Random Thoughts III
January 03, 2020

I've rejiggered this blog once again. It's now on a single page, with the past
five years' posts all visible. I felt this would make it easier to see the
themes I keep circling back to. (In a nutshell for those who don't feel like a
long read: write, submit, repeat.)

This is the season for New Year's resolutions. I suggest you try to set your
goals a bit below where you want to be. For example, if you want to do 50 push
ups every day, set your goal at 25. Or if you want to write 500 words a day, set
your goal at 250. That lower goal means you're more likely to succeed when you
first start out, and early successes--even small ones--keep you motivated and
help create the habit of taking action. Once you have the habit established, you
can always expand your goals when that first goal becomes easy to meet. In the
words of the English writer Arnold Bennett, "A glorious failure leads to
nothing; a petty success may lead to a success that is not petty."

Writing Statistics for 2019:
  
    o Words written: 105,000+
    o Submissions: 64
    o Publications: 5, plus runner-up for an Artist-in-Residency program
    o Hours of writing-related activity/goal: 794/1040
  
This is the first year I've kept track of these numbers, so I can't say if I've
been more or less productive than previous years. However, I can say that it
felt like I had a good writing year and that I got a lot done. Now let's see if
I can improve on those numbers in 2020....

(c) 2020 by Andrew Gudgel 
email: contact [at] andrewgudgel.com