My Word for the Year

I found Project Underblog by chance yesterday and I’m a fan of a group of writers or bloggers all posting about the same theme at the same time and linking together. I also agree with Ms. Yother about resolutions for the new year. So, along with always wanting a good topic for my blog, I found this inspirational and had to jump in.

I haven’t done resolutions for some time. I’ve been doing goals, more or less, but have wavered on setting new goals specifically for the year because the schedule for my goals doesn’t go by the calendar. Not exactly. At least not January to December. The idea of choosing one word as your theme for the year instead of a resolution was very appealing. As I thought about it, a few possible words came to mind, but the one that stuck the hardest:

FOCUS

Focus is a much bigger word to me than it appears. It’s not one of my strong points. I have a plethora of interests and even within each field of interest, I have a plethora of things I want to do. I start new things often. I mean OFTEN. I start far too much to possibly keep up with it all.

That doesn’t work well when you have a mountainous goal/task that needs a LOT of attention and time.

So this year, my theme is FOCUS. Specifically, I have to cut out some miscellaneous time wasters, those things I’ve come up with that might be a good idea… Yeah, yeah. Good ideas are a dime a dozen (just like cute guys, so the song says). Implementation, and I mean full implementation, is more rare. And far more important.

My focus this year has to be on those things most important this year. I’m talking about writing specifically. I’ve produced well. I believe each book surpasses the last in quality. What I’ve truly lacked is focus on the things I truly Want to do with my work, other than the work itself.

My marketing stinks. I know it does. Maybe because I’m too scattered and have too many ideas. I’ve considered which supposed marketing tools (you know, those sites authors just HAVE to join) are not productive enough for the time they take, and mainly, they’re ones I don’t enjoy a lot. Those need to drop in status to hit or miss as I can get to them. I don’t have to be everywhere; really I don’t.

My important and most enjoyable tools are

1) My blogs. I like to blog. I have lots of thoughts that can’t be well confined to 160 characters. I have several blogs. All of them have been sorely neglected. Much of my focus this year will be improving and increasing blog activity.

2) Elucidations. I believe in my indie arts project and need to spend more time on that.

3) A project I barely started to develop last year called Write The Light In. With my psychology degree and my natural instinct to want to help others and to bring out the good side of things, this thought of combining that with my love of words is dear to my heart. It deserves full attention.

So this year I focus on the above, along with my actual writing, of course. Some social network places will close. Others will be “as I can get to it.”

FOCUS: My theme word for 2014.

Anyone else in? Click HERE to join in, but link submissions close in 3 days, so jump fast!

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