, How Did I Do on My Long Term Writing Goals?
Notes from my writer's notebook
In August of 2006, on the cover of a notebook I titled "Commitment to Writing" I listed my long term goals. This notebook slipped out of its place on the shelf recently, which is why it caught my attention. I was floored when I read over my long term goals list and realized in the ten years since I wrote them, I have accomplished ALL of them. I have an MFA, a full time job in a field I love, an apartment in a Boston neighborhood, and have had a job copy editing, not to mention doing a lot of communication work in my current job.
That's amazing, when I consider what else has occurred in the last ten years: the death of my father, a harrowing time in grad school, a national recession, an affordable housing crisis in my city. Through luck, will, and, I cannot deny, talent, I've accomplished all my goals without even realizing it. When everything is done in long, slow increments, it's hard to see the progress one makes. I'm glad I wrote them down, so I can give myself the credit I hardly ever grant myself. I'm pretty proud!
And my new goals? I'm going to go a little loftier this time:
- Become America's first almost-40, body & sex positive-activist, plus-size, pin-up super model & style blogger/icon
- Publish that book of poetry I had started just a few months before I made my last list in Aug 2006, and two or three other "almost finished" manuscripts
- Open a non-profit sex positive center for sex education
- Own a really cute "Tiny Home" (on the larger side, for the clothes and books), preferably painted purple
- Greatly expand my teeny tiny press work to a small press
- Publish my at least one childrens' book