You gotta have goals.

"Memory" - 16 x 16" colored pencil on board.
Copyright 2008 Maggie Stiefvater.
My panel for the Equine Mural Mosaic (which is fascinating -- check it out)

Regular readers will know that I am in love with goals. If goals were a vegetable, I would pick bushels of them, eat them until I was sick, and then freeze the rest so that I could have a continuous supply of goals through the cold months.

One thing I have learned about goals, however, is that, like vegetables, if you don’t use ‘em or freeze ‘em right away, they go bad. Some of them go bad in a spectacular fashion. Like if you vow to lose 20 pounds at the beginning of the year, forget about the goal, and then discover Haagen-Daas ice cream sometime in June . . . not only is that goal to lose weight gone bad, but it’s bad like stinking in the bottom of your crisper drawer bad. With rotten goal juice eeking around it.

And other goals go bad in a sort of failure to stay relevant way. Like if you suddenly crave sweet potatoes and buy a ton of them. If you don’t cook all of them, you’ll have those few lonely ones left over. They’ll never go bad in a fantastically awful way, but you’ll end up throwing them away after eight months because you just don’t want them anymore. So goals should be checked often and the ones that are really timely ought to be attacked immediately.

So enough with the metaphor. I wanted to write a post today about New Year’s Resolutions. Stop staring at the screen like that, it’s rude. I know it’s nearly the end of July (yes, it’s nearly the end. The 21st. Can you believe it?) but they’re still a good topic. Because halfway through the year(ish) is a great time to pull out your Resolutions and see which of them are done, which of them are so irrelevant you’ll never truthfully attempt them, and which of them are oozing stink-juice in your veggie drawer.

Here’s the sordid truth about New Year’s Resolutions: very rare is the resolution which actually stays good for a year. Twelve months is a long time. Priorities change, economies shift, careers jiggle, exercise goes better than planned, things get born under your porch with six limbs and eyes that glow red faintly in the darkness. It just makes good sense to reevaluate your goals partway through the year to make sure they’re still functioning the way they’re supposed to.

Here are my New Year’s Resolutions I made at the beginning of the year. Let me show y’all how I’m changing them to make them fit my changing priorities (without welching on any of them).

1. make x amount of money with my art
2. make x amount of money with my novels
3. make x amount of that with prints.
4. Contract for sequel to Lament.
5. Memorize 2 O’Carolan pieces for the harp
6. Visit NYC
7. Inspire someone to be an artist
8. Comfortably run a mile
9. Record a lament for Lament.
10. Get an agent
11. Contract for one other book.

I've managed to accomplish #1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, and 11. Instead of just crossing them off the list, I’m revising them.

NEW 1. Establish a solid financial plan for the next two years. (See how this is related to my first three goals I accomplished?
NEW 4. Begin writing Re: Myself, my next work in progress. (See how this one flows naturally from finishing Ballad and handing it in to my editor? The idea isn’t to keep myself constantly busy for the sake of being busy – but rather to keep myself motivated and on track for my career and personal life.)
NEW 7. Talk to one hundred teen writers about the business of writing. I’m about a third of the way there already. (similar purpose, just different career)
NEW 10. Keep my novel website updated regularly.
New 11. Double my number of subscribers to my writing blog (m-stiefvater.livejournal.com) and my short story blog (www.merryfates.com) (see how both of these are about furthering my writing career, just like the original goals)

Now for the ones I haven't done yet. Two stay as they are: I'm still going to NYC and I'm still going to record the lament -- I've written it, I just need to make it into the studio.

But two need to be changed.

I didn’t do #5. I’ll confess, I let these two musical pieces sort of go stale next to my potatoes. I had thought I’d be playing my harp more, but really I’ve been working with my acoustic guitar more as the harp needs new strings. So I’m changing #5 to something that will actually have meaning on the list: Buy an electric guitar for my birthday in November and start to learn some fun tricks on it.

And I worked diligently on #8, running a mile, until it got hot – really hot – and then I decided that I really needed something that I could do indoors. I’ve been dying to get killer abs, so I switched this to sit-ups instead. (and whoo do I see a difference . . . you could throw bricks at me now and my abs would repel them). Anyway, so my new number 8 is to do sit ups three times a week for the rest of the year. Still fitness related. But totally air conditioned. Go on, call me a wuss . . .

So how about you guys? Have you revamped your goals yet? Do you need to?

In Which Maggie Goes Wild

"dude sketching"
copyright 2008 Maggie Stiefvater
in ye olde sketchbook.

Or at least feral. I was going to do two more series weeks as usual for the remainder of April but I decided to go wild. See, in between a wild deadline for BALLAD (did I mention that I was given 90 days to write a novel by my relentlessly cheerful editor) and other fun stuff that I cannot yet mention, I have not been doing many pieces of art that I can show on the blog.

That, my friends, must change. Even if I can't do large pieces, I still want to be stretching my artistic brain. So I am going hog wild for the next two weeks, and hog wilder for the next month. Through the rest of April I am going to be seriously attacking my figure drawing skills. It's something that's not at all natural to me, and it's something I very much want to be good at. I mean, you guys are my species after all. I should be able to draw you. So my goal is to post at least one quick figure sketch every day on this blog. Whether or not I'll have something intelligent to say . . . well.

And for May, I've decided I'm going to study three artists every week. Unlike my usual fare, which is safely dead and gone, these will be any artists that I find absolutely inspiring (feel free to post any suggestions in the comments)(if you nominate yourself I will virtually claw your eyes). In each post, I'll try and do a mini analysis of what draws me to their work, what I'd like to take away from their technique, and what I learned in general from them. I'm hoping to come out of May with a complete draft of a novel and a recharged artistic battery.

Sound good? Can I hear a booyeah? Who wants to do it with me?

Maggie on Time Management, Part II

all artwork in this post are 1 minute sketches from life at a Lunasa concert
copyright 2008 Maggie Stiefvater
(please note all sketches posted in this blog are from my current sketchbook, which like the last one will be given away to a random blog subscriber when it's full -- so if you read regularly, make sure you subscribe so I know!)

As promised, today is the follow up post on time-management -- what I do to keep myself on track in the midst of a crazy world.

In the last post, I pointed out the top reasons that kept me from working: excuses, funky priorities, aimlessness and self-doubt. Those are the top reasons. Here are some others that might sound familiar to you: lack of energy, distraction, procrastination, and misdirected energy (fake usefulness).

And here's what I do to counter-act them. Maggie, Future Queen of America, tells all.

1. Excuses

This is a bad one for me, because I can think of so many: toddlers not taking as many naps, new puppy needing lots of walks and making lots of epic puddles, too many commitments, not enough hours in the day, need to cook dinner, need to clean the house, need to finish reading that novel that is burning at me to read it . . .

And I have to confess that for me, the biggest defense against excuses is my husband. He knows what I can do and he can see write through my excuses. He has a very low BS titer. Everyone has someone like this -- it could be a sister, a friend, a husband, another of your personalities -- someone who knows just how much you can do and will hold you to it.

If you don't, use me. I know what you're capable of. Shove those excuses under the rug. They're not doing either of us any good. This is about good habits, too -- the more you stop leaning on your excuses, the weaker they'll get, until finally you can blow them down like a straw house.

2. Funky Priorities

Funky priorities, as you remember, is when you think that there are things more important than your art, your writing, your music -- whatever it is that your dream is. For me, there are only a very few things that I consider more important that what my dream is, but I know that just because this is a concept that comes easy to me, it's not necessarily one that comes easily to others, especially if you've been raised to have an eye constantly on the reliable and the tried-and-true.

I do, however, have funky priorities when it comes to choosing between my various interests -- music, writing, and art, and I think the method I use for straightening out my priorities applies across the board. I ask myself constantly

• do I need to be doing this? (watching a TV show, signing up for a new artists' community online, etc)
• will it matter in the long run? (fretting about not making it to a show opening, knowing who the front-runner is in American Idol)
• does it make me feel good to get this done?
  
• does this touch upon more than one of the goals that I've set for myself?

And I know this last one is silly, but as a writer, you have to indulge me -- it really does work for me.

• If I were a character in a book or movie, would I be sympathetic for the character that I am? Would I think that I was doing all I could to accomplish my goals?
  

3. Aimlessness

This is one that used to torment me a lot. I would clear my schedule, allot time for work, sit down at the desk, and sort of . . . fritter around. It wasn't that I didn't have things to do -- I had lots to do. Too much. Way too much to accomplish in one day. Way too much to accomplish in one week. Give me a month, maybe. It just piled around me like . . . like . . . stuff that piles around you (my powers of metaphor momentarily failed me).

So I started setting goals. I got myself a notebook and started putting down my daily, weekly, and monthly goals. I got out of the habit of the notebook once the year was done, but I still have a stack of index cards and a calendar on my desk now. The calendar has long range goals and deadlines and the index cards have the week's goals on them, one day to each card. I also have my 2008 Goals/ New Years' Resolutions taped up next to my desk (Out of 11, I've already crossed out 2 and I'm this close to the next two - I can taste it).

Tada! My aimlessness was gone. I could get right to work. But it's not something I ever grow out of. If I try to go a week without my daily goals . . . nothing gets done. Work crawls to a halt. I don't think I'll ever be able to manage without them written down.

4. Self-Doubt

Yes, I still get it. Yes, I still foolishly think I can get around it by getting praise from outside parties. No, it never works.

Self-doubt is sort of like a cramp when you're running. It makes it hard to run at first, then intensely painful (and still hard), and finally impossible. You want to stop. You have to stop. You just can't keep going -- but you do. Well, most people don't. Most people stop and say, "$%^&! Blinkin' cramp! #$%^!" But those people who push through the cramp -- it goes away and you can keep going, good as new.

Well, I assume so. When running, I've always stopped for the cramps. But I don't stop for the self-doubt. Even when I think a piece is complete crappola, I push through it. Because I know the next one won't be, even if the current piece is a write-off. And I'll never get to the next piece if I stop then.

6. Lack of Energy

Sleep isn't something I like to compromise on, though I hear through the grapevine that most Americans do. I become a raving banshee hair-pulling lunatic without at least seven hours of sleep, so I try to get as much as I can. I also try and work with my circadian rhythm as much as I can. Meaning? I'm a morning person. The days I got to bed early and manage to get up early before the kids, I can get a lot more work done, because I feel good. Hard to remember that when I want to stay up and watch a movie.

Also, I watch what I eat. I'm of the opinion that Americans are guilty of eating a lot of junk, and it makes us uncomfortable, sleepy, and depressed. I'm allergic to preservatives of all sort, and it's an allergy that got worse as I got older. The early symptoms of my sensitivity? Depression, tiredness, headache. (then all sorts of fun gross painful ones later, but that's for another time, my pets). I don't think that I'm the only one that doesn't react well to preservatives, I just think I take it to a slightly higher level than most people. On my preservative-free diet, I have lots of energy and I stay fit.

Also, some of this is habit. People used to sitting stay sitting. People used to moving stay moving. I suppose if I stopped moving and being energetic, I might stop moving and being energetic altogether. I'm not really prepared to find out. So I keep on motoring.

7. Distraction

Oh, I'm bad about this. There are lots of things to distract me. The neighbors' dogs barking. The birds on the feeder. My cat feeding on birds from the feeder. Children hooting in their rooms during "nap" time. Husband watching interesting television. The thoughts rambling around in my head.

For me, headphones are the answer. I pick a CD suitable to what I'm doing -- nice uptempo stuff when I'm on a deadline -- warn my husband that I'm going to another planet, and put on the headphones. I must have music to stay focused. Otherwise, I can guarantee you my brain will be off holidaying while I'm trying to work.

8. Procrastination

*coughreadingblogscough* I'm a good one for procrastinating. I always waited until the last moment to do my papers in college too. The way I kicked this one (though it still plagues me) is fooling myself. I set false deadlines, well before the real deadline, and make myself work to that deadline instead of the proper one.

Example? My deadline for getting Ballad written isn't until the very end of the year. Plenty of time to write it. I can play around, right? Wrong. I'm giving myself a fake deadline of Halloween. If I have it done by then, I can play afterwards.

9. Misdirected Energy

This goes back to priorities, but unlike the more general priorities, misdirected energy is more insidious. See, with this one, I'm talking about things that seem useful for your work, but aren't really. For instance, investing a lot of time in an exhibition that won't really pay off. Or spending a few hours creating a pretty profile page on an artists' forum. Or going to art group meetings that aren't productive.

These are really hard to identify, because they feel like they must be useful. But time's at a premium, and the truth of the matter is you have to be like an emergency room doctor. Triage, it's called. It's looking at a room full of sick people and deciding who's most likely to kick the bucket and who's just there for the lollipops and Snoopy band-aids.

So look at your waiting room of tasks carefully. Who's really going to bleed to death first? And who can be shunted to the end of the line or off the line entirely?

10. There has got to be a number 10 to this list. This is going to drive me crazy. I'm going to make one up. Um.

Man, I couldn't think of one. I really am creatively stifled tonight, aren't I?

Okay -- you guys know the routine -- questions in the comments section and I'll answer them tomorrow. Also, any solutions that you've come up with, share!

The Last Butt-Kicking of 2007

Successful people believe that they have the internal capacity to make desirable things happen.

This is perhaps the most central belief shown to drive individual success. People who believe they can succeed see opportunities where others see threats. This comfort with ambiguity leads people to take greater risks and achieve greater returns.

Successful people tend to not feel like victims of fate. They believe that they have the motivation and ability to change their world. They see success for themselves and others as largely a function of motivation and ability, not luck, random chance or external factors.

-from "How Successful People Become More Successful"

Okay, folks. Here it is. My last friendly butt-kicking of 2007, for artists, writers, moms, and anybody else who reads this blog. I don't pretend to be the most successful person in the world, but I can say that I'm happy with where I'm at as a brand-new 26-year-old. I'm better off this December than I was last December. If I've made the same leap by next year, I'll be happy next year too.

I'm a big believer in goals, so for me, setting New Year's Resolutions seems pretty obvious. I tend to write down my resolutions right before the New Year and then modify them throughout the year as I meet them. And I do tend to meet them. Want to hear some of mine from last year's resolutions?

1. make my living entirely from art again this year (despite a ghastly October that had me eating way too much spaghetti with no sauce, I did this) (and I had a set money figure that I wanted to meet for myself to count as "making my living", which I'm not going to share here, so don't ask, you nosy buggers)
2. get a contract for one of my novels (regular blog readers will know that LAMENT is coming out in Fall '08)
3. get into American Academy of Equine Art's exhibition (didn't do this but got into the Colored Pencil Society of America's International Exhibition instead).
4. teach more workshops (the Detroit branch of the CPSA flew me out there to teach a three day workshop in March, which was very fun & I've been asked to do a series of 5 workshops in Northern Virginia in '08)

For me, there's no need to convince me about the value of New Year's Resolutions. Setting goals works, because it makes me accountable. How can I be successful if I don't know what I'm supposed to be trying to do? With that in mind, I've dug up some useful goals links for the wafflers amongst you to read before setting your goals. Setting bad goals is worse than none at all, so make sure you're doing it right.

Make Your Goals Specific
The Mindset of Successful People (scroll down to get to the good part)
Hokey Article about Visualizing Goals

The most important thing is to make your goals specific. "Make Money with my Art" is a crummy goal. "Make xx,xxx" with my art is a better goal, because you'll know when you've achieved it. And if you only make x,xxx amount with your art, you know how far you still have to go, and you'll stretch to reach it.

The next thing is to make your goals something that you can mostly do under your own steam. Don't put "Achieve world peace" (which is another sucky non-specific goal by the way) unless you think you can do most of that on your own.

And the next important thing is to not make your goals too easy. Sure, you can throw in some gimmies. But throw in some stretches there. You risk not making them, but you also include that chance that you might. And if you don't put them in there, I can guarantee that you won't make them.

And finally, show them to everyone. Remember that accountability thing? The more people that see them, the more real those goals are. You have a reason to achieve them, to prove yourself to others as well as to yourself.

With that said, here are my top ten goals for 2008.

1. Make 75% of my income from my art. (I have an actual dollar amount that only my family knows).
2. Make 25% of my income from my writing.
3. Shift my art income to 75% prints, products with my art on it, and workshops and the rest from originals.
4. Get a contract for at least one other novel and the sequel to LAMENT.
5. Learn to play my two favorite O'Carolan pieces on my harp (this is my gimmie, but I wouldn't make time for it unless I put it on the list).
6. Visit New York City with my husband (and maybe my toddlers).
7. Inspire at least one other person to go full-time with their art.
8. Comfortably run a mile by the end of the year (this is another gimmie, but like the other one, I wouldn't feel like I had to do it unless it's on this list).
9. Get into the studio to record a lament for LAMENT & build website for book with the tune as a download.
10. Land a good literary agent.
(11). Get my dog Ginger to stop smelling like fish.

Looking at that, I'm sure I'm missing some things, but I'm going to jot them down as I think of them. And you know what I'm doing right at this moment? I'm taking that list, using a beautifully fat and smelly Sharpie to write them on a piece of cardstock and taping it next to my desk where I can see them every day. And I can't wait to start crossing them off.

Let's see your goals, folks. Post a comment here if you've put your goals up on your blog, or if you're afraid to do it that publicly, feel free to email them to me (portraitswithcharacter AT gmail.com) if you want me to help you feel accountable.

Happy New Year! It's going to be a good one.