- Take French classes.

I am very, very good with languages.  Despite the fact that my writing here is not always the most beautiful thing, I understand language.  I adore French, and being bi-lingual here in Canada would be a boon; after French, I’d like to achieve conversational fluency in some of the other Romance languages (Spanish and Italian in particular, and probably Portugese) since they’ll be really simple to pick up.  I’d like to be able to speak Polish too.  Then I’d finally understand what my mom and her family are saying when they speak to one another when they don’t WANT us to know!

- Finish my first novel.

This will be SUCH a huge deal for me.  I have loved writing fiction for as long as I can remember, yet I’ve not finished anything longer than short story length.  I feel confident that I can achieve this goal in 2010, if not before.  Then I’ll get an actual printed copy via Createspace.com and it will be amazing.

- Get pregnant with #2!

Really I should say “have more sex” but, well, Maia’s gonna have a sibling eventually, so we might as well get this show on the road.

Have you thought about what 2010 will hold for you?

Obviously, not blogging.  Not even article writing (although I should).  Not freelance writing (again with the “should”).

No, I’ve been creative writing.  I’ve brainstormed a world and characters and a history, and I’ve been scribbling it down — pen to paper, ink staining my fingertips — for the past several days.  Each morning and night, when Maia sleeps, I take my notebook and pen onto the balcony and just write, until I have nothing more to say or she wakes up.

I love every moment of it, even the ones where I am staring blankly up at the sky, wondering if I’ll ever be able to put the scenarios in my head down onto paper.  I used to write stories constantly, although I never finished one (story of my life!), I had stopped for many, many years.  One of my goals to achieve while pregnant was finishing the first draft of a novel, just so I would have something to refine and show her in many years.

I’m counting my blog as that novel.

Now, I’m writing for myself.  And it’s something that Chris and I are bonding over.  I can ask him geeky questions that no one but the most hardcore lover of the fantasy genre would understand, and he helps me brainstorm.  When I’m in the middle of this world in my mind, sometimes I need an outsider’s perspective, and that’s where he comes to the rescue.  I explain a few key facts to him, and then I ask why are these things true, or how do these things relate to one another, or what’s a possible side effect of these? Sometimes he comes up with great stuff, sometimes not so great, but he always makes me think.

And I’m writing.  WRITING.

I could cry.

Since writing Saturday’s post on how to calm a baby, we’ve actually been having pretty good luck with naps during the day.  Not that she’s really napping any longer than half an hour in the daytime, but she’s doing it more frequently, and it’s having a positive impact on her personality as well as mine.  She’s in this routine of sleep, eat, play play play, fuss into sleep.  I wish she’d nurse into sleep more often, because I miss having her nestled at my breast with her soft, quiet, sleepy baby breath against my skin, but I’ll take whatever she’s giving.

I’ve discovered that singing to her while moving her arms or legs in time with the music makes her really happy. I’m talking like huge, dimpled smile that goes on forever, and many attempts to giggle.  Since Chris and I have almost completely different tastes in music, I rarely turn it on when he’s home, but if it’s going to make Maia this happy to be sung to, well, he is just going to have to deal!

As for myself, I am trying to find some work-at-home opportunities.  Freelance writing and whatnot.  It’s a little intimidating to try and get my foot in the door, but it’s also really exciting.  Funny, as I’m usually not intimidated by anything like this — heck, even giving birth wasn’t this scary.  I’m ready for it though.  I need the challenge, and my brain needs the workout.

Also, within the next week or so I have some plans to rearrange the website a bit.  I’d like to take my blogroll off the sidebar and move it to its own page, which will allow me to put everyone on there that I follow and not limit myself so much, but I have to make WordPress acknowledge that putting content into columns is okay and HTML tables are not actually all that bad.  I’m also trying to conceptualize a “logo” of sorts for the header, since I’d like to change it each month but I’d like to try and maintain a consistent look to the blog month-to-month nonetheless.