THE To-Do List

Your new year resolutions is a part of the ultimate to-do list, isn't it? And I love love love to-do lists. (In fact, I've been bragging about teuxdeux.com - a nice to-do list web-interface - to a bunch of my friends already. Combine that with a MASSIVE online-stopwatch and it increases my productivity a lot*! *Relatively-speaking.) Well, here's My 2011 List of Randomness:

Photography-related

• Shoot more! I have a few weekly photo project ideas floating about in my head that I would love to see completed.
• More importantly, SHARE THOSE PHOTOS. I've settled on using Picasa for sharing photos with friends and family (which means I'm closing my SmugMug account for good when it ends in April and will leave flickr as is). Oh, and I will share more shots on this blog as well.

Business-related

• Answer the phone. I personally dislike talking on the phone for whatever reason, but sometimes it is about a million times more effective than emails and having 50 text messages shooting back and forth. So, let's do this! If I hear the phone ring, I will pick it up and say "hi" and we'll go from there.
• Blog more! SEO aside, I think it's just a great way to keep in touch with friends, family, and clients! (Plus, I love reading back at overly optimistic posts like this toward the end of the year when the dust has settled and I can see the damage done.)
• Keep the website updated!

Personal improvement

• Exercise at least once a week. This might be a tough one just because I am lazy and it's cold outside!
• Have weekly coffee dates with friends. And, keep in touch with friends. (Sorry I'm such a little hermit, guys. I think about you often and always just stop short of actually getting in touch. I'll be more proactive about this going forward.)
• Be more affectionate, kind, and loving toward Dima. I often give him a hard time just to be challenging and he takes it like a champ, but that's getting boring. So, new approach: Be kind to my guy.
• Stop judging people based on one ("bad") decision. Or, rather, stop holding that one ("bad") decision against them. This is, actually, not anything serious at all, but is in fact in reference to someone's restaurant recommendation that I thought was a bad choice. I will not judge someone because their favorite restaurant sucks. I will not judge someone because their favorite restaurant sucks....
• Be more proactive about asking for what I want; what I really, really want.
• Be open to conflict within family settings and amongst friends. And then work it out like grown ups and move along. Don't just gloss over problems like I always do. Life is not a call-center and I'm no longer a Customer Service Representative. (To life in general, anyway. To my clients - hell yes!)
• Finally - yay! - work harder and be committed to the projects that I undertake. No more having one foot out the door.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY!

Let's be extra awesome in 2011!

Some random phone photos I took yesterday in the SOMA.

Minted.com | Beautifully Designed Cards

I absolutely love designing cards, but sometimes it takes a lot of time on my part because I kind of start from scratch. But if you want some beautifully designed cards (combined with some amazing photos of you and your loved ones, of course), then consider minted.com!

• Here's my photographer's storefront with some designs I selected because they look great and would complement photos well.
• And from now until 01.10.2011, you can get 20% off holiday photo cards! Enter the promo code NEWYEAR20.

Update: Well, Patrick pointed out that mint.com is actually the financial services website. I KNEW THAT! I've updated my post but, you know what? The improperly captioned photo remains. 'Cause I'm lazy and I'm perfectly OK with being wrong. (Thanks for the heads-up, Wangster.)

Netflix Picks + Other News

My Netflix picks for this week. All four-star documentaries about or heavily involving photography:

In other news, I'm working on a blog-site dedicated to my wedding photography (including a list of venues I've shot at and vendors I've worked with, plus some other info pertaining to weddings). I need to actually officially launch it and start working on building content. I'll keep this blog for my random news and Netflix picks, amongst other things. Like, gush about The Sing-Off (ahh! Ben Folds! I love Ben! Nick Lachey is so cute! HOLY COW THOSE PEOPLE SOUND GOOD! Listen to This Love. eep!).

If you're gonna fail, do it quick. And, if possible, epically.

One of my Year 29 goals is over, but 89% incomplete. You see, it is officially December and National Novel Writing Month has ended. My novel? Only about 11% done.

Am I sad that I didn't get this done? Not really. Am I disappointed? Nope. Am I glad I participated? Hell yes! Especially since I have a lot of useful takeaways:

• I'm not a "little woman." Let me explain. The novel that I just finished reading before embarking upon writing my own novel was Little Woman. I was heavily influenced by Ms. Alcott's storytelling techniques and writing style. The thing is, as I said, I'm not a little woman. I don't have the long-winded story that spans years in me. My attention span is that of a [insert something with notoriety for short attention spans; I can't google something clever right now - I know I'll just get sidetracked and distracted and won't finish this blog post. SEE WHAT I MEAN!?! Case in point.] I'm a writer who writes blogs, so reading a long book for the first time in months really left a strong impression on me. The impression wore off, though, and I was stranded with a semi-interesting story that I had no interest in pursuing. D'oh!
• For the first time ever, I really delved into a lot of deep character flaws that I possess and see in other people. In writing. It was a weird feeling. I didn't like it very much. It made me sad.
• I should only write about happy things.
• And I should only write short stories.
• General observation: it's hard to keep details straight without some sort of outline. Five paragraphs down I would find myself struggling to remember what color outfit I had put the characters in. D'oh!
• What was the story about? It was about a boy named Jonathan and a girl named Leah who met at UC Berkeley during their senior year. They both had to take the same Anthropology course in order to graduate. She was a high-strung, type-A business major who came from a disadvantaged background. She was going to graduate from Cal and head off to Stanford for her MBA. He was a laid-back, carefree guy from a small family that wasn't very tight knit at all. He was a bit of a lonely, free spirit. He was going to backpack through Europe after he graduated. Your basic English major without real drive and ambition. My writing stopped right about here, after I explained their backgrounds and the first day that they met. They would become best friends, in spite of their major differences, because sometimes you're just drawn to people without really understanding why. They're both perpetually in relationships, but he has absolutely no desire to marry or have children.
  
  At this point, I had a lot of random ideas that popped into my head as to what would happen. I was in complete agreement, however, that they would connect through the written word while he was abroad, philandering, and she was in business school, kicking ass and taking names. Their emails and occasional phone calls would be what ties them to be stronger than ever once he returns. (This entire part of the novel would be actual emails and phone calls, so the omnipotent narrator gets to take a break.) But what happens in the future? My random ideas:
  
  - He gets into a car accident while driving with his parents home from a wedding. They're both dead and he's severely injured with chronic pain problems. This leads him to spiral into depression and she futilely tries to help him. He eventually kills himself. His suicide note would be about 5,000 words long.
  - She gets engaged to a nice guy. She finds out that she's pregnant with his child before they get married and they're both ecstatic. She has a miscarriage and Jonathan helps her deal with it, but she never quite recovers.
  - Leah confesses that she's in love with Jonathan. And so they risk their friendship to test out a relationship - how bad could it be? They end up breaking each other's hearts and Leah's main talking point was that Jonathan would never commit to settle down. They break up. He ends up marrying someone else, and starting a family.
• Again, I should only write about happy things.
• And short stories.

Well, the writing is on the wall for this chapter of my Year 29 goals. (Oh, puns.) Will I participate in Script Frenzy in April? Maybe.

Oh, but another two takeaways:

1. Since I have proven to myself that I am, in fact, capable of writing full sentences and expressing emotion and tone with words and not relying on emoticons, I will strive to write more. Even if it's just on the blog.
2. As "punishment" for my (epic) fail, I have decided to write at least one thank you note everyday in December. Preferably handwritten, but hopefully not as ridiculous as this. Feel free to join me in this project because giving thanks makes us enjoy things all the more.