Well, that didn't work out like I'd planned...

The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.

As the title suggests, this was intended to be a daily exercise of my writing hand; working up my composition muscles that had atrophied since college.  And as you can see, if you're one of the handful of people who stumbled across this blog, that good intention went the way of many good intentions.  

In my defense, for a while right after I started this, my workload became so heavy that pretty much any activity was curtailed until things calmed down.  I'm not the most tolerant of my own failures, but even I can't expect myself to work twelve hours, then sit down and write for thirty minutes, then practice guitar for an hour, then maintain my exercises at the gym, and spend some quality time with my family.  Eventually, you're going to have to let some things slide.  

The new year has me in a somewhat better, but still similar tangle.  Work right now is back to something approximating 40 hours a week, but my free time is entangled between all the things I want to do and things I need to do.  At a glance, there is...

Weekly preparation for our D&D game (not too heavy, using a pre-published module, but still not treating it with the seriousness I'd like to)

Preparation of a training module to teach saber in the spring, and familiarizing myself with the various texts in order to do so.

Scanning and reading, practicing, and more importantly understanding, some longsword texts in order to pass that knowledge onto other over the summer.

Writing all that out, so I can hand them out to my students.

Learning the basic elements of photography so I'm not using my digital SLR as a really high-end point-and-shoot.

Getting back in the habit of visiting the gym, and when I'm there, working out as effectively as I can.

Practicing guitar daily, trying to improve that, so in a year, I'm where I want to be (able to at least strum my way through a song without messing up the strum pattern every fourth measure).

Reading...both all the swordfighting and photography texts I need to, but also some fiction...maybe even some history.

...and I want to write.

I think I might have too many hobbies.

There are also all the little exigencies of life that we need to take care of...cleaning, maintaining myself and my home.  All that takes time.  

So I let this slide.  I think I should at least use it as a journal.   Thinking about the projects and what I need to do has at least let me get them straight a bit more in my head.  So there is that.