With Labor Day weekend about to start, I started thinking about other upcoming holidays and events in the shockingly-not-so-distant future. I also discovered the website http://dayzeroproject.com/ yesterday, which reminded me that constantly having and setting goals and deadlines is a pretty good thing to do. Author Natalie Whipple also had a terrific post about self-imposed deadlines and goals the other day, which only added fuel to the already bubbling brain fire.

What kinds of dates and deadlines am I talking about? A few with varying levels of importance to me and the world. In X days from now, it’ll be…

58 days – November 1st, the start of NaNoWriMo. (That means 57 days until Halloween and 64 until my birthday. So that will be a fun week.)

89 days — December 2nd, the first night of Hanukkah. (It’s surprisingly early this year!)

112 days — Christmas. (That’s 16 weeks, kids! Start yer shoppin’!)

119 days – 2011. (Eeeeeek. Where did 2010 go? Isn’t it still 2008, or 2003? I’m so confused…)

I’ll let you all take those numbers in. For a minute. We still breathing? Good!

I’m thinking of goals and numbers and planning because I need to set some goals for myself independent of all of the other Things of Potential Import ahead of me this fall. (Namely, the submission of Bound Between.) I’m looking at this fall and feeling ambitious. I want to accomplish a lot. That Back to School eager excitement has gotten to me and it’s making me want to work. But I haven’t set myself any deadlines yet.

I start my countdown list with NaNoWriMo because I’ve won it the last two years because I’d planned the project I was going to write — in a vague sense — in each year’s respective September. This is the first November in a few years I’m not certain I’m going to be able to participate (what if Things of Potential Import preclude my participation? I just don’t know!), but I’m planning on it anyway. There’s nothing like a community of writers encouraging each other — and that daily wordcount update graph! It’s so energizing! (And the 50,000 word goal? I’ve hit a personal best of 70K-ish in a month before, so I’m not worried. She says overconfidently…) So if I end up working on NaNo, I’ll participate in true fashion and start something new (either a new project or a new rewrite). I’m looking forward to that. If I don’t, then I’ll be working my butt off on something older or meatier, and probably working just as hard on it. That will be fun, too. Either way, I am very definitely looking forward to November.

Hanukkah and Christmas I mention because I adore the holiday season, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, and I’m planning to start collecting gifts as insanely early as I can tolerate this year. Holiday shopping in September? Bring it on!

And finally, New Year’s. It always makes me think of goals, of setting them, of meeting them. I started 2010 with a vague goal (have an awesome, successful year) and a more concrete goal (query BB and sign with an agent). Since I’ve done the latter (still grinning about that), which has led to the former (yes, I’d say it’s awesome), I must conclude 2010 has been pretty good to me so far. But the year is still young. More awesome can still happen in the next four months. So even if 2011 is a mere 119 days away, that’s still four months of potential win. Who says I can’t be cheekily optimistic?

What are your goals for the next month — four months? Are you planning on NaNoWriMo, or getting all your holiday presents before Halloween (and do you have a Halloween costume)? Tell me!