What I've Been Up To (Part One)

          It has been too long since I was last here! Which, unfortunately, is what happens when you get sick and are sure that you must have updated just before you got sick... Bleh. I must admit, most times I get sick, I just get a bit annoyed for a day or two as my muscles all ache and I don't get enough sleep. This time, I was actually laid out for a day and the only reason I didn't end up taking time of work was that I was able to hold off until my I-Day came up.

          Enough about me being sick though, since that isn't a fun conversation. Lets do an update! I've been writing, pretty darn consistently this year. I did end up having to lower down my weekly goals though. I had originally set myself up for 10k a week, which while awesome, was way too much to sustain while holding down a full-time job.

          Your mileage will vary, since we all write at different speeds, but I looked at how I was feeling at the end of the first week and I was miserable and behind in my count. So, I did the adult thing and looked at changing my goal to something more reasonable. I finally settled on 7k a week. A thousand words a day is still challenging while being reachable. If I'm truly on the ball, I can do 1k in an hour generally... but lets face it, much more often, it will take me double that or maybe even triple that on a super bad day.

          I know many friends of mine will look at that goal and think, "Wow, so low?" but the truth is that I am a really slow writer. And this is about creating a schedule I can follow and achieve my goals while this reaching. This weekly amount, does it.

This is a picture I drew years ago. She came from the idea of a kitsune onmyiodo dressed like a miko.

          Just to let you guys know where I'm standing right now, my new novel that I'm working on (Kitsune-Ken II; the sequel to the book I wrote for Nanowrimo - more about the plot for the new book later as well) is currently at 21,224 words. Since today is January 23th, I should hit 23,000 today. As you can see, I'm still a bit behind, but I'm going to try to get myself completely caught up today! I'll let you know in my next post if I succeed!

          This blog post is going a little bit long, so I'll cut off here and do the rest of my updates in a future post (probably on Wednesday). Until then, tell me how your goals are going? Are you holding to your resolutions?