3 days into 2013

Is it just me or has everybody got troubles to start again after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays?

I’m sitting at my desk back in London after a sweet, short holiday to my home town Rosenheim in Germany. I want to get on with my projects, but I keep rubbing my eyes and yawning my head off. Probably it’s the sleepy coziness of this lovely little town at the edge of the Alps that has made me so completely relaxed that I need a few days to get back into my rhythm. Or the increased alcohol and chocolate consumption of the past couple of weeks. Or the keypad of my new computer that I still have to get used to.

The view from my mother’s balcony in Rosenheim. But I’m actually cheating: We didn’t have a White Christmas – this is a photo from late October.

Whatever it is, I’ll stop moaning and get on with it.

New Year’s goals (not “resolutions”)

Looking back at my blog entries from last year one of them sticks out and reminds me of an important goal for the year ahead: on 21 November I said that in a year’s time I want to have at least 3 paid publications. What have I done so far to achieve this?

1. I have started research for an article that I’d like to submit to German newspapers. However, I have lost interest in the topic and I’m considering dropping the project in favour of more promising and enjoyable ones.
2. I have finished the first draft of a crime story, tightened the structure and developed the characters. However, there is still loads of work to be done in order for the story to work.
3. I’ve written a satire on working life and I’m quite pleased with the result. I’ll do more editing on it and send it off to a competition.
4. I’m blogging more regularly now than ever which I think helps me to keep on track with my writing goals because it’s good practice, and, sharing my aspirations with a bigger community, I feel more motivated to go ahead.
5. I’ve developed a first idea for a novel and started research. Although I don’t expect to finish it within the next year it is a very important project and a new challenge as I have only written short stories so far.
6. Although these might turn out to be nothing more than finger exercises, I’m reading books about writing and try out their creativity exercises.
7. I’ve also put together a list of unfinished writing projects of the past few years that I continue working on when I have nothing else to write.

Although this looks like a fairly good start to me, I find that the main obstacle to overcome at the moment is to keep to my routine of writing at least two hours in the morning. I find that I get distracted very easily – and it’s not unlikely that this blog sometimes functions as yet another distraction. So in the next couple of weeks I will focus on getting into that routine.

I also set another goal in a post from 26 November, saying that, for ecological reasons, I will not travel by plane in the next 12 months. This might turn out difficult when visiting Germany, however, it is possible to go by train and will probably be a nice trip across Western Europe.

In general I find that I’m more concerned about the environment now than I used to be. Probably my two-months visit to China from January to March last year was a bit of an eye-opener: I was genuinely shocked by the level of pollution in the city where I stayed and wouldn’t want this to be a scenario for the future of our planet.

In addition I’ve developed an interest in related fields such as organic farming, permaculture and healthy nutrition. In the next 12 months I want to volunteer at an organic farm, learn more about permaculture, and get involved in an organic food business a friend of my mother’s is running.

In terms of crafts, I would like to learn how to do Indian embroidery, and as for sports, I’ve picked up running again and will join a new yoga studio.

Finally, for my private life, I want to move into my own place, possibly together with my partner. At the moment I’m renting a room in a very nice house in Brixton, but I feel that I’ve grown out of this lifestyle. There is even a possibility that I move up to Yorkshire, but not before I’ve fully indulged in London life.

So far, so good – I’ll stop procrastinating now and get back to my work.

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