different names for the same thing

Back in January I saw arachne posting a list of 101 things she pledged to do within the next 1001 days. Like an alternative to New Year's Resolutions, and a more fun one in several ways, I think. You have longer than a year to think about the big things and the ones that involve lots of planning, but also it's not a case of having to keep something up for a whole year before you can say you've succeeded; when you've done one you can cross it off.

It's surprisingly hard to come up with 101 things to do, but finally my list is done. So here it is. It's in no particular order, wildly overambitious, not to mention impractical (I did try to put some practical things in there!) and reflects the amount of time I have on my hands at the moment, though I'm sure I won't always have this much. It's got small, trivial tasks and big scary tasks, things I can start on right now and things for which I've no idea where I'll get the money as yet, things I might no longer want to do in nearly three years' time - who knows? But at least it gives me something to aim for.

I tried to give measurable success conditions for them all (hence the weird "for at least three months" thing attached to some of them where it should just be "for ever". I want to cross things off as I go along, not just cross a lot of them off at the end.) I was careful not to include any new novel projects, just ones I need to finish. Starting books is easy, I do it all the time.

This post will go in my Memories and I plan to refer back to it every so often and gloat. Or weep. The deadline is Friday November 14th, 2008. (2008!)

And no, I'm not going to tell you what 93-100 are. Unless you get me very, very drunk, and maybe not even then.

Edit: Last stock-take was December 7th 2006. Bolded numbers are tasks done, in progress or which I've done a significant amount of planning for.

Edit: another stock-take on April 16th 2007, a year and two months in. 30 tasks in progress, 11 of which done. Eep! But a lot of them are big slow tasks anyway.

( The tasks )

See the list of the blogger who started the whole thing (and hundreds of other lists) here.

I feel weird. Doing displacement activity (I cleaned a wall earlier. Just one wall. In the bathroom) but not sure what I'm trying to displace. It feels like summer in my flat, which is great, but it's bringing back the way I felt for much of last summer, all twitchy and paralysed, wandering from room to room incapable of actually doing anything. And I'm wondering how on earth I managed to finish writing my book in that atmosphere. Oh yeah, that's right, I didn't have internet access.

It's not helping that I've packed my suitcase already, which I normally never do till 3am the night before I go somewhere, so part of me is convinced there's no point doing anything because I'm clearly about to walk out the door to the airport.

And postwodehouse.com is down. There was a server problem, and they're restoring from backups, but so far they've only got up to domains beginning with C. So there will be a Friday Update, but it'll be a Saturday Update instead.

Maybe the Chemical Brothers will help knock some of the ditheriness out of my system.

But what's the good of all these gigs and fun and socialising and experiences, if I don't make something out of it all? Gah. I should be writing.