Well, I literally just said that I was going to stop regular posts in order to focus on actual novel-writing, but it’s been a few days since April ended so I guess I’ll get the goals stuff out of the way. 🙂
Goal #1. Take good care of myself, specifically by walking 10,000 steps a day and taking at least 15 minutes per day to do something fun/relaxing.
Well, this one definitely could have been better, but it also could have been worse, so I’ll take that for what it is. As far as steps go, there were only 9 days during which I surpassed the 10,000 mark, and my average daily steps was only 8253, but that was actually better than March, so there’s improvement for sure. I blame my inability to at least hit the average on the fact that I spent several days of my shift doing paperwork in the office, and another several days working night shift, which isn’t exactly an active time. All in all, I feel half-decent about the average, although the 10-k days count is pretty pathetic.
As for my 15-minutes-per-day…I counted 25 days during which I manage to hold to that tiny level of relaxation. I’m not sure what happened the other 5 days, but I scribbled “EPIC FAIL” in my planner several times, so I’m assuming those were not good days. 😛
On a related note, now that the weather is starting to turn around, I’m thinking about starting up the “Zombies! Run!” program again. I’d feel really good about myself if I could ever actually manage to get all the way through the 12-week program. >.>
Goal #2. Build readership/viewership by putting more focus and energy into my blog posts, shooting fun and different YouTube videos, and putting more effort into self-promotion.
One thing that I can definitely say for sure is that I’ve been spending a lot of time shooting videos and interacting with my viewers, and the hubby has been working hard to make the YouTube channel fun and interesting. It seems to be going well because I started the year with just around 1000 subscribers, and now I’m inching toward 1700. Go Team Tracey’s Basement!
Self-promoting in terms of writing is another story entirely. I don’t even want to talk about it because it’s just pathetic. That said, this is part of the reason I’m quitting (regularly-scheduled) blogging, so I’ll be removing the “focus and energy into my blog posts) part from this goal for the remainder of the year.
Goal #3. Write as much as I can, including writing an entire novel from start to finish.
And here’s the BIG reason for the change to my blogging habits. This month I wrote 7307 words toward the blog, 1607 words in my personal journal, and 11,369 words toward various non-fiction stuff (including things such as answering the questions for Authors Answer, scripting for YouTube videos, and so on). That’s a total of 20,283 words for the month, which isn’t all that shabby, but it’s pathetic when you consider that precisely ZERO of those words were fiction. I’m a novelist, for the love of puppies, and I wrote ZERO fictional words over the course of an entire MONTH. That’s beyond sad, and it’s why I’m going to be blogging significantly less from now on. Having a platform is one thing, but if you’ve got no books to sell because the platform is all you focus on…well, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it?
So there you have it. Not a particularly great month for many aspects, but I feel good about the future. Let’s try and see that May is much better, shall we?
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