Plans for the coming year

[aadler]

 
So, it’s time to chart a course, setting new goals and assessing old ones for revision. Not a list of resolutions per se, though some resolutions will be included. And, of course, some items will sound very familiar, because I touched on the same points last year, if not before even then.

So, to begin.

Writing plans

In the past, I’ve spoken in terms of general aims. Some of those, however, have been put off for so long that it’s time to get down to specifics. This is what I intend to do, and if I fail to carry it through, I’m to be held accountable.

1. “the Unforgiving Minute”. That’s an idea that came to me while I was at JRTC, and strikes me as one that I can deal with fairly soon, so why delay?
2. “Reversible Error”. My parts are already done, I’m just waiting for sroni to finish her segments. In my opinion, she could finish it in a week if she’d just sit down and write.
3. “Oaxaca Nights”. This is the first of several that’s been put off for too long already; I’ve had it on the drawing board for five years now. (It’ll touch on a canon question that I’ve never heard anyone else raise, but that I noticed.)
4. “Zulu Time”. Another that’s been allowed to lie fallow, unnecessarily. It’s not that I haven’t been writing, I’ve just never written this one.
5. “Smoke and Mirrors”. Neglected for at least seven years by this point. In fairness, some things had to be done first to set the stage; still, enough is enough. This will take time and care and planning, and could be massive … or, maybe, substantial but not too large. I just know that it’s in a particular category, that of stories with deep roots and lots of substance. (“In Ev’ry Angle Greet” was one such; “Whisper of a Moment” was the next, and then “Glass Ceiling”, and then “Queen’s Gambit”. Stories that require work, but deliver major satisfaction if done properly.)

All those will be Buffy fics, but that’s not all I want to work on. Maybe this year I’ll do the Terminator story I’ve had in the back of my mind since 1999; maybe I’ll do one of the two Alias fics I’ve wanted to turn out as companion pieces to “Savant”, or maybe I’ll attempt a couple of ideas I’ve had for Firefly fics. Heck, just this weekend I got struck by an idea in the Doctor Horrible ’verse, and I don’t get much more offbeat than that.

There’s also a non-fanfic notion that I feel just about ready to begin. If I get caught up in that one, it could quickly eclipse everything else. Calculated risk.

All these things require focus and consistency. My principal tactic in that direction is to write every day. Every. Single. Day. Doesn’t have to be much — a page, minimum — but no time off, period.

Personal plans

Well, let’s see.

Lose weight. (Thirty pounds, at this point.) Work on getting back in shape, in terms of general physical fitness.

Resume study in Farsi, Arabic, and Esperanto.

Start sorting through the stuff that Susan and I have accumulated (my junk, her junk, our kids’ junk, her parents’ junk, and the junk of the dead people whose house we bought), and work on getting rid of as much as possible. If I unpacked and dealt with one box every day … well, it would take a long time, but I’ve been back more than a year and a half and haven’t done anything, so slow progress would be a vast improvement. Drop off excess at Goodwill — clothes, mostly — two or three times a week.

Attend my daughter’s wedding, and start bugging her to produce grandchildren.

Military plans

This could be a make-or-break year for me. My current enlistment runs out in September. I can extend — and may — but if I can’t get on somebody’s roster for a deployment, I may decide it’s not worth it.

The annoying part is that I can see clearly that things are going to get very busy very soon; the moronic foreign policy of the incompetent, out-of-touch Obama, augmented by the efforts of the feckless, ideological yes-men he layered around himself, has planted enough instability in enough places that America’s armed forces are going to have their hands full for some ten years after his none-too-soon departure. And just about all of it will come at a time when I will no longer be allowed, by law, to make the kind of direct contribution for which I returned to the military life in the first place.

One of my officers asked me, just yesterday, how I’d feel about going for promotion to the next rank. My answer: I’d love to, but there just isn’t enough time left. Slots are limited, and you want to reserve them for those who’ll be able to hang around, not someone who can already see the exit looming ahead.

***

A new year … and no, I don’t expect the world to end just because Mayan calendars go only so far. (If I did, I’d be focusing on acres of illicit sex, instead of fanfic.) It’s a matter now of seeing what I can accomplish.