This year, I set myself 22 little goals to pursue throughout the year. I call them the 22 in 22. Once a week, I take a few minutes to check my progress on a few of my goals.
#15 1€ or less CPW for each individual item, less than 0.20€ per item globally
It’s been a long time since the last time I talked about my closet. The Pantheon. My Boudoir. I suppose that this is in part because last year was a year dedicated to thinking about my Boudoir, whereas this year I am just wearing clothes when I need to and trying to keep an eye on how often I wear those clothes.
Last summer in particular was heavy in the Cost Per Wear department, since my summer wardrobe consisted of five dresses I was determined to get down to a cost of 1€ per wear, more or less successfully. This summer, for that reason only, seems a little more boring than last.
However, I did notice that I have been, in this ungodly hot weather, been wearing the same three or four dresses on repeat entirely accidentally, because they work and don’t make me sweat. It’s not getting me much traction on my CPW efforts, since one of them was a gift and one of them was already well-worn.
Nonetheless, I am looking at a 0.21€ global CPW for the entirety of the Pantheon as of today, and as long as I can refrain from adding anything new to it, and as long as I continue to wear clothes, I should see this number continue to drop.
The exciting thing is that, as opposed to last year, I don’t see any gaping holes in my wardrobe that will have me obsessively thinking about and plotting how to obtain the perfect answer to the gaping hole.
Honestly, I know this one isn’t the most interesting of updates, but when I sat down the other day and realized that my mind was empty enough and that I was unstressed enough that I could think about my wardrobe, it felt like a win for the entire human race.
Take that, stress. I’m back to thinking about my closet for a few days.
#7 “Don’t Look Down”: Keep chipping away at finding a literary agent who shares my vision.
Don’t get excited. I haven’t found, nor have I even been looking lately, for an agent.
However, I have done some under-the-surface and behind-the-scenes grappling with genre. The chances of finding the agent who shares my vision is zilch if I keep querying agents who represent the wrong genre. But I think there is a part of me who was unwilling to be realistic about the genre.
I had this idea that I had created a sweeping world (I have, but hear me out) the likes of Tolkien and Rowling. Now, as I parenthesized, I have created a sweeping world full of intriguing peoples and traditions and history. But the books are about people, first and foremost. They are about very specific people and how they and their families negotiate this sweeping world in which they live. And part of that story exists in courtly romance.
Not all of it!!!! Much of it is about family and geopolitical ambitions and murder and otherworldy canines who are always there at the right time… But the fact that I was unwilling to admit that there was a courtly romance element at all to the series was cutting off an entire (relatively successful in the marketplace) genre. And courtly romance there is.
The epiphany came when I was reading an article about Bridgerton, and I was like, “Dude, I want someone to make a successful show like that out of my books.” So then I read more and I was like, “Wait a second, that could be my books–only mine are vastly more exciting because, well, mystery, thievery and murder.”
Of course, then I got distracted writing about forty pages of the next book before I could come back to thinking about finding an agent in this genre, but that is par for the course in this arena right now.
Sing With Your Feet 