October 2016 Goals in Review

I know that I say this an awful lot, but October really was a bit of a roller-coaster of a month. There were some really bad points, but also a couple of good things, and a bunch of ups and downs in general. The month started out very bad, and gradually moved to a general acceptance of life. That sounds a bit more dramatic than entirely necessary, but let’s just go ahead and get into it.

Goal #1: Take good care of myself, specifically by walking 10,000 steps per day and taking at least 15 minutes per day to do something fun/relaxing. 

This was the most roller-coaster-ish ride of the month, for a few reasons, so let’s look at them one at a time.

First of all, I started the month half-decently with my steps; no 10k days, but a few 8k+ days. Then, around the tenth of the month – and I say this without an ounce of humility – I had a bit of a hissy fit. I was frustrated for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that I was feeling like crap, and I just ripped off my FitBit and tossed it in a corner. And there it stayed for six days worth of lost steps. At that point I put it back on, but the damage was done and I lost almost a week’s worth of steps. I was semi-determined after that to make up a bunch of steps, but then I returned to work and was put on the DCS for the entire shift (i.e. sitting in a chair staring at a screen for 12 hours a day). So, basically, as far as steps go, the month was an epic failure. I had a grand total of two 10k-step days, and if you only look at the days when I was wearing my FitBit, my step average was only 6005.

The relaxation time part of the goal was just as bad. My days off were extra busy, as we were attempting to catch up on channel stuff, going on shopping trips, and dealing with several issues that kinda all happened at once. And then I returned to work, and of course that never lends itself to quiet times. Plus, during the aforementioned hissy fit I just simply wasn’t recording anything, so even if I had worked in some “me time” I don’t remember it now. So basically it boils down to 16 days when I managed to both find time and record it. On the upside, most of that particular relaxation time was coloring instead of mobile games, which is a good thing. I’ve really gotta cut it out with the mobile games.

You may have noticed that this entry has been mostly “downs” so far, but there’s one bit “up”. I finally managed to both get my blood-work done and see my doctor while I was on my days off. I didn’t get the result I was expecting – I was genuinely expecting to discover a problem with my thyroid – but I did learn something interesting: my B12 levels were tanked. I’ve had low B12 before, but it was always just kinda hovering on the edge of barely normal. Right now though, my levels are practically non-existent. If 1 is low and 5 is high, I’m a -2.

I digress. Doc told me to try the highest mg supplement I can find and we’ll do another blood-test after two months or so. If they’re not helping we’ll have to try injections, but I don’t think that will be necessary. I’ve only been taking the supplements for about three weeks now and I’m already feel significantly better. Not perfect or anything, by a long shot, but definitely more awake and alert than I’ve felt in a long while. So keep your fingers crossed! This might be an extremely simple and affordable solution to making me not feel like a giant ball of drowsiness 24-7.

Goal #2: Build more readership/viewership by putting more focus and energy into my blog post, shooting more fun YouTube videos, and putting more effort into self-promotion.

Okay, let’s start with the readership part. I tried so hard to convince people to buy the book this month. I put out numerous posts on my personal Facebook page, the channel’s page, the Basement Geeks group, and Twitter promo-ing it as an excellent Halloween read. I advertised it on a dozen different sites and Facebook groups and made sure to let my fellow NaNoWriMo participants know that it’s a NaNovel that’s available in paperback and e-book formats. And I even put the e-book on sale for $1 in the weeks leading up to Halloween and advertised that all over the place.

The result? 5 sales and 322 pages read on Kindle Unlimited. On the one hand, that’s the most I’ve sold in one month since I first released the book. On the other hand, it feels pretty damn paltry compared to the amount of effort I put into marketing it this month. So…win/lose?

Moving on to viewership, I have to continue to admit that Jason does the overwhelming majority of the promotion on this front, and I feel quite crappy about it, to be honest. I won’t go into this one too much this month because the long and short of it is simply that I have to do more. A lot more. Hopefully my new best friend, B12, will lend a hand with this one in the future.

Goal #3: Write as much as I can, including writing an entire novel from start to finish.

First off, I want to address the second half of this goal sentence. The blunt truth of the matter is that somewhere along the line I just completely forgot about that part of the goal. My eyes have just been glossing over it as if it wasn’t even there.

Luckily I have two novels and a short story in the works and it’s National Novel Writing Month! I don’t actually expect to finish any of them in November, but at least I can say that I’m trying.

But that’s neither here nor there. We’re talking about October. so how was the spooky month for writing? Well, definitely not great, but at least it was better than September. I wasn’t blessed with a lot of time, but I did manage to find a bit of energy nearing the end of the month. There were some blog posts and a few small things, but most of the words were fiction, which always makes me happy. All together the grand total was 8259 words, which I definitely won’t sneeze at, considering how busy this month was and how horrible I felt at the beginning of it.

So that was my month. All in all I think I ended out the month on the plus column, although there were definitely some bumpy moments here and there. Here’s to a more successful November!