Goals for Writing

Last morning, I woke with the convicting realization that I had not written all year.

Dear readers, I can only tell you the truth. The moment my sock covered toes touched the floor of my bedroom, I headed for my laptop, yearning for the old aesthetic delights of a text-filled page.

It was an indirect route. I went to the kitchen first. I then realized that I had also not eaten waffles all year, so I sat down in a room full of syrup-covered brothers and ate several. I admired our blazing fire. I blew my nose. I presented my now 15-year-old brother with an unwrapped copy of A Tale of Two Cities.

Distractions? Ha. Of course not. These actions were deliberate. Useful. Productive. These actions were designed to awaken my creative tendencies and inspire me to write more eagerly than I ever have before.

When I did sit down to write, I had resolve, and I also had a fantastic inspiration:

I shall write about planning to write in the future.

The short-term goal I decided on in my last post was to “improve my writing skills by writing at least three times a week, and begin regularly tracking my writing progress.” I think I was supposed to work on this goal over break. Even if I was not supposed to, I am going to.

My lifelong dream is to be a writer. I have thought long and hard about how I plan to become one, and I have finally drafted an elaborate plan. To become a writer, I will sit down, I will write, and I will do it consistently.

To easily track my writing, I downloaded this fantastic excel spreadsheet, designed specifically to record the number of words written per day. 

I did not invent this spreadsheet, I only thought to look for it. The spreadsheet was free, and I found it from this website: http://svenjaliv.com/yearly-word-tracker-spreadsheets/ 

On this spreadsheet, I can articulate yearly, monthly, and daily word count goals, and throughout the year, I get to see how the records of my actual work line up with the goals I set. The work will still be work, but this spreadsheet will completely exploit my natural thirst for productivity, and makes the writing process more exciting.

I am not expecting to write every day, but my spreadsheet asks for a daily goal and a daily update. My daily goal is 274 words. (This goal seemed attainable and when you multiply it by 365 it equals 100,000.) I will shoot for writing every day, but in case I miss, I will at least be sure to write 3 days a week.

What will I do with all these words? Most will be devoted to fiction: stories I write for my brothers, a historical fiction project I started last summer, and a short novella I started just because I felt like it. But some will also be devoted to this blog. I did not begin this blog intending to put a lot of effort into it, but I have grown attached to it. I hope to make it a nice thing to read.

The Good Life and How I Plan to Get There

We talked about the good life this week in Colloquium. We split up into groups and made a list of the things the “good life” ought to consist of. Our assignment was to think about where we wanted to be in about 5 years, then come up with three goals, including one short-time goal, to help us get there.

The best life, I think, is one full of people I love and people who love me. This is such a precious gift, and I have realized over time that it brings more joy and satisfaction to me than almost anything else. I could be poor, I could be ill, or I could be drowning in work, but if I was surrounded by my family and by marvelous friends, I would consider myself blessed beyond all thought. Similarly, if I were rich and healthy, but walked through life all on my own, I do not think I could help but feel sorry. I would regret that my choices did not leave room for a family.

I am not extraordinarily ambitious. When I imagine what the good life should look like for me a decade from now, I like to imagine having a new little family. I would like to live in a two-story house, be relatively financially stable, and work on writing a book. I would like a flexible job so I can spend extra time with my kids, but I would also like that job to pay relatively well. I would like half of the walls in my house to be covered with bookshelves (to hold my family’s impressively massive collection of books) and the other half to be covered with windows.

If I am extra lucky, (and this is not a necessary part of the good life, just an extremely desirable one) I would like to be able to afford at least two skeins of alpaca yarn per year. And most notably, I would like to carry an improved attitude in all situations, regardless of my other circumstances. I would like to live by continually rejoicing in the blessings that I have. The good life, to me, means constantly growing in maturity.

I like to think, however, that I am already living the good life. I do not want to be married right now, or to have a house and children. Now, I am at college. I have a fantastic education opportunity, and the expenses have been provided for me. I get to see my family regularly, and I am making many friends while at college. I am glad to be where I am, and will look for the opportunities God has given me to glorify Him by placing me here.

The goals that I shall form, spur-of-the-moment, to connect what I am doing now with where I where I want to go are as follows:

First: decide what career to pursue

Second: graduate college with a degree that will enable a pursuit of that career

And third, which is my short-term goal: improve my writing skills by writing at least three times a week, and begin regularly tracking my writing progress.

The Reece Museum

Last Wednesday, I went to the Reece Museum with my great friend Emilee, to see the art on display. We saw many things. We saw pictures of naked women on top of American flags. The artist wrote “I have incorporated my recent fascination of the nude portrait into the stories of the American Revolution and Civil War to illustrate power.” I wondered why the artist was specifically fascinated with nude portraits of women. I then realized that the artist was male. I was slightly less impressed.

There was also a dead bird in a picture frame, holding an American flag. The artist wrote that this was an illustration of her pain. She writes- “I have been blind. I have hoped too much.” The artist suffered childhood trauma and was also crippled. I was very sorry to read this. I was also sorry because I decided that this piece had been wasted on me. I could not get past the fact that it was a dead bird.

                                                                     Actual dead bird 

There were many other pieces that I enjoyed very much. There were several that I found quite meaningful and several others that I found quite powerful. It is, however, much more fun to write about scandalous artists and dead birds.

How To Survive Freshman Chemistry

I am a chemistry major for some reason.

Truth of the matter is, chemistry might have nothing to do with my future career. I’m here at college without any clue as to where I will be after college, and “CHEMISTRY” was the subject that I ended up penciling (spur of the moment) onto my college application last November.

This has not been an easy class.

In fact, this has been an extremely difficult class.

In fact, this has been the hardest class that I have ever taken in my entire life.

After the first few weeks of class, I had very few notes, I had very little hope that I could learn from my professor, and I had the sinking realization that I would have to teach myself most of the semester. Somehow, I survived. I’m averaging a B. I have faith that my final will not pull my grade down.

I attended several SI sessions this year, one just last week, and that has improved my comprehension tremendously. ETSU’s new SI program is offered for both chemistry students and biology students. It is basically an organized study group, led by a student who’s already taken several chemistry courses (or biology courses, in the case of the biology SI sessions). My biology teacher offered extra credit to the people who attended biology SI sessions, but my chemistry teacher did not. Nevertheless, I went to the chemistry SI sessions frequently. Each time, we covered the important aspects of the subjects we’d gone over in the lecture, and I was able to take the concepts home and work with them more easily.

A week ago, while looking over the list of things I had to blog about, I realized happily that I’d accidentally checked off a requirement with these ventures: the “attend one workshop, forum, or academic club meeting, etc” requirement. Here, then, is the obligatory blog post. I am glad to have gotten the chance to write about my chemistry adventure.

If any of you readers are fellow students, take this advice: find a study group. Attend study sessions that your university organizes, or create one yourself. Do not be afraid to look for help, especially if the class is hard. It is thanks to SI sessions and my chemistry classmates that I will pass this semester’s class—and come back next semester, still (for some reason) an excited chemistry major.