Moving Forward

I have spent the last few weeks working on organizing myself for the rest of 2008 so I can make progress on all of my projects. I toiled for several days to create a useful list of everything I need to accomplish and put all of the items both in categories and in chronological order of when they should happen. I also color-coded everything according to its importance, and according to whether or not it involved an immediate cash outlay, so I can just glance at the thing and see what's a priority. Lastly, I made a budget for all of the listed items that do require an expense, so I now know exactly how much I need to allocate to meet my goals. I've also been moving forward with editing my Parsifal manuscript, researching publishers for it, looking for grants and writing contests, following up with contacts from the conference in July, joining more social networking groups, looking into taking some more UCLA classes, and putting aside money for a new computer. I've also been working on pitches for my France experience, which is part of the reason I have not yet written much about it. I don't want to publish too much here about it until I know what, if anything, will be going into articles elsewhere. I don't yet have a track record as a travel writer, this will be my first foray into that arena, but since this also falls into the area of arts and culture, I am comfortable enough to try it. I love to travel and that market is a lucrative and dependable one, at least more so than fine arts. It's also a happy marriage with my artistic interests, since almost all of my travel is planned around arts events of one kind of another. More predictable income from writing assignments would help me cross things off of my list much more quickly. I've also made some more sales on Etsy, and I plan to focus a little more on it going into the holiday season. I need to sit down and make some things for it, something I am looking forward to. I have a lot on my plate, but I feel good about getting so much done thus far in 2008, and if I can close out the year by knocking things off of that list, I'll be really happy.