Six weeks

Six weeks from Tuesday, I'll be on a plane headed to Anaheim for RWA12.  And I want to do two things with those six weeks:

1) I want to finish the first draft of the novella I just started.  That way I can whip it into submission-ready form by sometime in August and move straight to my next goal of turning in a proposal for my next novel-length project by October or so--all the better to meet my big picture goal of having at least two releases every year starting in 2013.

(Incidentally, my stretch goal is to finish my first draft by 6/30 and submit it before I leave for RWA, but that assumes that a) I can tell the story at ~20K rather than, say, 25-30K, and b) I can plow straight through without backtracking to correct the plot or being slowed down by a shoulder pain flare-up.  So I'm not going to call myself a failure if I don't meet it.)

2) I want to stick with Weight Watchers and regular exercise, which I'm defining as doing an in-home aerobics workout Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and at least one weekday evening.

All year I've been stopping and starting again with my nutrition and fitness goals, but at least I've figured out why it's so hard to stay on task.  Mostly, I'm just so busy that I can't do the perfect version of eating right and exercising.  I can't work out every weeknight, or even on a more regular schedule like every other day.  I buy fresh fruits and vegetables yet snack on junk anyway because junk requires no prep time.  But then I don't want to do things like buy precut fruit because it seems lazy and insufficiently frugal.

Thing is, I'm wasting money anyway by buying food I don't eat.  I'd be better off, nutritionally and financially, buying fruits and vegetables in whatever form I can just grab and eat as simply as a bag of potato chips or a cookie.  So that's what I mean to do, for the next six weeks--which I hope is both a short enough time that I'll stick with it and long enough that I'll see actual benefits in weight loss and improved energy to make me want to keep going after RWA.

I'd love to have a few accountability partners.  Your goals don't have to be related to writing or diet/exercise, but we could check in with each other once a week, cheer each other on, and if you'll be in Anaheim too, maybe we can get together for a drink or dinner to celebrate our successes.

Who's in?