Goals and Aspirations in Review – May 2017

I know that I say this every month, but I seriously feel as though May swept out from under me in a few short moments. I have no idea where the time keeps going on me, and it’s more than a little bit frightening for a number of reasons.

So with that pleasant thought in mind, let’s go ahead and delve into what happened throughout the month of May 2017:

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Goal #1. WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE.
I was hoping that May would be a more fruitful month when it came to writing, but as mentioned, the month just flew away from me. It’s amazing how I can go four…five…eight..ten days in a row without writing and not even realize that it happened. I did, however, manage to have a few decent days throughout the month, and amazingly, it was all fiction aside from a single day of blog-writing. Throughout the month I managed to write a combined total of 7054 words, which isn’t my best month so far this year, but not bad, all things considered. Here’s hoping to have a better month in June, though!

Mini-Goal #1.a. Publish more erotic fairy tales.
I’m glad that I didn’t remove this mini-goal in April because I actually made some headway in May! Not only did I complete and publish a second erotic fairy tale, but I also wrote, completed, and published the first in a second series of more supernatural erotic stories. Success! None of the stories are selling particularly well, but it certainly doesn’t hurt me to have them sitting there, just waiting to be found and purchased!

Mini-Goal #1.b. Start writing blog posts again.
I’m not going to spend much time on this one because, to be perfectly blunt, I barely posted any blog posts this month, and they were basically all just sharing videos, so there’s not much to talk about.

Mini-Goal #1.c. Find ways to promote the book(s).
Still working on this one. Still taking suggestions too! This is definitely going to be the worst goal of the year, I’m thinking.

#2. Get healthier.
This is, of course, an ongoing challenge, but I don’t think I did half bad throughout the month of May. I’ve been taking a lot of baby steps. One is dedicating myself to more walking, which we’ll talk about in a moment. Another has been trying to eat better, which is a struggle, no doubt, but I’ve been doing better. I’ve been drinking a lot more water, having fruit-and-yogurt smoothies for breakfast (Jason’s even been drinking them too!) and working hard to eat smaller portions and restrict the amount of junk food I have. I regularly have bad days when I end up gorging on chocolate, but, like I said…baby steps.

Mini-Goal #2.a. Walk/run 10k 8k steps per day.
Well, would you look at this! I can actually report some modicum of success for this goal this month! No, I didn’t walk 8k steps each day throughout May, but I did manage it for 18 of the 31 days, and on top of that, I managed to do an average of 8276 steps per day! That’s the best I’ve done so far this year, so I’m pretty pleased with myself, I must say. Here’s hoping that, by the end of the year I’ll have managed to actually work my way up to 10k per day!

Mini-Goal #2.b. Take daily “me time”.
As I keep explaining, this is a difficult one to keep track of, but I would say May was probably a pretty decent month for this one. I’ve found myself getting used to spending a few minutes a day playing a phone game or watching an episode of one of the shows I love that Jason doesn’t. It’s little stuff, but it helps to keep the stress down a bit.

#3. Work on my online presence – specifically, YouTube.
Another ongoing battle, of course. It’s difficult to quantify how much or how little success I had in May because between time slipping away and my brain being a little bit fuddled this past month, well…you get it. That said, I know for a fact that my subscribers, followers, and so on  have all gone up – if only a little – in the past month, so I’m going to go ahead and say it’s going well enough. 

Mini-Goal #3.a. Learn to respond immediately.
I have a lot of ups and downs with this goal, as I’ve mentioned before, but I believe I’ve been doing a lot better. My weak point seems to be emails, because they always seem to come while I’m out and too busy to respond, but I’m getting much better with the social media stuff, and I’m learning to juggle multiple conversations at once for sure. So put one in the plus column for me!

Mini-Goal #3.b. Focus more on daily social media.
There have been hiccups, but I’m doing a lot better on this one as well. I’m much better with tweets and Facebook than Instagram and Snapchat, but I’m definitely doing a lot better, and I hope it’s helping with the media presence!

Mini-Goal #3.c. Come up with new video ideas.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha….never mind. Just…never mind.

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So that was May! How was your month? Did you get anything accomplished? Do anything cool? Please feel free to share!

Goals and Aspirations in Review – April 2017

Is it really May already? Maybe it has something to do with getting older, or maybe my brain is just refusing to acknowledge the passage of time these days, but I really can’t believe that April is over already and I’m going into another monthly review post! o.O Ah well, let’s just jump right into it, I guess!

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Goal #1. WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE.
The month started out okay as far as writing was concerned, although I was mostly just writing blog posts for the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. Then things got slower…and slower…and slower. And the result was 7266 words written in the month of April. Not my best month, not my worst, but mostly annoying because those words were all blogging, no fiction.

To make things even worse though, I didn’t even succeed in the A-to-Z Challenge. If you were following me throughout the month you may have noticed that I just stopped posting at some point. There were a few posts that had been pre-scheduled, but about half-way through the month I just…gave up. This was partially my lovely brand of memory loss (missed one day…then two, before noticing I’d done it), but mainly because I just couldn’t seem to find the time to sit down and write the posts. Excuses, excuses, I know, but it’s true. Lately I feel like I’m always doing 20 things at once, and yet there’s always a list of 50 more things to do. I really don’t know how I’m going to find the time to write once I actually, you know…go back to work. o_o

Mini-Goal #1.a. Publish more erotic fairy tales.
I’m starting to feel like maybe I should remove this mini-goal from the list, but then, if I leave it here at least I’ve got the monthly reminder that I’m failing to follow through on it. 😛

Mini-Goal #1.b. Start writing blog posts again.
I tested this out this past month by doing the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge, and as previously stated it didn’t actually go so well. In the past I’ve always dedicated to the challenge a month or two in advance, and planned out and scheduled the posts before April even began. This year I actually tried to do it IN April, and yeah…it just didn’t work out.

On the other hand of things, I managed to finally catch up on the backlog of sharing our YouTube videos on the blog, so I can move forward with sharing them as they’re posted and hopefully squeaking in a “real” post here and there when I’ve got something to talk about. At least, that’s the hope. Fingers crossed!

Mini-Goal #1.c. Find ways to promote the book(s).
This one is still going about as well as it has been. I did manage to snag a sweet deal on a lifetime subscription with Self-Publisher’s Showcase, so hopefully that will help net me a sale here and there, but thus far there hasn’t been much action. I sold…very few books in April, and I have to admit that that depresses me, especially since I’m having such a hard time finding other ways to promote the books, other than just spamming social media and driving everyone nuts.

#2. Get healthier.
Short answer: I have not. lol I keep consistently failing to do this daily 10-minute exercise routine (trying it again from scratch this month!), and I’m absolutely the WORST at eating properly, although that might get a little better since Jason is starting to get on board as well. More crossed fingers. @_@

Mini-Goal #2.a. Walk/run 10k 8k steps per day.
April was the best month I’ve had so far this year for this goal, although I was still a bit off. I managed to hit 8000 steps or more on 13 days, got really REALLY close to 8000 steps on maybe 5-6 other days, and then failed miserably on the remaining days. lol Overall, my average steps per day worked out to 7834, which is close enough to 8000 for me to be happy, but also far enough away for me to be all, “Dammit! DO BETTER NEXT MONTH!”

Mini-Goal #2.b. Take daily “me time”.
As always, this is hard to quantify, but for April I’d say it’s a bit of a failure. I feel like I’ve spent the entire month doing chores, housework, filming, shopping, and basically barely ever relaxing. I suppose I could admit that I’ve watched several movies with Jason throughout the month, but that’s not ME time, it’s US time, you know what I mean? I think you do.

#3. Work on my online presence – specifically, YouTube.
 I feel like this is all I do lately, and yet at the same time, I’m not doing enough. I can spend 2-3 hours sending/answering emails, responding to comments, hanging out on the social media, in a single day, and yet it feels like I’ve accomplished positively jack. I’m not sure if that’s me being paranoid, or if I really am accomplishing jack. I’ll have to let you know how I feel about it next month. 😛

Mini-Goal #3.a. Learn to respond immediately.
This mini-goal went out the window in April. I’ve been trying, I really have, but I spent a LOT of time out of the house this month, and I find it very difficult to respond to things (particularly emails) while I’m out because of the amount of thumb-typing-on-my-phone that’s required and the fact that I do the majority of the driving. So yeah, I got behind a LOT this month, but I think I’ve managed to catch up in time for a new try in May.

Mini-Goal #3.b. Focus more on daily social media.
Still working on this one, and I basically have good stretches and bad stretches. Some days I’m all over the social media, and other days I got 3-4 days without saying anything and don’t even realize what happened. I’m continuing on with making it a daily “to-do” item in my planner though, so hopefully things will slowly get better.

Mini-Goal #3.c. Come up with new video ideas.
Not even going to get into it. I’ve come up with no new ideas. Jason has had a few, but not me, because I suck. 😛

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Have you ever noticed that my goal responses get shorter and saucier as I move down the list? It must have something do with feeling progressively worse about myself as I realize how little I’ve done. -_- ANYWAY…how was your April? Did you accomplish more than me? I’d be willing to wager that you did. 🙂

Goals and Aspirations in Review – March 2017

March has come and gone – even if Winter damn well refuses to do so – so it’s time for another update. Let’s just get right into it, shall we? Here’s how my goals and aspirations went for March 2017:

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Goal #1. WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE.
You’re not going to believe this, but I have decent news to report this month around! March was far from my best month ever when it comes to writing, but it was MUCH better than both January and February were this year so far. I did equal parts blog posts (mostly advance writing for April’s A-to-Z Blogging Challenge) and fiction writing toward “The Other World: Book Two”, and managed to put together 9435 words in March. That’s nearly twice January and February combined! Go me! Mind you I don’t want to get cocky. I want to do better in April, for sure. But I also feel a little proud to have finally had my first good month in a long time, as far as writing is concerned.

Mini-Goal #1.a. Publish more erotic fairy tales.
As far as this mini-goal is concerned, things have ground to a halt. I do still intend to move forward with this one, but most of February and March was very focused on getting “The Other World: Book One” out and available, and once that happened I became more focused on writing “The Other World: Book Two”, so the erotic fairy tales just got pushed onto the back burner. That said, I do hope to go back and finish the one that’s been sitting in waiting sometime soon.

Mini-Goal #1.b. Start writing blog posts again.
I’m working toward this one, I swear! Ha ha ha… Actually, April will be the month, since I am, in fact, doing the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge again. In addition to that, though, I’m also pretty much caught up on posting videos, so soon I should actually have an empty slot here and there with which to try doing some actual blogging again. Wish me luck!

Mini-Goal #1.c. Find ways to promote the book(s).
Still waiting on some advice for this one, especially now that I have two books to promote. I’ve had a suggestion here and there, but nothing that’s really going to be doable. I’ve been staring at Goodreads for months, waiting for them to make their ebook giveaway option available outside the US, but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen any time soon, and I’m not in a spot financially right now where I can afford to ship out free paperbacks in return for reviews and the like. So, yeah, again, if anyone has any suggestions, please hit me up.

#2. Get healthier.
Remember that 30-day program that I mentioned I was going to do last month? *cough cough* I made it about six days in, I think. But that just gives me another chance to try it this month! That’s called staying positive people, STAYING POSITIVE!

Mini-Goal #2.a. Walk/run 10k 8k steps per day.
In all seriousness though, I am continually impressed/disgusted by my inability to get my steps in. It’s sick. I managed 6 days this month during which I hit my 8k-steps goal, and the average overall was 6485 steps per day. That’s so pathetic.

Let’s say it together, shall we? I. Must. Stop. Being. Such. A. Sedentary. BLOB!

Mini-Goal #2.b. Take daily “me time”.
I can’t say anything particularly good or bad about this one, but I think I’ve been doing okay. I had some hot baths, some snuggling-up and watching movies with the kid, a bit of lounging with a mobile game every so often. I’m not taking huge swathes of time to relax by any means, but I’m getting my moments in here and there.

#3. Work on my online presence – specifically, YouTube.
I’m never sure how to quantify this one, but I think it’s going okay. We grew a little over the past month because of an awesome giveaway we did with The Collectors Case, and I’ve been trying to be more active on things like Twitter and Instagram, which I’m pretty sure is working out well, so all in all, I’d say it was a pretty decent month. I’m also hoping that I might build my presence a little in the coming month with the Blogging Challenge, so fingers crossed for that. 

Mini-Goal #3.a. Learn to respond immediately.
This one may have taken a little nosedive this past month. I know for a fact that I’ve gotten better overall, but for whatever reason this past month felt really rushed and busy, and so there were definitely a number of times that I skipped responding to something and forgot about it for a couple of days. In fact, as I write this there’s an email that I’ve been meaning to get back to for at least 48 hours and I feel really bad about it. So yeah, I’m going to try to get back to it on this one in the coming month (and I’m going to respond to that email the second I finish this post)!

Mini-Goal #3.b. Focus more on daily social media.
I think this one is going to be one of those things that I struggle with right through to the end of the year, but I’m definitely getting better. Like I said earlier, I’ve been trying to focus a lot more on Twitter and Instagram, and it’s been going fairly well. Facebook is a little bit more of a drag, just because I find it harder to think of things that are interesting to post, whereas Tweets and random pics on Instagram are easier to come up with. Snapchat is right out there…ha ha ha…I enjoy it, but I often just flat-out forget about it for days at a time. I’m totally still trying though!

Mini-Goal #3.c. Come up with new video ideas.
And the response for this one is pretty much the same as last month’s: it more or less hasn’t happened. There’s been so much else going on! I will say, though, that Jason did come up with a few interesting ideas, and we might be using them as collaborations with a few other channels, so that could be interesting. Fingers crossed!

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That was my March! How was yours? Did you get anything accomplished? Do anything awesome? Feel free to drop a comment!

Goals and Aspirations in Review – February 2017

February is the shortest month in the year, so one would be forgiven for feeling as though it just up and disappeared in a breath and a blink. Therefore I won’t spend too much time talking about how I swear to puppies it was February 1st just yesterday. Instead, let’s jump right into the details. How did February go for me?

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#1. WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE.
I hate that I’m having to admit this again, but February was an even worse month than January for writing. Looking back at last month’s post I realize that I didn’t even give you guys any numbers, so I’ll rectify that now. In January, during my epic, EPIC writer’s block episode, I wrote a grand total of 4396 words, most of them for a handful of blog posts. During February, I wrote a grand total of 1468 words, ALL of them for a handful of blog posts. That could hardly be more pathetic if I was actively attempting to be pathetic.

THAT SAID…I’m giving myself a bit of a pass for this month, because it’s not like I wasn’t doing anything. I spent a large portion of the month going through final edits for “The Other World: Book One”. I took all the notes from my beta-readers, fixed a number of typos and small issues, and began a final read to make minor changes where I felt they were needed. Because of this work I am currently only a couple of chapters away from having a completed manuscript, and as soon as my cover artist has his bit ready, I’ll be prepared to upload everything to CreateSpace and order my personal copy to ensure that everything looks good.

So yeah, I’m gonna let myself off for this one. JUST for this month, I swear.

Mini-Goal #1.a. Publish more erotic fairy tales.
This mini-goal has been put on a temporary hold, in part because of that huge stint of writer’s block in January and in part because of everything I just previously wrote. I haven’t got back around to finishing the current story I’m working on because I’ve been focusing my energy instead on “The Other World”, which I consider to be much more important. Be assured, however, that I’m very close to finishing another of these tales, and I’m confident that I’ll have half a dozen or so up by the end of the year. *fingers crossed*

Mini-Goal #1.b. Start writing blog posts again.
No excuses for this one; it simply hasn’t been happening. I do still want to start writing blog posts again, but for now, since I’ve got more important stuff I’ve been working on, I’m just worrying about catching up on sharing my YouTube videos. Once I’ve actually got to a point where I’m sharing the videos as they’re being posted, there will be lots of empty days available where I can possibly start writing actual posts again. *fingers crossed again*

Mini-Goal #1.c. Find ways to promote the book.
This is not going well. Someone help. Please. Seriously. I have no idea what to do.

In all seriousness though, I am at a bit of a loss. I can’t afford to spend money on things like advertisements and the like, and other options I’ve found aren’t currently available to me (I’ve been patiently waiting to be able to do a Goodreads E-Book giveaway, but it’s still only an option for those in the US). Any suggestions would seriously be deeply appreciated.

#2. Get healthier.
Um…what? Why do I do these things to myself? lol Okay, okay, I’ve been trying, I have, but more in little stints than reasonable leaps. I’ve been trying to drink more water, although I can’t cut out the coffee and tea without passing out multiple times a day, and I’ve been attempting to eat more fruit and veggies, but god DAMN candy is so tempting. 😀 I’m not complaining or making excuses, I swear, I’m just…not very good at being healthy. lol I’m trying though, I promise. I really am. I’m even starting a 30-day program this month that basically trains you to be able to do long stints of push-ups, squats, crunches, and lunges. Wish me luck!

Mini-Goal #2.a. Walk/run 10k 8k steps per day.
If you read last-month’s post, you’ll know that I’ve lowered this particular goal from 10k steps to 8k, as suggested to me by my saucy, saucy FitBit. Unfortunately it seems as though lowering the goal has only served to create a situation in which I lower my output as well. Throughout February I only had four days on which I hit the 8k goal, and my overall average for the month was only 6635 steps per day. That’s sad, really.

Now, in my defense, there were a few days on which my steps were not recorded properly because my stupid FitBit has been dying a lot quicker lately for some reason, and occasionally I won’t notice that it’s conked-out until I’ve lost half a day’s steps. But even considering that, I doubt my true average was any higher than 7000 steps, which is still frustrating. So with that said, this month I’m going to do my best to take an actual walk each day, even if it’s only 15 minutes of going up and down my street. I have got to get those numbers up before I become a completely sedentary blob.

Mini-Goal #2.b. Take daily “me time”.
I’m actually wondering why I bothered to include this as a mini-goal, since I’m not actively attempting to record anything for it. I have nothing to report, really, other than that I think I probably succeeded for the most part? I’ve had several nice baths, some solo shopping, and usually I spend at least a few minutes a day just laying down and watching a couple of YouTube videos, so I think we’re pretty good with this one.

#3. Work on my online presence – specifically, YouTube.
This is another one that’s hard to quantify, particularly through February, because there was a lot going on, some stuff to catch up on, people to talk with, packages to send, and so on and so forth. We didn’t film and upload as many videos as I’m sure Jason would have liked us to, but I don’t think it was as bad as all that, considering a number of different factors. That said, I’m still working on a few things, and if I could get my mood under control it would be a lot easier to focus on this goal in the future.

Mini-Goal #3.a. Learn to respond immediately.
This is one for which I can honestly say that I’m getting a lot better. There are still the occasional times when I’m out shopping or driving and can’t get back to someone immediately, but I’ve been putting a lot of focus into making sure I get back to people asap before I forget about them. I’m regularly responding to emails, personal messages, YouTube comments, and so on as soon as I catch wind of the opportunity, and I’m happy with the progress. Now if only the people I’m talking to could manage the same courtesy. ^_~

Mini-Goal #3.b. Focus more on daily social media.
I’m still working on this one, but I’m definitely getting better. I’ve been focusing mostly on Twitter, but also trying to throw a few extra things on Instagram here and there. Facebook is still slow because, honestly, having a Facebook Fan Page is a little extraneous when all your followers have you on the more active social media outlets as well, but I’ve been trying to throw some extra fun stuff in the Basement Geeks group as a way of socializing more. Still a bit behind on SnapChat though. I just can’t get really INTO that one. 😛 

Mini-Goal #3.c. Come up with new video ideas.
And last but not least…you know what? I’m not even going to try to bullshit you guys on this one. I have absolutely not been coming up with new video ideas. I’ve been focused too much on the other fifty things going on. So let’s just not even bother. I’ll try harder in the future. 😛

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So that was my February, and honestly, as I was writing this post I realized that it wasn’t all that great, but I’m okay with that. February had a lot of issues, but I still managed to get a fair bit done, and it has served to steel my nerves for March. I’ve got plans and determination, and I’m confident that next month’s post is going to be a much more positive one, so I’m going to focus on that. 🙂

How was your February? 😀

Goals and Aspirations for 2017

Okay, so yesterday I told you all about how 2016 went for me, personally, and I explained that I wasn’t horribly disappointed or anything, but that it definitely could have gone better. But that’s looking into the past, and a new year is about looking into the future. So where do I hope to take myself in 2017?

Well, to be honest, I have more goals and aspirations than I’d like to admit for the coming year. Not that having goals and aspirations is a bad thing; it’s just that I’ve found in the past that having too many of them tends to stretch a person thin and make it damn near impossible to accomplish anything. That said, I’m finding it difficult, if not impossible, to narrow the list down any, so I’m just going to go ahead and explain what I hope to accomplish, and we’ll see where the chips fall.

#1. WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE.

This is my major goal for 2017, because let’s be honest here: I can hardly even call myself a writer with the amount of time and effort I actually expend writing. And here’s the thing: I might never be a success at it, and I might never actually become popular or make any real money, but it is literally the only thing I’ve ever truly wanted to do ever since grade school, and I hate that I perpetually take none of the steps necessary to make it a reality. I wrote one book – go me – and have failed miserably at both promoting it and following it up. A writer has to write, and being a writer is extremely important to me, and I won’t be happy unless I strive toward that. End of discussion.

Mini-Goal #1.a. Publish more erotic fairy tales.
I was genuinely curious to see where that venture would lead, but I managed to stop at precisely one publication, which anyone in erotica will tell you is completely and utterly pointless. So I’d like to follow up some more on that throughout 2017, hopefully putting out one each month or so.

Mini-Goal #1.b. Start writing blog posts again.
I’m not committing to anything by any stretch of the imagination, because the truth is that it’s hard enough to find time to write my fiction, never mind spending time on things like blogging, but I would like to start throwing something up on here every now and then again so that it’s not just links to YouTube videos day after day.

Mini-Goal #1.c. Find ways to promote the book.
I mentioned this yesterday, and also pointed out that I have absolutely no ideas on how to do so, but I’m determined to figure it out one way or the other because my book sales are abysmal and I can’t stand to look at them any longer. So if anyone has any ideas, please feel free to send them my way!

#2. Get healthier.

Staying really broad on this one because I want it to be an overall thing. Would I like to lose some weight? Absolutely. Would I like to eat better? You betcha. Would I liked to wrangle my mental health into something that resembles a reasonable, well-adjusted human being? Damn straight. And that all falls under “health”, so let’s just go ahead and say that I want to be healthier, in general, whatever that should mean.

Mini-Goal #2.a. Walk/run 10k steps per day.
I don’t know why I insist on setting myself up for failure with goals like these, but I have to admit that it does make me feel good when my FitBit vibrates to let me know that I just hit the 10k mark, so why not keep trying?

Mini-Goal #2.b. Take daily “me time”.
I’m not making this a specific part of the main goal this year, and I’m not going to try to time it out or anything, but I’m still dedicating myself to attempting to spend at least a few minutes a day on something that is 100% all about me, whether that be coloring, cross-stitching, reading, or curling up and watching a show that neither Jason or the kid could give two damns about.

#3. Work on my online presence – specifically, YouTube.

And of course, there is YouTube, which has been growing and expanding and has become kind of a life unto itself. This goal has lots of aspects to it, but the main part is just to focus and do my best to put my all into it.

Mini-Goal #3.a. Learn to respond immediately.
One of the biggest flaws that I have when it comes to having an online presence is response time. I am horrible for checking a notification on my phone, swiping it away without responding to it (whether it be a comment, tweet response, e-mail, whatever), and then forgetting about it until a day or two later. I want to start working on responding to things immediately so that I don’t end up with huge build-ups of things to get back to all at once.

Mini-Goal #3.b. Focus more on daily social media.
There are entire days during which my Twitter feed is blank, and sometimes there are huge stretches of days during which I neither Snap, nor update a Facebook status, nor post something in the Basement Geeks group. That has to be rectified. I have to start taking to these platforms daily to keep my online presence fresh.

Mini-Goal #3.c. Come up with new video ideas.
And this is the difficult one because, to be honest, I’ve been feeling a bit in a rut. Not only just because Funko Pops are drowning me and I’m so sick of people assuming that Pops are all we do on the channel, but also because there’s a lot more effort involved in switching things up than one might thing. Want us to do a gameplay video? Awesome…it only takes two hours and fifteen headaches in order to set up the living room with the lights, camera, and gameplay capture equipment, not to mention rearranging the furniture into a format that works for recording. Want us to start talking more about horror stuff and our creepy collectibles? We’d love to! Except that it looks stupid talking about that stuff in front of the Pop wall, and clearing out the room with all the horror movie stuff requires us to find a new place for our “photo studio” set-up and throw away several stacks of stuff that there is simply nowhere else in the house to put. I’m not trying to sound self-defeating or anything, it’s just that as much as I’d love to just say, “Today we’re going to try doing THIS kind of video!” it’s never just that simple. It generally requires a lot of extra work that no one sees or appreciates, which also takes up a ton of extra time that I don’t really have. So, yeah. I didn’t mean to end off these goals on a sour note, but there it is. lol

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So there you go. Above are all the tortures that are going to rip at me throughout the year of 2017. Sounds like fun, right? I’m totally not over-extending myself, right? Right.

So with all that said, I’m off to actually, you know…attempt to get moving on some of these things. Wish me luck, and feel free to share your goals and aspirations for 2017! Cheers, everyone!

Good-Bye 2016 – Goals (and a Year) in Review

Hey everyone; it’s been a while, hasn’t it? As is my custom, any kind of organization and keeping up with things goes right out the window somewhere around mid-November and continues on through to the end of the year. One of these years I’m going to get a handle on that, but not this year.

2016 was a very up-and-down kind of year. There was lots of good, plenty of bad, a fair share of stress and frustration, and all of the celebrities died. Like, seriously…what the hell?

(And on a related note, man…I still can’t believe that Princess Leia is gone!)

So I thought I’d take a moment on this lovely New Year’s Day to quickly go through my goals from 2016 and see where I landed on them overall. Strap in and join me as I wave good-bye to 2016 and kick it in the ass on the way out. ^_~

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.

As is the norm with most health-related goals, this one was all over the map throughout 2016. I had excellent months filled with many 10k-step days, and many months that were the exact opposite of that. Sometimes I did an excellent job of giving myself my 15 minutes (or more!) per day, and other times I went weeks without even realizing that I wasn’t doing it. Lack of focus was my biggest fault, oftentimes simply not paying enough attention to realize what I was or wasn’t doing.

There were so specific good moments of 2016 concerning health, however. For one thing I discovered that my B-12 levels have been through the floor (literally about as low as they could be unless I was dead), and adding the supplement to my diet seems to have made some big differences. I’ve been feeling much more awake and alert that I have in a long time, I’ve been losing (a reasonable amount of) weight without even trying, and I’ve overall just felt a ton healthier.

In addition to that, I discovered that a medication I’ve been taking hasn’t been doing me any favors because of a resulting hormonal imbalance. I won’t get into that one because it’s a bit more of the personal nature, but the point is that changing that medication up has made a big difference in a number of ways, and the results get two thumbs up from me.

And lastly – and this one is going to sound odd to some of you – I got laid off, and I’ve been significantly less stressed out since. I know that sounds completely backwards, but in my line of work being laid off sometimes is part of the system, and I’d been waiting for a lay-off from this particular job for quite a while. Being free of that particular site, and that particular work camp, feels like an enormous weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I’ve finally been able to relax a bit for the first time in a long time.

Goal Conclusion: I mostly failed the specifics of the goal, but all in all I do think that my health – both physical and mental – was much better at the end of 2016 than it was at the beginning.

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.

First off, we all know that the “blog posts” part of this goal went to heck about halfway through the year because I decided to more-or-less stop blogging in order to focus more on actual writing. So we’ll just set that one aside as it doesn’t really apply anymore.

For “shooting fun and different YouTube videos” I can give a thumbs up, although I also have to give much of the credit to my husband, who has put a huge amount of effort into the channel, making it better in a huge number of ways. I started the year just hitting 1000 subscribers, and thanks in a great part to Jason’s input and joining in to the actual videos, we ended off the year with just over 3100 subscribers. That’s a hell of an increase, and I hope we’ll continue to grow with that kind of fervor.

The self-promotion bit is the “up-and-down” winner for this goal. The YouTube channel and it’s associated social media has definitely grown by leaps and bounds, but as I mentioned, most of that is thanks to Jason. And the “readership” bit – relating, of course, to getting people to read my book – continues to fail rather quite amazingly. I did take the jump in 2016 to getting an actual professional cover created for the book, and for about a month it seemed to help, but that success was extremely short-lived. I’ve returned to few-to-no books being sold month-by-month, and to be honest I haven’t really learned much about what to do about it in the past year. I am definitely aware of the fact that I do very, very little self-promotion when it comes to the book, but I am also acutely aware of the fact that the available avenues for self-promotion become extremely tiresome and annoying very quickly, and I don’t want to put people off. Something must be done, I just haven’t figured out what yet.

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

I purposely left this goal vague this year, because I didn’t want to pigeonhole myself into any specific numbers – that has done me no good in the past. So how did my vague writing goal work out?

I can tell you that with the NaNoWriMo words that I failed to report to you in November, I hit a grand total of 191058 words which, unfortunately, is about 25,000 words less than I wrote in 2015. That, I have to admit, is a kick in the pants, but it’s also a bit understanding considering I spent the majority of the calendar year at my aforementioned extremely tiring and time-consuming job, combined with the fact that there’s been a lot more going on with the channel since last Spring. So I suppose I’ll give myself a bit of a pass on that one, although I won’t go so far as to claim that I’m not disappointed.

As for the “novel from start to finish” bit; the success or failure of that one depends on how you look at it. Technically I did not accomplish this task, in the sense of completing an actual novel-length manuscript, and part of the problem is that I allowed myself to get distracted again, and instead of focusing on one manuscript I once again branched off until I was writing 3-4 different stories at any given time. That said, I did complete one manuscript that had been about a quarter complete when the year started (only the first draft though, so don’t get too excited!), plus I wrote the first quarter-or-so of a new zombie novel that I’m excited about, and I also wrote and published an erotic novelette which is, surprisingly, getting occasional page reads on Kindle Unlimited. So yay for that!

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All total, what I can say for 2016 and the goals I had set for myself during it is that I’m not terribly impressed, but I’m also not horribly disappointed. I didn’t accomplish a great deal of what I had set out to, but there were good points as well, and I believe that I am now in a good place to set my foot firmly down upon the beginning of 2017.

So, speaking of 2017, do I have any goals for the coming year? Why of course! But you’re going to have to wait until tomorrow to hear about them because this post has been drawn out enough as it is. ^_~ Cheers everyone! I hope 2016 treated you well, and if not I hope you’re able to give it a swift kick in it’s behind and move toward 2017 with your head held high. Happy New Year! ❤

September 2016 Goals in Review

Okay, I’m gonna go ahead and warn you guys in advance that September was simply not a great month for any of my goals. Part of that is because of being busy with various life stuff, and getting totally stressed out because of my job, but if I’m honest I have to say that I’m not even really quite sure what happened in September. The month just seemed to completely fall apart on me in numerous ways. So let’s just go ahead and get this ‘Month in Review’ over with, shall we?

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.

Goal #1 is probably the most epic fail of the month because I didn’t even manage to accomplish a part of it. For one thing, out of the entire month, there was only one day on which I managed to hit 10k steps. One day. That’s ridiculous even for me. And to add to that, my average steps were only 6550, which is the second lowest average I’ve had all year. That number should actually be slightly higher, because there was one day during which I’d forgotten to charge my FitBit and it died on me, but the extra steps would probably only boost the average buy a couple dozen. Totally pathetic.

But to make matters worse, I didn’t even manage to pull off the 15 minutes of “me time”…not by a long shot. I counted 19 days where I managed to do something – usually just lounging on 9Gag on my phone or playing that silly Sailor Drops game. That means there were 11 days in September during which I couldn’t even manage to find myself 15 minutes. Not 15 minutes. And that is just depressing.

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

The second goal isn’t a complete fail, but I’m not really feeling a huge level of success here either. I’ve definitely been trying to put more time and effort into things like the YouTube channel’s social media, interacting with other channels and the like, and that’s definitely a good thing but it doesn’t seem like it’s doing a whole lot of good, really. We’ve stagnated a bit in terms of new subscribers and followers, and while that’s not necessarily our fault (it could be any number of things, really), you also can’t help but feel a little like you’re climbing uphill with no shoes.

Meanwhile, a little bit of good news is that the new cover for Nowhere to Hide does, in fact, seem to be making a difference. I still wouldn’t call my sales anything worth talking about, but at least there’s the occasional e-book sale, the occasional number of Kindle Normalized Pages Read popping up, instead of months of a completely dead graph. So cheers for that! I definitely need to put more effort into promoting the book though, because I’ve really been neglecting that aspect of being an author lately. Bad Tracey.

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

And then there’s this. I wrote a grand total of 6689 words this month which, like my step average above, is the second worst number I’ve come up with all year so far. It’s better than nothing, there’s no doubt about that, but I’m consistently depressed with my apparent inability to commit myself to the thing that I actually love doing the most.

To accentuate this personal failure, I’ve been getting reminders in my email about how National Novel Writing Month is less than a month away, and I just don’t know what to do with that info. I want to participate, because I’ve participated every year since I discovered the challenge, but I know I’ll fail. I haven’t written 50k words over the course of the last five months, so what are the chances I’ll be able to write that many in one month? Pretty slim I’d say, and I just don’t know if I feel like setting myself up for that failure right now.

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So that’s that, I guess. I didn’t intend for this post to be so moody and depressing, but those are the facts, I guess. And it doesn’t help that I’ve been feeling tired, stressed, and pretty much just burnt out in general. Tomorrow is another day, right? I promise I’ll try to keep telling myself that, if you guys promise to believe it.

How was your month?

August Goals in Review

We are into September, ladies and gentlemen, and although I do have a few good things to mention, I’m going to go ahead right now and admit that it has been a stressful, headachy month, so let’s just jump right into it, shall we?

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, right here…just no. This was a really, really bad month for this goal.

Okay, I’ll admit that the steps part wasn’t all that bad. I did manage to have nine 10k step days and about a dozen other days that were extremely close to 10k but just didn’t quite make it. On the average I walked 8509 steps per day, although that number isn’t exact because my FitBit actually crapped out on me and I ended up losing two days, so I had to estimate based on what I remembered seeing those days. (Sidenote: after a long and arduous troubleshooting session with FitBit they did, in fact, send me a replacement tracker).

The other stuff though? Man…I did not take care of myself this month, and to be honest, I was a ball of stress most of the month. I only managed 21 days with “me” time, and most of that was just watching Sailor Moon at the end of the night at camp while half falling asleep. And it wasn’t actually for lack of trying so much as it was completely forgetting to even try. I’ve been so busy, so tired, and so supremely stressed out (have I mentioned that yet?) that on several days I just flat-out forgot to try to have a few minutes to myself. It’s been absolutely ridiculous.

One thing that I’m trying for September is just to write a few paragraphs in a journal every day. It’s not going to be a useful journal with anything that will ever be shared; the whole point is basically just going to be to get stuff off my chest, even if it’s just to my computer, so I can hopefully breath a little afterwards.

So that was that.

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

Strangely this was probably the best goal of the month. Jason and I did lots of fun videos, including a Facebook-only live event that we called “Pops & Shots” (spoiler alert: I got really, really drunk). I also began contacting possible sponsors/partners in an attempt to make the YouTube channel more viable and have new content, and I’ve already managed to hook three subscription box companies into sending me a free box to review. One of them is even running a giveaway along with the video, so hopefully that’ll bring me some new views and subscribers.

On the book side of things, I finally got the new cover and summary up for “Nowhere to Hide“. If you’re looking at this blog from the actual blog and not the WordPress Reader, you’ll see that I’ve updated the theme to reflect this fact. I’m not sure I like it, but I wanted to have my one published book be a defining feature of the blog, so feel free to tell me what you think. And, of course, check out the book! I’ve been sharing it on different social media, and several of my lovely Basement Geeks have already picked it up, so that’s pretty awesome, although it looks like sales are stagnating again. I’ve set up my first ever ad campaign through Kindle, so fingers crossed that that goes somewhere.

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

And finally, there’s this goal, which is almost never where I want it to be, but on this particular month it was just absolutely pitiful. There was just no time! I couldn’t find moments to write, never mind genuine chunks of time. All in all I managed to write a grand total of 3279 words this month, which – I’m not absolutely positive, but I think – is my worst month so far this year. That in itself is extremely depressing, and is definitely one of the subjects of my stress. At least most of the words I did write were fiction, but still, that’s so pitiful. Most serious writers have that kind of word count in a DAY, never mind an entire month. Gah. I don’t even want to talk about it anymore.

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So yeah, long story short, that was my month. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, although I’ll definitely admit that the marketing side of things isn’t going half bad. But seriously, if anyone has any ideas as to how I can get 2-3 fewer hours of sleep each night without turning into a howling, emotional wreck, that would be extremely helpful because there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.

And with that said, I’m off to try to relax for 15 minutes. 😛 What was your month like?

July Goals in Review

Let me just start off by stating that July was one of those months that just vanishes in the blink of an eye and leaves me wondering what the hell happened. I accomplished very, very little of what I intended to, and part of that is because of a little thing you may have heard about called Pokemon Go. That’s not an excuse; I’m just stating the fact that I spent the greater part of the month collecting digital monsters instead of doing literally any of the stuff I should have been doing. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at the goals for July.

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 goal – and the success or failure thereof – really depends on which half of the month you’re looking at. The first half of July was pretty damn terrible. Part of the problem was that I had an incredibly awful shift at work. I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say that I had an exceptionally miserable two weeks in Alberta. As a result of that I did as little moving as possible and most of my “me time” boiled down to curling up in bed with a show playing on my computer while I plotted ways I could justify not going into work the next day.

On the other hand the second half of the month was very different. I was home, for one thing, which is always best. For another thing Pokemon Go became available in Canada, and while the addictive little pile of nostalgia has been hell on my productivity, it’s been a blessing on my FitBit. From wandering around town, trying to track down new Pokemon to catch, to simply walking back and forth in order to incubate eggs, I put more steps in in fewer days than I have in ages. Thanks to this game, I managed to partially cancel out the first half of the month and finished off July with seven 10K days and a daily average of 8478 steps. It’s not 10K, but guys, if you’d seen how little I was moving those first two weeks you’d be amazed that I managed to get the average up that high.

Plus mobile games totally count as “me time”, right? Right.

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

A reminder, in case you missed it: a few months ago I stopped blogging on a regular basis in order to spend more time on writing fiction, so keep that in mind. 🙂

This goal, unfortunately, represents the downside to becoming obsessed with invisible monsters on my phone. When it comes to the marketing side of things I actually did better during the two miserable weeks at work. Then Pokemon Go finally released in Canada, and Jason and I may have become a little bit obsessed.

During the first half of the month Jason was getting videos edited, getting glam shots of our hauls up on Instagram, and promoting the channel, while I was tweeting, hanging out with followers on SnapChat, working on updating “Nowhere to Hide”‘s description and cover art, and promoting my erotic fairy tale series via a set of new social media created for the series’ pseudonym author.

Once Pokemon Go hit the Play Store, however, everything pretty much ground to a dead stop as the two of us traipsed all over the province in search of our favorite little creatures. We didn’t even realize how bad it had gotten until the last two days before I flew back to work when we finally noticed I’d barely filmed any videos while I was home and we hadn’t uploaded anything for a straight week.

Now, in our defense there was a fair bit going on as well. We did a full-day shopping trip around the province to hunt for SDCC Summer Convention Pops. We took another day trip in order to test out the Playstation VR (which was awesome, by the way). And we took a trip back home to spend the end of a local festival with family and watch the fireworks together.

But, mostly we wasted an assload of time chasing pixels across the island with our smartphones.

That said, we did do one thing that was tons of fun and will probably be a great promo tool in the future. We tested out Facebook Live, allowing some of our friends and followers to talk to us in real time. It was a blast, and we’ll definitely be doing it again, hopefully when I get home next time.

So yeah, there were good bits and bad bits, but hopefully we’ll be able to curb our obsessions a bit in the coming weeks and make August a better month.

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

I started out July thinking that this was going to be the best goal, but it went a bit sideways on me around mid-month. In the first few weeks, despite the aforementioned work misery, I was enjoying my new Rocketbook Wave and taking whatever opportunities I could to scribble out scenes for more erotic fairy tales. Then – if you’ll excuse my turn of phrase – some major bullshit went down at work, and I actually got more productive as I took out my frustrations on a new zombie novel that (*cough cough*) takes place on an oil sands facility.

But – and I know this is going to shock you – then Pokemon Go happened. And come on…if I wasn’t getting videos done and was basically completely ignoring all forms of social media, what do you think the chances are that I was writing?

Yeah, yeah, I know…I should be ashamed of myself.

So I finished off the month with about 7716 words, but on the upside the vast majority of those word were fiction, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

Also, the new zombie book is highly amusing to me so far, so there’s that. XD

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So, all things considered it was a bit of a rollercoaster of a month, and I was left wondering where the hell half of my summer had gone, but it was hardly the worst month I’ve had, that’s for sure.

How was your month? Did you get anything accomplished? Try anything new? Have you been out stalking Pokemon like me? Please feel free to share!

Happy Canada Day! Plus: June Goals in Review

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Okay, first of all, where are my fellow Canucks? 😀  Happy Canada Day everyone! I wish I was having a drink at home with my family, but unfortunately I returned to work out West recently so I’ll have to subsist with knowing that everyone else is having a drink. lol

As it would happen, returning to work didn’t just screw up my Canada Day plans… It totally screwed up my month as I struggled to get back into a pattern and get stuff done before I had to fly. So let’s get this over with because it ain’t gonna be pretty…

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.

This was definitely my worst month for this goal. I managed to accomplish the 15 mins per day of relaxation (although most of that was mobile games, so I feel kinda pathetic for that…) but my steps were absolutely horrible. There were only two days during June that I got more than 10k steps, and the average for the month was my worst yet at 6484 per day. Absolutely pathetic, and that’s all I’ve got to say about that. 

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.

This goal was pretty identical to last month. The YouTube channew is going great, steadily growing, but the book is at a complete stop and I don’t see that changing any time soon. There just aren’t enough hours in the day (especially now I’ve returned to work) to market bother aspects of my life amid all the other stuff I have to do.

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

This one I though was going to be good this month. I started off pretty steady. But then I was trying to catch up on videos before I’d have to go to work, and I was trying to get stuff done with the kid and around the house… Long story short I only ended up with 8746 words for the month. I’m not sure exactly where that stands up to the previous months, but it’s definitely not as good as I was hoping it would be. That said, I’m happy to report that we’ll over half of those words were fiction, so I’m moving in the right direction there.

So that’s it for June! I realize this is a shorter post than I usually make, but I’m actually typing it on my phone during my lunch break, so you can understand that I’m kinda hard up for time right now. 😋

How was your June? Please tell me it was more productive than mine!