excuse me while I write that down
This is my new love.
It's a five-dollar planner from Wal-Mart. Paper, spiral bound, requires actual pen - the whole thing.
And I'm just now using one for the first time in my adult life. At this rate I should be graduated to a digital planner about the time we're all driving flying cars.
Or maybe I won't graduate, because great texture is very important to me (I can only stand going to the grocery store now that I use cloth bags, and oh how I love leather seats.) And there's nothing like actual pen and paper for writing down spur of the moment brilliancy and pleasant or not so pleasant I-promise-to-be-theres.
I write down school stuff and work stuff and birthday stuff. I write down blog ideas when they strike me and book ideas when I've been allowed to think for a long period of time and finally make it to that part of my life. With a little effort, if I die before my novel's written, you should be able to piece it together from the pages of my 2010 burgundy planner.
With the love of my planner has come a newfound love for lists and goals. I have word counts written on the days of September. And "What I want most if I could have anything" in the back on the official "Notes" page. That was a fun one. I highly recommend a list like that. I was feeling really out of sorts at the time, kind of unhappy, and certain that very few things in life were just as I wanted them to be. Making that list made me realize how irrational my unhappiness had been. So many things actually are just as I want them, or on their way, and the things I want weren't nearly as far from what I have as I'd thought.
Still, oh the fun of the lists. Kind of a 5-year/10-year thing, only mine is more like if we're shooting for the stars, the moon, or something equally delightful but realistically located on the planet.
Seriously, try it some time. Write a list that begins with something like, "I wish..." You can't worry that it's selfish or that people would scoff. You're perfectly allowed to write, "I wish I could win the lottery" even if you don't buy lottery tickets. If you really want to win it, if you really write that down when you begin your list, then you'll know. From this point on, you better get your butt to the 7-11 and buy a ticket already.