Fact is I’m a busy guy. Between the work, the family, karate classes, kids’ basketball games and concerts, trips, and other events, I have a lot going on. Every weekend this month is booked solid, and last month wasn’t a whole lot better. Cramming in an hour of writing a day is not always easy.

Instead I’ve made it a goal to create something every day.

This plan dawned on me a week ago when I grabbed my Moleskine shortly before bedtime. I had an idea rolling around in my head for a couple of days, and I didn’t get it to the computer so I decided to at least get it into the notebook. As I wrote it down, that idea led to another, and another, and yet another, all connected to the same story. In a matter of ten minutes I had four characters and a rough plot for what could easily be a novel or graphic novel.

The hard part of writing them is still ahead, but now I’ve got something to make that precious keyboard time all the more effective. I can’t afford to sit and stare at a blank page, wondering what comes next, for a half hour or so. This way if I’m working on The Pack book 2 and I’m stuck, I can shift gears to this project and bust out several pages or a few thousand words.

I’ve been working on it for the whole week, and so far it’s worked. I’ve jotted notes, I printed and edited an old short story, and I wrote responses to a couple of interviews. I’ve done some research, which in turn led to even more ideas on another project. Better yet, they were all done in short bursts. They were times I had a few minutes to kill, but not quite enough time to get lost in a page. (If I can’t get a complete thought/scene onto a page, I feel I’ve lost the thread of it when I get back to the keyboard and the narrative turns to crap.)

And I haven’t been beating myself up over note writing. I haven’t been crabby and irritable because I’m worried I’m wasting my time. It doesn’t feel like work (in either a good or bad sense), but it doesn’t feel like failure.

So if you’ll excuse me, I have a little creating to do before I crash for the night.

Goal 1: Cut 20 more pounds by October 1st.

So far not so good, but I’ve still got all summer to run. The knee is feeling better, so I may give it a shot next week after we get through this week’s karate review and the extra practice I’ve been putting in to prepare for it. I actually ran home in the rain today with a loaded backpack and didn’t feel any knee pain, so with luck the track won’t give me any more trouble than that.

Goal 2: Make Nikyu in Shuri-ryu Karate-do by Halloween.

That’s 2nd degree brown belt for those unaware, and I can say so far so good on this one. I had a setback during the previous review because I made some mistakes the first night and missed the second night due to a family incident. This week I was able to finish the process and I should receive the first of three stripes required to hit Nikyu on Thursday. If I bust my ass practicing this summer, I can still make it.

Goal 3: Complete 25 themed photos by December 31st.

Uh oh. Unless I make them all karate-themed, I’m in big trouble. Between the writing in general, the setback with the graphic novel, work, family, and of course karate, I haven’t made time to surf Flickr groups or read the snazzy photography book I bought, much less take the camera out and about. Maybe a karate theme is just that simple a solution, with portraits and pics like my Karate Moleskine (below).

Taken with my old camera, but I still dig it

I’m glad I revisited these goals now, as there’s still plenty of time for all three if I put in the effort. But that’s the whole point of goals, isn’t it? If I can still get the immediate writing commitments completed, I can also participate in National Novel Writing Month this year as I hoped. It’ll take some effort, but it’s not impossible.

Too bad I don’t have a Staples easy button.

A big part of that is my sensei has turned our advanced class on Tuesday nights into a workout class. We may work a little karate, but we focus on a mix of cardio, flexibility, and strength training. For the last few weeks we’ve done the same with Thursday night’s class; it’s not quite as intense, but we get a good workout before moving on to the night’s lesson.

Last night was a good measure of my progress: we started with 150 front kicks after our warm-up, then did 110 push-ups and 110 sit-ups in ladders. By ladders I mean we partnered up and did 1 push-up, then the partner did 1. Did 2, partner did 2, and so on, up to 10, for a total of 55 reps. We did sit-ups the same way, then counted down from 10 with the push-ups, and finally counted down with the sit-ups.

I made it all the way through without hitting failure or losing form (though I am feeling it in the abs today). I’m not so sure I could have done that a year ago, so I was very pleased with myself.

The Tuesday class has also been great for my side kicks. I’ve learned a new waza, a certain combination of techniques, that requires me to do a blocking kick immediately followed by a side kick, both above the belt. We’ve been working side kicks and stretches on Tuesday nights in preparation, and now I’m happy to report I can pull off both kicks. I don’t know how pretty it looks, especially in the transition to the technique following them, but Sensei Miller seems content so I’ll just keep practicing.

If I can perform the waza and the rest of my new material properly, I’ll be a brown belt in two weeks. I’ve been looking at sankyu, or third degree brown belt, as the next big milestone in my karate progession, and it feels great to be so close to earning it.

My first summer with karate, I was just glad to have moved beyond a few physical annoyances and cut some weight. I wasn’t really focused on black belt, or even brown belt. It was tough to see that far into the future, and I admit I was intimidated by some of the things I saw our advanced students doing. Now I’m right up there with them. Now I know what I need to do to hit the next point. Now I know how to concentrate on the things I’m lacking.

Now I am one of the advanced students, helping to teach some of the basic students. I’m thinking about what needs to be done to hit my next milestone, ikkyu (first degree brown belt), by the end of this year. I have a goal in mind for shodan (first degree black belt), and a good idea of what it’s going to take to get there. It’s starting to sink in that there are real milestones beyond that point, be it nidan and beyond or exploring other styles and arts.

I don’t look at my martial arts journey as a long road, neither in front of me nor behind me. It’s just a road.

I’m just happy I’m enjoying the trip.

In a time where most small presses are dropping titles, changing formats, facing a tougher distributor market, failing to return messages, and generally struggling to survive, it’s good to have publishers courting me for a change. The script above went to the first, and I’m working on a polish of Powerless for the other.

It’s also nice to have people asking after my work. It’s been very quiet for a while, but lately I’ve had people emailing me on and off wondering when Deadliest will be reprinted, when my next novel will be coming out, or when they kind find any of my work, period. I’d be hard pressed to label many of them fans, but nonethless, it feels pretty good.

It’s even more flattering when people are surprised I don’t write for a living. Despite the market conditions, there’s not much that would please me more than to be able to — or make that to have to — pound out a couple thousand words a day rather than wrangling stubborn computers all day. If just a few more publishers felt I should be writing for a living, maybe that would finally happen.

I can already hear a few people out there saying “But Mike, you should do it for the love of the craft!”

Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. My thinking is people should get paid to do what they love if they can get away with it. There are people out there who love their jobs, so why not turn something you love into your job? Bring in the money that lets you continue doing what you love.

I haven’t seen the big money yet, but for the first time in a long time I’m seeing the potential. This 12-page script is a direct lead-in to bigger and better things, and I can’t wait to see how they play out.

Good times are coming.

I solidified a relationship with a new publisher in ‘08, and our goal is to do a mix of comics and prose work. It’s still too early to announce specific projects, but I’ve written most of the script for the first graphic novel and have the outline for the first novella ready to go. We have two properties we want to develop with the prospect of a third on the horizon. I’m itching to tell you more, but I really need to get some work in the can before either the publisher or I will be confident enough to make anything public.

Last month a small press publisher contacted me about a novel. I promised to send him what I’ve written of Powerless after I clean it up, which will be this week. It will also be pitched to Otherworld Verlag, my German publisher. Wish me luck.

The Top Secret Book is back on the path to publication, so I need to finish the novella that will go along with it. The publisher had asked that I not announce the publication or publisher, which worked in our favor when certain delays appeared. We’re going to have to stick to that policy until we have a release date.

My next goal, of course, is to get to the point I can actually announce these damn things. After that, the goal is to actually have something to sell at conventions this year. Otherwise 2010 will be the year I finally start reevaluating this whole writing thing. A secondary writing goal for 2009 will be to participate in NaNoWriMo in November. A lot more than previous deadlines and commitments affect that, so I’ll have to take another look at my schedule as Fall rolls around.

On the personal side, I have the luxury of being a little more specific. We’ve been talking about the difference between dreams and goals (not to mention resolutions and goals) in karate class, and that difference includes deadlines. Dreams and resolutions don’t count for much unless you have a plan and a firm deadline, and since I can’t really apply deadlines to publishers and contracts, I may as well slap them on my personal goals:

1) Cut another 20 lbs by October 1st. To accomplish this, I’m going to continue my karate training and I will start running again this Spring. Yes, I could probably run when it’s colder, but it’s tough to say I actually like running yet so if I’m out there and miserable, chances are that goal will be toast.

2) Make Nikyu in Shuri-ryu by Halloween. This is 2nd-degree brown belt. My original goal was to make Ikkyu, or 1st-degree brown belt, by Christmas, but there may not actually be time to do so, even if I nail every review between now and then. As such, Nikyu becomes a good goal and affords some realistic flexibility. We have review next week, and if I pass I’ll be up for Sankyu, or 3rd-degree brown belt, at the end of February.

3) Complete 25 themed photos by December 31st. The 52 Weeks Flickr group project was fun, but I felt self-portraits were a little restrictive and I had a tough time keeping up. This month I’m going to find a new Flickr group to join, one with a rotating or more flexible theme, and make sure I take at least 2 pictures a month.

Finally, I’ll close with a dream: I want a bigger motorcycle. Eve is great, but she’s a bit small. This dream will solely be dictated by financial capability, so this may or may not happen and thus is not a goal. I’ll be keeping an eye on the classifieds, but I haven’t ruled out a new Shadow or V Star.

Let’s get the party started.

Tonight I’m happy to report I just barely met the goal:

Tonight’s run was very uneven (I didn’t drink near enough fluids this weekend and my calves are paying the price), but it’s there and it turned out to be my longest distance so far. 3.41km may not sound like a lot to many people, but I think it’s pretty damn good for a 200+ pound guy who’s about as fond of running as the Pope is of death metal music.

On a side note, I’ve only been posting occasional workout or fitness information here because I don’t want to bore anyone with it. For those of you who are interested in more detail, some friends and I have started up a separate blog called Burn With Us. The contributors are all looking to get in better shape, and we felt a group blog would be a great way to encourage one another and share our experiences. Drop on by and check it out.