Fulfilling My Resolution

A while back I posted a blog discussing my 2013 Resolutions. I am sadden by the fact that I too have fallen into the land of despair as so many other people do after New Years. It's like for the first couple of days one is filled with this fire inside to make a change. When the change is not immediately witness, the fire goes away and is replaced with the same things we did the previous year. This is a cycle that I choose to end today.

I am happy to report that I did manage to get one goal accomplished. I finally started my first magazine. She is my baby. I have big dreams for her and a staff to help me accomplish those dreams. What's it called? Seven The Mag.... you can check out our first issue here: 7themag. **enter shameless plug** Don't forget to subscribe so that you can receive, in the convenience of your inbox, our monthly issue. You can also follow us on twitter: @7themag (we follow back) or friend us on Facebook: Seven TheMag. The magazine covers a variety of topics from Politics to Poetry. We are constantly looking for submissions and hope to grow the staff well beyond the number 7.

Now that's out of the way. Let me tell you, starting an online magazine is a lot harder than I thought. First of all, I had to select a blog format to start out. My sister aka The Thought Pusher has a successful blog of her own. Chic loves to read. She joined a site called Goodreads and has made many connections. To say that I am proud of her and her accomplishments is a severe understatement.

Anyway, she suggested creating the magazine on WordPress. I have never used the site before. I was convinced by her expertise on the matter. She believes that it would be a friendlier environment on how to get followers and potential writers for the mag. I, who lack a social internet bone, decided why not? She's an expert on the matter.

The truth is that I have only two experiences on blogs. My previous blog, that shall remain unnamed (I don't remember the site) and this one. Blogger is very user friendly and the fact that I have it linked up to my email address is a severe plus (THANK YOU GOOGLE!) However, the truth remains that I lack followers and I use this more as an online journal. I have no clue on how to build up a fan base.

Ok, enough self depreciation. Bottom line is, my procrastinator self kicked in and I decided to start working on the layout of the issue and all that good stuff a couple of hours before we actually went live. BIG MISTAKE!! I was not familiar with the WordPress layouts and formatting and I had to make due with what I could. Lesson learned. Instead of publishing at 12am on the 7th, as I had previously set as the publishing date and time, we published at 7:07am on the 7th. Even then, it wasn't what I expected. Lesson learned indeed.

This time around I have decided to work on it little by little. I also learned that even though I would love to have a hand in everything Seven....I cannot. For this issue, I have learned to delegate certain task and assignments. I have an overall vision for the magazine. However, I cannot run and write everything. I have two wonderful assistants, who are amazing writers on their own (Tiffany & K.S. Pratt). They are going to be writing amazing pieces for our next magazine...which WILL be published 3/7/2013 @ 12am!

So, yeah. One of my New Years resolution is complete. How about my others? Write more poetry & publish it on my poetry site, write a novel, read a book a week, take a yoga class a week, work on my overall health, start running again, visit the beach more often, a date a week with my Boobie, etc etc... yeah those things are still in the works. In fact, in doing my research for Seven, I have decided to make it happen. How do I do that you say?

Well, so far Seven has taught me that if I make myself accountable to someone other than myself, I actually accomplish things because I feel like I am going to let someone down. So, I actually do things. What better way than to make my blog my source of reliability.

I plan on making a blog post 3x a week confirming what I had set out to do at the beginning of this year....TO W R I T E. I am affirming (oh Lawd) I am VOWING that 3x a week I will...YES I WILL...tell YOU (bless you for reading this) what I did that week to accomplish my goals of this resolution and how it has affected me.

So...if you don't mind, I have work to do...