Checking In

It's been a while since I've had a chance to write. I've meant to for the last three days, actually, but somehow I haven't found the time.

Most of the last two weeks have been extremely productive. The day before yesterday, however, was not... I did manage to play the drums for a few hours, but other than that I got virtually nothing done. I don't remember what it was I spent my time on. Playing games, most probably.

Anyway, that night I dreamed that Unilove called me and said, "Dave wants you to succeed." That's all I remember. I've dreamed of Dave often, both when he was on earth and afterwards... never of anyone else connected with him.

Yesterday I spent half the day playing the drums. I've learned a new beat. I went out, did a few errands, came back, installed my new copy of Sims Pets, and played for several hours.

I bought a journal the day before yesterday, expressly for the purpose of setting goals and achieving them. In Chasing Down the Dawn, Jewel talks about the process of "manifesting dreams--that is, writing down a goal and the daily actions required to achieve it.

The first goal I chose is a long-term one, and an important one. My goal is to spend Christmas 2007 in London. I've always wanted to see England, especially London, probably because I grew up watching British television and my favourite series of novels is Harry Potter, which takes place in England. Dave and I had talked about visiting it "someday". I guess now it's up to me to make "someday" real.

Anyway, as i said, my goal is to spend Christmas 2007 in London. More specifically, I plan to visit London from December 23, 2007-January 2, 2008. This morning I achieved the first daily task I had set myself. I did some research on-line to find out how much this would cost.

I would have to stop-over either in New York or Boston, so I might as well plan to visit my parents for the week-end of Dec. 21-23rd and then fly to London early on the 23rd. It looks like this is the cheapest option; with hotel fare and a few sightseeing passes, it comes to about $2500.

My next task will be to open a savings account this coming Monday and transfer $1000 of my loan money in as a starter.

After that, I'm not sure yet... I know I need to earn the rest of the money. I probably have enough in my loan money, but I need to save most of that for daily expenses (and drum lessons should I ever find a teacher, but that's another issue... the teacher I was referred to at the music store isn't returning my phone calls as of yet)

I need to get a teaching job (so what else is new?). Im not sure what else to do to get one, and I have no idea how to break that down into daily tasks. I call the HR representative every Monday. I also call in to Adecco in case they have any temping work for me. I guess I can look in the classified ads as well...

Well, maybe I'm thinking too narrowly. Maybe I have to have several options as to how to earn money. (Of course if I publish my novel and it becomes a best-seller I won't have to worry about any of this, but I'm in the very beginning stages of that. Currently I have 25 copies of my short story out. According to Stephen King, you have to publish about 6 short stories in order to be looked upon as "serious" by agents and editors. OTOH, JK Rowling published Harry Potter without having published anything else at all, so I suppose revising the novel and submitting it on its own is worth a shot.)

Wow... my goal is growing... I have all these sub-goals I have to plan for. I think I should buy my own copy of the Writer's Market, since I had to give the library back theirs. It's time to begin working seriously towards publishing my novel AND towards getting a teaching job AND towards publishing my short stories...

And, oh yeah, I'm going to write a new story called Chasing Ghosts. I'm not quite sure of the details yet. Plus continue working on Elsie Worthing (which is NOT a waste of time despite being unpublishable other than on the Internet because of copyright issues) and continue studying the drums on my own.

I am going to be very busy starting this Monday...