Resolutions... and a surprise!

So... 2021 didn't explode in its first week? I'm willing to call that a win.

So, what am I hoping to talk about today? Well, I think I'll talk about my resolutions for one more week. 

Normally, I would have a general idea of what I want to do for my resolutions by the first of January, even if I haven't set anything in stone. This year... it almost felt like I didn't want to jinx it by planning too far ahead. And while I think I still won't be planning the entire year with any exactness, I do like having an idea of where I'm going. 

First, while I love staying home and writing, I think I need to get back out in the world. Last year I stopped looking for a job around February... a mix of pandemic and no jobs miring me at home. Now, it looks as though some of the job market might be returning, so I'm going to go back to setting one day a week and doing nothing but sending out dozens of resumes and looking over the job market in general.  Personally, I'd love to see some sort of universal basic income but I'm not holding my breath for one. 

Second, I will still be writing, even if I get a job. So, my writing goals for the first quarter are to finish editing Fox's Facade and send the book on to my editor and betas. I want to publish Fox's Facade tentatively during the summer, so I'll play with that and see where it goes with an update at the end of the first quarter. 

Third, I am moving the "get healthier" option from last year to this year. Most of it will be a mix of RingFit and the Switch boxing game. Maybe not every day, but almost every day. I will be looking for healthier food options as well, but changing everything all at once doesn't work, so it will be little bits at a time, hopefully leading to a healthier me at the end of the year. 

Finally, I will be starting a Youtube channel and maybe a Twitch channel... though I'm not sure about Twitch just yet. I am going to be reading my novel, Hunter's Gambit, chapter by chapter for you guys, hopefully, one chapter each week. And because I've always wanted an online avatar, I've created one to use! I will definitely be posting my novel reading to Youtube, but let me know if you would like me to start a Twitch channel, as well. I could easily read the novel out and then have a question and answer period, if that would interest anyone, and then put out better-edited audio on Youtube later. Then again, I think Youtube has a live function as well, so really just let me know. I'm not sure exactly what week it will begin, but it will be soon! I'm just testing out programs right now and seeing whether my current equipment will work for this purpose before I put it out. I should have pictures to show you of my character by next week!

Let me know what you think about the Youtube vs Twitch debate and I'll keep you all informed. 

It's The First Post of 2021

*Pokes 2021 with a stick*

"Is it safe to come out yet?"

Normally, I would say that another year has come and gone, but, well, this year has been horrible. As a Canadian, I was saved from most of the trouble. However, at the end of the year, everything started to snowball, even here. That said, I'm making this week a time of reflection, which includes looking back at what I wanted to accomplish last year.

So, last year the tasks I wanted to finish were publishing Lord’s Curse, writing Noble’s Choice, Improving my health, open an account on Fiverr, open an Etsy shop, read 75 books, study Japanese and Spanish, clean my house, and editing Fox’s Façade.

Of that list, I did okay, I suppose. First, my successes.

I did publish Lord’s Curse during the warm summertime.  Working with my editor was awesome and I can’t wait to do it again. Though my release was overshadowed by riots and rampant disease, it was still published and that was a win. I also finished writing Noble’s Choice. And all in all, I’m really pleased with how it turned out so far. I can't wait to start editing it after Fox's Facade is done. While I decided against opening an Etsy shop, I’m counting it as a win, since I made a firm decision on it. When I open a web store I will probably create an account then and put the necklaces and prints up there at the same time. I also opened a Fiverr account. I got hired a few times, but things slowed down as the year imploded, which I understand. I’ll be promoting it a bit more in the new year, so if you have a bit of writing you need developmental editing on, consider using me!

I had a few things I worked on but didn’t succeed to a level of “success” as well, of course. For instance, I cleaned my house (office) and actually came really close to finishing… Before I ran into a month and a half of rush and had to stop. My office is a complete mess again now, but that’s usually how the year goes. The real difference for me here is that I actually have a place for most things now, which solves a lot of the cleaning problem. For my yearly reading challenge, I decided to try reading 75 books for the year. However, I found out that extreme stress makes it so I can’t concentrate on writing, which meant that I spent a lot more time listening to music than reading. Despite that, I did completely finish 65 books. While that total is low for me, I find reading speed very subjective, so I know that while some of you will give me shade for “only” finishing 65, the other half will be wondering when I find the time. It's not a win, but 65 books is nothing to scoff at either. My language studies are in here because while I think I’ve done rather well at identifying issues with my learning and have figured out better ways to learn in Japanese, I wrote at the beginning of the year that I wanted to work on Spanish as well. Since I dropped Spanish entirely, I have to count it as a partial win. The last thing in this list is my novel Fox's Facade. Even at the beginning of the year, I wasn't sure if I would have it done by December and the near-total rewrites did not help things. Despite that, I am halfway through my last edit before it goes out to beta readers and my editor, so we're on time for hopefully a summer release. 

The one thing that I did not keep up is my goal to improve my health. I am still overweight and want better stamina, flexibility, and balance. This goal is getting moved onto 2021's wholesale. With the Switchfit game as my Yule gift from my husband and the Boxing game (perhaps updating to the new one when I have a bit more cash), I'm hoping to have a better response to this next year. 

So, that's it. This is the beginning of a new year! Let's move forward bravely, but also carry a big stick to beat 2021 down if we need to. 💪

PenPen the Penguin rocking away listening to New Year's Tunes. 

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?

2016 Goals

          2016 is right around the corner and I really want to talk about my goals this year... mainly because I think I've got them figured out. It took me a while since I needed to do revisions on it, but I finally figured out a very simple way of doing my goals for the year. I took a free excel calendar of 2016, and added three columns to the side of it. Because I am a whiz at naming things (see, sarcasm) I have titled each of these exactly what they are; Period Goals, Weekly Goal Expected and Weekly Goal Obtained.

          My period goals are the big things I'm looking to accomplish and how long I want to spend on them. Things like writing new novels, editing those novels and such. I have stuck to working on one project at a time, since in general that works a lot better for me. I can do the base checks of other stuff, but this way I know what I want to concentrate on at any given time. From there, I split up my base goals into sometime obtainable in a week. I could do these things faster, however, working a full time job can sometimes be the death of us so I've decided to make a modest goal that keeps me working and stretching without killing myself trying to make insane gains. I can adjust these week by week during that time as well, so if I can a killer week and write 17,000 words, I can scale down the following weeks to account for that. I can also do the opposite to cover for horrible weeks where say

I get sick and am only able to edit 10 pages instead of 25.

          Either way, I will have the Weekly Goal Obtained to show me how well I did. If I hit my benchmark for that week, I'm going to make it green as well as adding in my number. If I knock the ball out of the park, I can put it in a glorious light blue or something. If I didn't make my goal but was close I can make it yellow or if I failed utterly I can make it red. I can also put my excuses in there... an explanation of why I did miserably so I can tell later if that was valid and I need to account for it next year or if it was a one off that I need to count in the "sh*t happens" folder.

          And that essentially is my calendar for the year. Have you ever tried to work out Year-In-Advance? Do you find it helps you at all? If you don't, how do you decide what you're working on and when? Let me know in the comments, below!