Bring it, 2015: some things I’d like to do this year

I was sitting here in my room trying to meditate and set my intentions for the coming year, like a good new age hippie witch type, and this guy decided that he really needed to park his Hyundai sedan (I know, right?) out in front of my building and open the doors and play obnoxious music really loud. And I just couldn’t concentrate. Yeah, Brooklyn.

So instead of doing it the energetic way, I’m sending my intentions out into the universe via the internet. Ought to work, right? Sure.

My two main goals for 2015 are to focus–not increase–my creative output, and to be mindful of my part in the world around me by assuming responsibility for what I put into it.

These goals will hopefully manifest themselves in many ways I can’t anticipate right now, but I hope that they can the mantras by which I plan my actions throughout the year. I looked over that list of things I did in 2014, and I realized that I am incredibly productive. If you count blog posts, I think I average about 4.5 pieces of new creative output a week, which is not shabby. But I also spread this creativity out over a large spectrum: publish some poetry here, an advice column there, an interview here, a review over there, and so on. This is great, but I feel like I’m constantly distracting myself from the bigger projects I want to complete… you know, the ones that scare me. What I want to do is focus my energies more on the larger things and let the little ones go. This might mean less blogging (lame), but I hope that by the end of the year I’ll have some larger pieces of work to show for it.

I also want to focus on finding ways to send my work out to the world, which I hope will encourage me to put more thought into whether or not the things I make are good for the world. I venture to say that most types of creativity enrich the universe at large and are therefore helpful by default, but if there’s one thing the shit show that was 2014 taught me, it’s that the world needs all of the positive intentions and thoughtful aid it can get. I want the things I put into it to be consciously and purposely positive. I want to feel that what I’m doing is helping someone every time I do it, even if it’s in an abstract way.

And this also includes taking responsibility for my own damn self. I can’t be much of a positive influence if I’m drowning in stress and fatigue. Self care is where it’s at this year.

So with these ideas in mind, here’s my bulleted list (man I love bulleted lists!) of Actual Things I Want to Do in 2015:

• Write a book. A whole damn book. Make it happen.
• Find a publisher for my poetry chapbook and promote the everloving heck out of it.
• Either find a publisher for, or make a plan to self-publish, the Tracy Queen graphic novel, and set the process of publication in motion. So, basically… find money or raise money.
• Continue to do the little things (blog, interview awesome humans, give people sex advice, and so on) but on a less-strict, less-demanding schedule.
• Switch to less-expensive, less-immunosuppressant medications so that I can have more freedom over my health insurance situation and therefore my employment situation–ie, set self up to work for self instead of a big corporation.
• Switch from mostly-vegetarian to 100% vegetarian diet.
• Work out three times a week on average, instead of the current “whenever I get a chance” model. Prioritize that shit.
• Set up a solid plan, with finances and dates and more bulleted lists, to get the hell out of NYC.