2009 Goals

I’ve never been one for the New Years Resolutions; I feel there’s too much negative emotion and connotations behind it. If it works for you that’s great, but I just can’t seem to put resolutions in a positive light. Sure, everything sounds good (even those resolutions you don’t tell others) but then they begin to dwindle down. And I hate doing things from the get-go of the New Year, because eveyone invaribly asks with a chuckle, “Is that a resolution?” The advancement of the year just seems like a marker of the reminder of the last time you did something – whether it be smoking a cigarette or having a delicious fried chicken nugget. Last year I sincerely had things I wanted to work on, things I wanted to start fresh on, but I got sidetracked in all that around mid-April, as previously described. 

This is the first year I’m going to set some actual goals to achieve. I believe it’s far easier and productive to reach a specific goal rather than make an empty resolution: “I’m going to be nicer to people!” Can we get more vague? Some of these goals of mine are a bit vague, yes, but can all be measured. In addition, beginning the last week of January, I’m going to revisit each of these goals at the end of every month on my blog. This will not only serve as a reminder for me, but will also be a form of accountability for myself; I’m laying all of these goals and intentions in front of you, and to be honest I’m rather prideful about some of these things and don’t want to lose face. Also, I hope that the goals and monthly evaluatons will serve as a bit of encouragement to you, as well. Feel free to write your goals and updates in the comments, and follow along. It’ll be an interesting way to keep ourselves on track in 2009!

Goals for 2009:

• Lose 50lbs – I’m chubby, and don’t like it. Twice in the past two years I’ve started with personal trainers. The first time, I fell down the stairs and broke two ribs; the second, I was in a large car wreck. I’m not doing that a third time. Rather, I’m just going to begin daily excercise and eating right. Sound simple enough? I’m at 245 now, and want to be below 200. 
• Finish and Release History Book About a year ago I started work on a history book for kids in conjunction with one of my freelance clients, Paper Models, Inc. The past year of medical fun got in the way of that. I’m going to finish it and get it out. 
• Continue Developing Writing Business The past two months have been spent slowly stepping in to the freelance writing pond and seeing what’s out there. I’m now going to be more aggressive in my approach, and continue my buildup of corporate clients as well as sending out queries for magazine articles. 
• Get My California Site in Google’s Top 5 Lofty goal, but I think it can be done. The site will be launching in increments over the next several weeks, and we’ll begin doing advertising shortly thereafter. 
• Become 100% Debt Free – This is probably the loftiest of all goals, especially considering that I technically own two financed cars at the moment and my medical bills for the last year are outrageous. Assuming the insurance claims all go through okay, there are some other issues here and there. Achieving this goal will go hand-in-hand with the success of the writing buisness and the California site, as I will be throwing money at this best until it is dead. 
• Take Two One Week Vacations – At the same time, I’m not going to burn myself out. I want to take one week-long vacation with Justin back to the Bay Area (we want to explore more of Napa and the Redwoods, too), and then one week-long vacation backpacker-style by myself to some place I’ve never been. I’ve really been wanting to explore the East Coast or go to Tokyo, but I promised Justin he could accompany me on those trips. I would really love to explore Toronto (I’ve been there, but just as a layover), Mexico City, or Belfast.
• Read Two Books A Month – I love the library; I don’t know why it took me so long to get over Gilbert’s sorry excuse for a branch to actually appreciate the library again. In addition to the slew of business and marketing books I browse through, I am committing to actually reading two books a month. I got a slight head start for January (sshhhh!!) as I’m working my way through Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. I don’t have a second book selection for this month yet; any suggesstions? I prefer non-fiction.
• Be Within One Year Of Obtaining My Degree: Self-explanatory. 
• Take part in NaNoWriMo ’09 The National Novel Writing Month is each November, and each year thousands of writers commit to pounding out a novel in one month. No pre-done work, no rough drafts already written. My upcoming book Avenue of the Giants originated in NaNoWriMo ’05 – yeah, I know it didn’t get done in a month. I list this as a goal, but unlike all my other goals, this cannot be followed up with each month. The reason I list this, however, is to remind myself. Invariably, every year since 2005, I forget until the second week of November. I have no idea what I want to write; a couple non-fiction book ideas I have swimming around my head would take too long, but I would like to compile a book of short stories. 
• Release Book 4, Avenue of the Giants. Long story short: “Avenue of the Giants” was originally supposed to be a book about my road trip to Seattle, with parts of the Christian/gay struggle thing being told along the way. I then decided to include my Israeli trip in the book, and it became “Over Israeli Skies” and “Peace and Destruction from the Ramparts At Damascus Gate.” Well, I dropped the gay/Christian back story and told that in blog-format in a seperate book, Dear World – A Novel that I released last month. The book then sold to a major New York publisher whom I’m not allowed to really name. But you’ve heard of them. My deadline was extended, and now my book is on hold until the economy stabalizes. They’re releasing other books in the meantime, just not mine. Or the other dude’s book that was supposed to be released alongside of mine. You’d really think they’d release his book; you’ve heard of him. But nonetheless, my book is in book purgatory. Come April, if nothing is done with a new release date, I have the option of cancelling my contract and taking it to a different publisher. Oh, and to double the trouble, they decided that the Israeli content (which was a good chunk of the book) was too controversial at this point in time (who knew?) so that part of the book was cut off. The editor decided the book did well just as a narrative of the Seattle trip, and wanted it to end – I kid you not – at Huntington Beach. Because I don’t need a third book that fucking ends at Huntington, we compromised and decided it should end at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, waiting for the plane to Israel. If I take it back and shop it around, my character may just board the damn plane and actually fly to the Middle East. 
• Join Or Begin A Local Writer’s Group – The ones I’ve tried to attend so far in the Valley blow. Just because you’re overwright, opinionated, and own a laptop does not mean you’re a writer, guys. Just because you’re a redhead with nine cats and a non-sexual fetish for year-round Christmas sweatshirts does not make you a writer, gals. I want to begin something new, preferrably along the light rail line. 
• Become Involved with 1 Film Project – I’ve done these before, and they were among the most exicting work I’ve done. I will keep an eye out for opprotunities to do more of these. 

So those are my goals for 2009, or some of them at least. What are yours?

New Year, New Look

So I spent some time today putting together some elements I’ve been working on and off with for the past week … we’ll call this “Phase 1.” 🙂

Some of the new enchancements around Sharoute.com:

1) New Sidebar Featuring a new welcome note, comments, and all that fun stuff. I seem to have lost my Clustermap in the transition and their site won’t recognize me for some reason. I’ll have to work on that. 

2) New Banner The new layout comes a new header image … a composite of five pictures that represent me fairly well. They are, in order: 1) a picture of the Sun Wheel at night from Disney’s California Adventure; 2) a pic I took last February in San Francisco with Justin at the Palace of Fine Arts, 3) A pen and paper, 4) the Haroyyken 48 Hostel in Tel Aviv, Israel that Jamie, David, and myself stayed at, and 5) an overview of the City of Phoenix. 

3) New Links Links going to my other projects (Will’s California Guidebook, Social Network Publishing, MyEditNow.com, and Cover It With Gravy), along with links to follow me on social networking sites Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. 

4) New Pages These include a new and enlarged ‘About Will’ page, Contact, and a page dedicated to my newest book, “Dear World – A Novel.” Also included a page for my writing and editing services. 

5) It’s Snowing! A happy bit of holiday fun, thanks to a new WordPress widget!

The Vagrant Issue 1 Volume 1 Now Available

In this thrilling first issue of The Vagrant Literary Quarterly, entitled, “Labryinthine Dissertations, Monolingual Miscellany, & Baseball!” you, too, can hunt for a snake at the bottom forty, take road trips through the American southwest and New York City, laugh at prankster shepards outside of Jerusalem, argue with a priest in Ireland, meet a model high on blow on the Upper West Side, scoop cherry-flavored ices on your lunch break, and earn your water crackers just like everybody else at the funeral parlor. It’s all in The Vagrant Literary Quaterly Issue 1 Volume 1, now available here from ProjectForever Books and available soon to retailers nationwide!

Any comments or concerns, please email weheedyou@thevagrantquarterly.com

To receive a free lecture from contributor Dave Hart about why owls don’t belong in Seattle, email owlsinseattle@thevagrantquaterly.com

Captured En Route

News, announcements, revelations, revolutions, and more on thevagrantquarterly.com

All of this excitement now comes with 46% more linking goodness.

This and That

This weekend has brought some much needed time to breathe, which I am thankful for. I had planned this weekend as a time to crunch in as much extra work as possible, since Justin is up north for the weekend, and I prefer to spend the little time we have together being, well – actually together – then busily working on projects whilst I am sitting next to him, but a world away, in a laptop or a manuscript. But still, I’m taking this weekend as a personal time to breathe, which is quite nice.

Last night I had a nice dinner with my mother, and then spent some time at the house catching up with my brother. I left their house with the intention of going home, but found myself aimlessly sitting at Starbucks, again, with the intention of doing work. I checked my email, then, the hell with it, closed it up and went home. I hit the bed exhausted, and much to my annoyance, did not finish the episode of South Park that was playing on the television. I hadn’t seen this one before – but I can only conclude that Cartman, Kenny, Kyle, and Stan returned the goat safely to it’s rightful owners and escaped the Iraqi military in one piece (well, perhaps Kenny didn’t escape safely).

Saturday morning came, and I turned off all alarms, phones, and other annoying devices the night before, to ensure my time to sleep. I took my time in the AM gathering my laundry and thoughts, and eventually left the house to return to Starbucks (I know I won’t get any work done just sitting around the apartment).

Down here I ran into Chris, whom I let borrow my copy of The New York Diaries, since he lost his in his last move. Ricky and I discussed life and the our usual bantering of web-site optimization techniques that neither one of us really employs. Over the course of a few hours, thanks to the incredible slow processing of Lulu’s photobook files, I wrapped up work on TimeStop 2006. This wrap-up basically included of the addition of the Venice pictures, which I could have sworn were already included, but weeks earlier when I received my proof copy of TimeStop, my sworn vows were discounted by the fact that the photobook concluded with Jerusalem, not Venice. I felt kind of funny ending up a photo book with images of Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocasut Museum, so I decided to wait until I had ample access again to Justin’s much-faster laptop to add the photos, plus the bio and bio pics. Done.

I browsed through all the files and discovered that I had started work on this book back on October 22nd, 2006. It was meant to be a quick little project, not really intended for mass distribution (evident by the book’s $42+ production cost), but merely as a fun thing to have for myself and a couple friends who have gone backpacking. Nearly three months later, this short and quick project is completed. I guess this is short and quick compared to the time I’ve spent working on my second book, which dates back to November 2005).

Hopefully The Vagrant will not take nearly as long, and it shouldn’t – not to bad with work started on it on December 9th, with a February 23rd release date. But there are a few of us working on that one (really, mental work – the planning, thinking, starting, clunking, planning – on The Vagrant began, also, around November 2005).

Now it’s to task on catching up with homework. I have spent the last week off of University of Phoenix (except for the occassional urgent phone call), sub-contracting copywriting and development work for an optimzation company. This has been highly enjoyable, getting to use my intelect on something other than Pell Grant and Title IV Funding. In the evenings I have been furiously pounding out freelance and other sub-contractor assignments, not of the more random of which include writing histories for a company that sells paper models for grade-school children, to assist on their school assignments. It, too, is enjoyable work, but certain complexities naturally arise within me when writing histories on Ford’s Theatre and Freedom Tower for children.

But before the homework, it is off now to dinner with my good friends Brandon and Andrea Willey. It’s good to catch up.

Give yourself a day off.

TimeStop 2006

TimeStop 2006, from Project Forever Books, is now available.

Fast-Awaiting the Release of U2’S “18B-SIDES” OR “18 CUTTING-FLOOR TRACKS FROM ‘ZOOROPA’ AND FEATURING A COVER OF JAMES BROWN’S ‘MOVE ON,’ RECORDED WITH MCA MUSICAL ARTIST MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, WITH ALL PROCEEDS BENEFITING THE GERALD FORD FOUNDATION, BECAUSE, WELL, THAT’S WHAT MR. BROWN WOULD HAVE WANTED.”

New news on thevagrantquarterly.com

Yes, it is true, evident in fact, that we can be quite redundant somedays.

A few things …

Why, one may ask, does Project Forever only get around to being productive in the winter? We don’t know, but we hope to cure this in 2007. And even if we don’t, there will be good intentions all around.

A few new things about Sharoute:

• A new direct domain, sharoute.com  Of course, it forwards to the original and still-working sharoute.wordpress.com  We just did this because GoDaddy.com had a sale. What can you do?
• A bit of housecleaning. You will notice the sidebar is now on the right rather then the left, I removed the de.lici.ous link (I don’t maintain it), and a few other things here and there.  And of course, a new banner pic, this time of Jerusalem. Suprise.
• I (Will/Nash/Jeff) have decided to turn Sharoute into a catch-all site for all I do, for all I am involved in, rather then just a personal blog. I was going to build a seperate site for all this, but why bother? So we have the following, all accessible from the handy-dandy menu at the top of the site:
• A bio page. About me. Exciting.
• Current Projects page. Here, you can learn about what I do when in the coffee shop, or at home, on the internet, while watching the masterful acting skills of Vincent D’Onofrio on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. I am writing a few things and editing a few things, and that’s where you can keep up to date.
• Project Forever Page. A brief description and a link about the artist’s collective.
• The Vagrant Page. A brief description and a link about the quarterly literary journal I edit, released through Project Forever.

Other Things:

• TheVragrantQuarterly.com is now up and running. Explore. Make an evening of it.
• ProjectForever.com, as promised, has returned. Extend your evening into the wee hours.

Unrelated Things:

• Merry Christmas
• Happy New Year

The Vagrant

In February 2007, Project Forever will be launching The Vagrant Literary Quarterly.

In turn, Project Forever is looking for short-story writers to submit possible stories of the fiction or non-fiction narrative nature. Any topic will be held up for consideration (except persuasive religious, racist, and poetry), and will be reviewed by a Group of Three.

The Vagrant will be hard cover, black text and bright white paper. It will be thick. It will be edited by William J. Nash-McAdam, author of Churches, Pubs & Hostels and Destruction & Peace from the Ramparts at Damascus Gate. It will have an ISBN number, and will be copyrighted and imprinted under Project Forever.

Contributing writers retain all rights to their story. Compensation for chosen articles will be publication, byline with short bio (one- to two-sentence), and published piece to add to your resume. We are doing this for the love, not for the money.

Please submit short stories via email to jeff.nash@gmail.com or via Project Forever at myspace.com/projectforever. Please paste entire stories in the email body. Attachments will not be opened. Make sure you include your one- or two-sentence bio, first and last name, and contact information. We prefer email. We will respond in two to three weeks. Deadline is January 30th, 2007.

The Collective Will

For those of you who keep tabs on such things, this weekend the Project Forever site will be going down for a little bit while some new ideas and new directions are thought out. It's true that PF has been a come-and-go flow of ideas and projects for the past 2 1/2 years, but I think that it was being pursued on too large a scale. To create a real community, a real collective of artists, we need to focus on the local community of arts and writers and go from there. In short, a collective that really does operate on the community level, versus the vast abyss of the internet level.

I have some ideas that have been spawned by a variety of things, including 826Valencia, the BloggersPub concept, and organizations such as Keep Portland Weird. Some of these ideas are mixed in with the unification and help-your-neighbor concept of getamission.com, and still more with the idea of true community from personal conversations and personal travel.

So, again, some ideas are floating around — and I am completely unashamed of the Collective floating from one idea to the next, borrowing from here and there, and quoting Bono if need be, because it is something that is true to us, true to the spirit of the Collective, and something will grab hold.

Project Forever (if it's still called that in the end), is being reorganized, but the sense of vigor and will is as strong as ever. For the community aspect of things, the Collective has writer and poet Dave Hart in Seattle, and musician Ryan LaRue in Portland to help get things going. For a time, for awhile, I will look at things in Phoenix. I am excited about the potential that Phoenix has — I think that Portland and Seattle realize their potential, but Phoenix has been keeping itself in the shadows a bit, but progress has been made in the last few years. That can change.

Conclusion with a deffinite direction? Not sure yet … still looking at ideas. However, for all of you on the Phoenix.BloggersPub feed, let me know if you want to be part of a collective of writers, painters, muscians, poets, idealists, and community dreamers. Let's talk and see where things can go on this local level. E-mail me at jeff.nash@gmail.com , and we'll go from there.

Ideas?