Something about the start of a new school year always fires me up - I find myself making resolutions, setting goals, and getting organized as if it were New Year's Eve! I think about starting projects that have been pushed from season to season and ultimately ignored all year, as if I have to get them done right NOW!
Maybe it's leftover from childhood, this excitement, this sense of a new beginning. No matter what went wrong in the previous year, a new school year was a chance for a fresh start.
Right now I'm mostly fired up about my Number One Goal - writing my book. My "class" starts tomorrow, so I've been trying to straighten up my "classroom", which means sorting through all the crap that has accumulated around the computer and the piles of odds-and-ends on my desk in the library (it's just a door on sawhorses, so it makes a great place to temporarily put things that are then promptly forgotten.)
I've come across at least four books I started reading this past year, napkin-bookmarks waving at me optimistically from quarter points. When was the last time I finished a book? I really can't remember. That's another one of my goals: read more. I'm determined to finish ALL of these books. Maybe one night a week I'll set aside just for reading...
Two of my mother's photo albums are sitting on the desk...I brought them home with me several months ago, intending to scan all of the pictures, return them and bring back two more, and so on, until I had them all saved in my computer. One of those summertime projects that just drifted along, in no hurry to be done. I bet if I spend thirty minutes or so every evening after work, before I start writing, I could get them all scanned in no time...
On the other side of the library four big boxes are stacked against one wall, and several plastic bins. It sure would be nice to move those down to the storage room, but it's already so full...boxes and boxes of arts and crafts supplies, dress-up clothes, and no telling what else ... all summer I've been meaning to get down there and go through all of the boxes to see what I need to keep and what can be tossed...maybe...
Focus, Barbara!!
Well, it's clear I'm my own worst enemy. I'm going to have lots of distractions, even with the kids out of the house. I can't just ignore everything else around here - obviously, I'm going to have to find some kind of balance, and that if I want to have a completed novel under my belt by the end of this semester, the balance will have to lean toward my writing. Wish me luck! You can see I'm going to need it.
