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?

---

#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. 😛

---

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? 😀

It’s Almost (Self-)Publishing Time… – An IWSG Post

Let’s be totally honest. Writer’s are insecure, like…200% of the time. We occasionally have little bouts of confidence and genuine belief in our abilities, but the overwhelming majority of the time we’re little balls of misery and self-loathing, rocking back and forth in the corner, insistent that we have no talent, no prospects, and that anyone who ever said they liked our books was a dirty, dirty liar.

That said, I personally feel that the most powerful moments of insecurity come right before something is about to be published.

I’ve been working on “The Other World” for more than a decade, no joke. That wasn’t all consecutive, of course. It began life as a therapeutic way of dealing with my then-boyfriend breaking up with me. Those early drafts were very, well…terrible. It was a Mary-Sue story in which everyone loved the main character except for herself, and she made a massively huge deal about her own breakup, as though it was literally the end of the world. It was absolutely horrible, but at the time it served it’s purpose. It made me feel a little better, and it was a reason to put words to paper.

Eventually it grew and evolved. I’m not joking even a little bit when I say that I restarted this particular story from scratch at least a dozen times. It was my NaNoWriMo novel twice, and I would regularly return to it and completely rewrite it whenever I would get bored or frustrated with my other works. And as time went on and I learned more about proper styles of writing, what turns readers off, and so forth, the story changed more and more and more. Eventually it became a series. Characters transformed. Main plot points shifted dramatically. To be perfectly honest, at this point what I have in my Scrivener file has extraordinarily little in common with the original story. It has matured spectacularly from what it started out as. Even I – as a completely self-loathing writer – can see that. The story that I am currently performing final edits on is nothing like the self-absorbed cathartic ramblings that I first put down back in college. It is much, much better. Infinitely so.

I know this. And yet, as I wait (im)patiently for my cover artist to send me some ideas, and I finish those final edits on Book One of the series, I find that little voice beginning to whisper in the back of my mind. “This is complete crap,” it hisses. “Your beta-readers are liars, and you’re a talentless hack who will never have any real success as a novelist. You should delete the entire file and never speak of this story again.”

That voice is a bitch. I know this, and yet it is exceptionally difficult to quell her. I have become the master of procrastination, taking much longer at each step of the writing process than is reasonable, because that voice slows me down, weakens me, and convinces me that it’s pointless. She’s a complete and utter bitch and I hate her.

So I say this to you now: moving forward I am going to do my level best to smother that voice and bury her deep, deep down where I can’t hear her hateful hissing. I’m going to trust that my beta-readers weren’t just being nice to spare my feelings, I’m going to work with my cover artist to create something beautiful and attractive, and I’m going to put that something out there for the world to see. Then I’m going to take what comes as it comes. And then, regardless of the results, I’m going to sit at my laptop, and I’m going to get to work on finishing Book Two, and I’m going to start the process all over again. Because that’s what a real writer does. We murder that voice in cold blood – no matter how many times it resurrects itself – and put ourselves out there regardless of the vicious whispers.

Who’s with me?

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 23

A couple of things to say before we get down to it this week. First of all, I know I’ve been rather slow when it comes to responding to comments and the like lately, and I apologize. I’m having one of those times when it just seems like there’s a million things to do and I can’t concentrate, so I’ve been a little lackluster when it comes to responding to the various forms of internet communication. I tried to catch up yesterday, but if I missed anyone I apologize, and feel free to shout at me. 🙂

Second, as of this coming Monday I will officially be at my new job in the Alberta oil sands. That means that for two weeks at a time I may be fairly absent online. It all depends on what the cell reception is like where I’m going. So if it seems as though I’ve disappeared (except for scheduled posts), I haven’t…I’m just having a difficult time communicating.

Okay, now that I’ve explained that, let’s get down to brass tacks.

Goal #1: Lose ten pounds and become healthier overall.

I must admit that I had a rough time this week. Part of the problem was good old fashioned being too busy. On Wednesday I had overnight visitors, then on Thursday I had to do a 3-hour round trip for a doctor’s appointment and a visit to my sick grandmother, which was punctuated by an almost five-hour trip to the circus with the daughter and the niece, and then hubby and I took the niece to our house for two nights, which just always wears me out even when the kids are really good (which they were). So all in all, I ended up missing all my workouts for those days, plus ate a ton of junk like pizza and pancakes.

I totally planned to make up for those lost workouts early this week, but somehow it just never happened. I managed to fit in the one run that I missed, but I never made up for the strength training sessions that I missed, and as of a strangely exhausting day today I’ve managed to get another run behind. I’m just all kinds of screwed up, and to make matters worse I’ve been reverting to bad habits like drinking pop constantly.

On the positive side of things, I finally got a medical diagnosis on my stomach problems. It was the one I was dreading, because it involves a lot of work to figure out your triggers (of which there could be many), but there’s an upside to it. Given my descriptions of the problem the doc thinks that my biggest (maybe only) trigger is anxiety, so he’s given me a prescription to hopefully help with that. I’ve only been taking it for a couple of days so I can’t really tell if it’s helping yet, but I should know pretty soon since my worst times are when traveling to and from work. Everyone keep your fingers crossed for me, okay?

Goal #2: Be more active on social media and work hard on my “author platform”.

As mentioned above, it’s been a really bad week for this kind of stuff. I haven’t touched Twitter once, and have only been on Facebook in order to link to my blog posts. There’s not much more to say about that, aside from that I’ll try harder next week.

Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.

You can probably guess based on everything else what I’m going to say here. Like everything else, it was a bad week for this goal, but I am at least able to say that I got one more chapter done. Along those lines, I can tell you that I’m starting to understand that “kill the little darlings” thing that everyone is always talking about. The chapter I was working on was one that my beta-reader said dragged a lot, so when I was going through it I was trying to find ways to shorten it or speed up the action, and it was harder than I would have expected. Every line seemed important and well-written, so it was really difficult to cut anything. In the end I managed, but it really gave me an appreciation for how hard it is to cut stuff that only you feel is worth leaving in.

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

Surprisingly, this is the one goal that I’m not too disappointed in this week. It was definitely a weaker period than the previous few weeks, but it was still pretty good overall. Honestly, I’m not even sure where these words came from, but somehow I wound up with a total of 5198 words. Not too shabby for such a busy and confusing week!

All in all, I would have to say that this week was frustrating in a great number of ways, but at least I can say that I kept writing, right? Right.

 

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 13

The A to Z Challenge is well on it’s way! I enjoyed the company of several new visitors to the blog yesterday (*waves* Hi everyone!) as well as a spike in stats, and I also visited some truly wonderful posts by my fellow bloggers. Keep it up everyone! We can make it through April together!

And as promised, an accountability post, because I can’t just quit being accountable for a whole month. 🙂

Goal #1: Lose ten pounds and become healthier overall.

Believe me when I tell you that it does make me cringe and hang my head to come here and hold myself accountable for this particular goal, but that accountability is not exactly helping at the moment. I seem to be going through another one of my trademark “binge” modes. I’m telling you, I don’t know why this happens every so often, but once again I find myself eating everything in sight. I’m constantly hungry. Even when I eat things full of fiber and good stuff I still find myself hungry a very short time later. The best thing I can tell you about this past week is that I’ve been able to mostly avoid pop.

On the “healthier” side of things, I have a doctor’s appointment first thing tomorrow to discuss the results of the procedure I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I’m expecting that it was all clear, as the doc who preformed it suggested immediately afterwards, but we’ll see. I’d love to have some answers for a change, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Goal #2: Be more active on social media and work hard on my “author platform”.

You can’t see, but right now I’m holding up my hand and waving it back and forth in a “so-so” motion to indicate how the past week was for social media. I’m finding myself on Facebook a lot more than usual, but Twitter is a little harder. I dropped in a few times this week, but I rarely find myself with anything interesting to say that can be reduced to 140 characters or less, so I mostly just read other people’s Tweets and “favorite” them. 😛

Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.

On the bad side of things, I once again went through an entire week without even touching this. On the upside of things, I worked my arse off the past week so that I could get my A to Z posts planned and out of the way, so now there is literally nothing stopping me from working on my manuscript, aside from the obvious desire not to do so. Really, truly, I do want to get this finished, but I’m just so sick of editing, you have no idea. I desperately just want to lock myself in a room with my laptop and a blank Scrivener file and start something new. But I mustn’t. Editing. Dammit.

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

As mentioned, I put a real push on last week to ensure that I had April pretty much covered for blog posts. It was literally the only thing I did as far as writing, but it worked out in my favor, all things considered. I wound up with a very respectable 9054 words this week, and I am very close to hitting the 100,000 mark for the year so far. Now if I could just get that editing out of the way so that I can do some fiction writing again…*mumble, grumble*…

And that’s it for this week! Later peeps!

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 11

I’m gonna admit something here…I have no idea where the past week went. It just kinda…disappeared on me. I spent the rest of last Wednesday tidying up and washing bedsheets, so that I could spend all day Thursday cooking, so that I could entertain the visitors I had Thursday night. Then I spent most of Friday hanging out with the baby because she always gets super upset when visitors leave, after which I spent most of Saturday and Sunday being lazy as balls and playing my Vita because dammit, I deserved it. Monday…I honesty have no idea what happened to Monday…it’s as though it never actually existed in my timeline. And finally, yesterday, I spent most of the day on my laptop, catching up on blog posts because I’m getting used to this whole scheduling-ahead thing and I didn’t want to muck it up.

As you see, there wasn’t a lot of working on goals up in that nonsense. Time to break out the flogging hoses again.

Goal #1: Lose ten pounds and become healthier overall.

I did get a little bit of exercise this week, I swear (although most of it was in the form of running up and down stairs while doing laundry), and I have been managing to mostly stick to water as my go-to beverage (mostly in the form of coffee and tea…without sugar, I swear). That’s pretty good, right?

If I’m honest though, this goal has been the absolute last thing on my mind recently. Not good, I know, but I’m sure you’ll give me a break when you hear why. See, I have a procedure coming up this coming Monday. Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious, but it does require me to fast for the full day before the procedure. And since the procedure is later in the day,and I have to start the fasting very early in the morning (thus, the fast will really start when I fall asleep the night before) the full extent of my fasting will actually be closer to two full days. In other words, I’ve resolved to enjoy my food for the days leading up to Saturday night. For almost two full days I’m only going to be able to drink water, tea or coffee with nothing in them, clear fruit juices and Poweraid, and Jello (and friends, you just know that if Jello is the only thing I can “eat”, I’m going to end up devouring a dozen boxes of it). Basically, cut me a break on my eating habits for the past few days and the next few, because I’m not going to be able to eat at all for about 40 hours in a row in the near future. ARG.

Goal #2: Be more active on social media and work hard on my “author platform”.

I haven’t been paying a whole lot of attention to the social aspect of my platform this week. It’s not that I haven’t been social, I just haven’t really been thinking about it. I’ve spent a bit of time on Twitter lately, but the big thing this past week has been Facebook. As mentioned last week, I have an Author Page now (you can see the link to it off to the right of this page…please Like!) and I’ve been interacting with that a lot, posting my blog posts there and talking to the people who wander by. My Klout score has been steadily rising in the past few weeks, so I guess that’s a good sign? I’ve never really understood the Klout system, but I’m confident that rising numbers is a good thing. 😛

Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.

This is the one that I’m genuinely ashamed of. I haven’t done a thing this week again. In my defense, my laptop was shanghaied for the majority of the week, so I had nothing to work on. I suppose I could have copied my files over to my husband’s laptop, but considering that his laptop overheats so bad that you can’t let it touch your bare skin, and several of the keys stick constantly, it wasn’t exactly a preferable solution. So instead I did nothing. I’m incredibly disappointed in myself, if that’s worth anything.

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

This was actually a really weird week. Because of the aforementioned shanghaiing of my laptop, I didn’t get much of anything written in the first half of the week. I was pretty confident that by the time I came to write this accountability post I was going to have a shameful word count of somewhere in the 500-word range. However, things really started looking up yesterday (after I got my laptop back) when I took to WordPress to get some posts written. I still don’t know how it happened, but somehow I ended the day with a very acceptable 6751 words. I am now very close to three quarters of a hundred thousand words, which isn’t too shabby for the end of March. I’m still about 30,000 words behind where I should be at this point, but based on last year I’m not surprised that I should be behind at this point.

And so, week 11 is down, and week 12 is going to be an odd because of that whole fasting thing. Maybe I’ll write something really weird and interesting while I’m knee-deep in Jello.

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 10

I almost forgot to write this post today, and I blame that on the fact that I have very little good to report. I lost an entire day this week as a result of having to drive quite a ways for a doctor’s appointment (which served almost no purpose besides scheduling day surgery, which really could have just been done over the damn phone), and I spent most of the other days trying to get organized, do some work around the house, and search for a new job, all while dealing with the little barnacle that I call my daughter. You have been forewarned: this will not be a great accountability post.

Goal #1: Lose ten pounds and become healthier overall.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha…oh my. I don’t even know what to say here. I can tell you that on one day near the beginning of this week I spent about forty minutes playing a dance game on the PS3 and that I haven’t touched it since because it made me feel absolutely horrible about myself. I can also tell you that I’ve been continuing on with my attempts to drink mostly water, so that’s a good thing, I guess. But also, my eating habits have been horrible this week. I don’t know how much chocolate I ate this week. I think I only ate breakfast once in the last seven days. There was one day when I ate a lot of fruit, but I subsequently was sick of it after that and changed over to junky stuff. There’s been a veggie tray sitting in my fridge for almost an entire week now, with healthy dip even, but I haven’t even broken the seal on the sticker.

I am in such a mood this week, you have no idea. It’s no excuse, I know, but just trust me when I say that I don’t even feel bad.

(Except for the part when I stepped on the scale and totally ended up feeling bad. Very bad.)

Goal #2: Be more active on social media and work hard on my “author platform”.

On the one hand, I’ve been spending a lot of time on Facebook this week, specifically on my new Author Page, which I have linked to on the right sidebar of this page, under my photo. Please visit and “Like”! 😀

On the other hand, I’ve been totally absent on Twitter, for the most part, and I’ve only managed to scrape together a minute here and there to interact with other bloggers. I don’t know what it is the past few days, but I swear my days are just flitting away from beneath me while I somehow manage to not get anything done. What’s up with that?

Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.

At the very least I wish I could say that the reason I haven’t been accomplishing anything else is because I’ve been busy working on the final draft of my novel. I wish I could say that. Alas, it would be an enormous lie. I haven’t even opened the file, or glanced at my beta-reader’s notes. I’ve done absolutely nothing and I feel positively horrible about it because it’s terribly unprofessional. Please feel free to yell at me.

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

On this one front I will say that the week wasn’t too bad, but it still wasn’t as good as I’d hoped. Remember last week when I said that I was going to at least double my word count from that week? Yeeeaaaahhh….that didn’t happen. With the bits of time I managed to actually sit at my computer and think I wrote a few blog posts that totaled up to 4923words. Not too shabby, but nowhere near doubling last week. This is not me whining, I’m just pointing out that I’m consistently failing. Ha!

So now that all that painfulness is out of the way, let’s just go ahead and pretend that week 10 never happened. On to week 11!

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 7

Another Wednesday, another bout of accountability. It’s actually been a bit of an interesting week, so let’s just get right to it, shall we?

Goal #1: Lose at least ten pounds and become healthier overall.

This was always going to be the most difficult goal for me, simply because I love food and hate exercise. But while I can’t report a weight loss (I forgot to weigh myself before I came out West for this shift) I can report a couple of small victories.

One is that in the day and a half I’ve been out here for this shift I’ve already been more active and been eating better than I managed last shift. One big thing is that I’m avoiding the cans of pop like the plague, which is really difficult for me because I love pop and it’s free, dammit. But I digress… I’ve been drinking a lot of water and herbal tea. Also, I forced myself to have breakfast this morning. Also, also, I got up early to exercise. Unfortunately the exercise was cut off early because my trademark evil gut started playing with me, but tomorrow morning is another day.

The other small victory that I thought worth mentioning is that I’ve actually gotten several comments lately asking me if I’m losing weight. I don’t believe that I’ve actually lost any as far as the number on the scale, but it is possible that I’ve replaced some fat with muscle, so it’s nice to get the comments. Hopefully those who have brought it up are actually right and not just delusional.

Goal #2: Be more active on social media and work hard on my “author platform”.

It hasn’t been a particularly good week for this goal, mostly because I’ve been busy with other things and haven’t focused on it. Somedays I find it strangely difficult to think of a single thing to tweet, and I don’t like to overextend myself on Facebook because I already have my blog auto-post to there and I don’t want to annoy people. That said, I have been fairly active amongst the blogger community, and I resolve to do better in other areas this coming week.

Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.

Honestly, I didn’t expect to have anything to report for this one for quite a while. As I explained last week, I’d finally finished the first round of edits and was ready to ship my manuscript off to my beta reader, so I fully expected to have this goal out of my head for at least a few weeks. Amazingly, however, my beta reader turned out to be a super-woman who ate my manuscript up like a pint of double-fudge ice cream…all in one night! Yesterday morning I recieved the emails with her comments, complaints, and suggestions, and I was absolutely flabbergasted. Not only did she manage to read the entire novel in one night, but she also brought up some very excellent points that I never would have noticed myself. So now, much sooner than anticipated, I find myself preparing for the second round of edits. These ones (I freakin’ hope) will go much faster than the last ones because they’re mostly cosmetic changes and slight revisions. I won’t be able to start this round until I get home again, but in the meantime I’m going to definitely spend some time working out a game plan. Exciting!

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

This week wasn’t nearly as good as last week, but it was still excellent as far as how many words I should be getting in a week. I ended up with 9212 words, mostly through the virtue of planning a bunch of blog posts in advance. I’m both pleased and concerned with this result, because I can’t see me getting anywhere near that number again this week. It’s always so difficult to get much writing in while I’m out West…but that’s just my fatigue talking. Maybe this week I’ll finally break into that “642 Things to Write About” book that has been sitting in my luggage. Wish me luck!

Fiction Fragment Fridays: Nowhere to Hide

Since I’m working very hard right now, carving out little bits of time when I can and trying to finish the last bit of edits (round one, anyway) on my zombie apocalypse manuscript, I thought I’d share a little excerpt here to show you what I’m working with.

And believe me, I can’t wait to finish this up so that I can move on to something else!

Here’s a little clip from chapter two, right after the breakout occurs:

—–

There were more sirens now, of many different pitches. Ambulances, police, firemen, and possibly others as well.

Nancy dragged herself to the bathroom, flicked on a light, and peered at herself in the mirror. She blinked at herself for several long moments. No wonder little Jenny had taken off. Nancy had gone pale, as if her face had been doused with bleach, and her eyes were huge, hollow, and burning. She looked like a woman possessed.

From the bathroom window she saw the flickering of fire. She pulled herself away from the mirror to look and saw that the building across the road and two down was aflame. The firetrucks stopped out front and the firemen rushed to the hydrants. A woman stumbled slowly out the front door, her clothes and hair on fire. One of the firemen tackled her with a blanket, but as the flames began to smother the woman poked her head out and bit down hard on the man’s ear before ripping it clean off of his head. Nancy couldn’t hear his scream amid the rest of the din, but she could see it. At the other end of the road a car crashed into a news stand and the whole thing burst into a brilliant ball of flame.

Nancy turned, leaned over the bathtub, and vomited until she passed out.

—–

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 4

Another week has come and gone, it seems. It’s been a particularly cold one up here in Northern Alberta and as construction companies shut down for entire days at a time and my coworkers and I huddle in running trucks for heat, I have to ask myself, seriously, who the hell in the past thought it would be a good idea to venture up here? No offense, Northern Albertans, but you have really awful taste in places to settle down.

I kid, I kid. I love yas, and your seemingly endless supply of jobs. 😛

Moving on!

Goal #1: Lose at least ten pounds and become healthier overall.

Again, I can’t report on the weight situation because I am not currently in possession of a scale, but if I had to venture a guess I would not say that I’ve lost any weight recently. In fact, I’m fairly certain I may have gained back what I’d lost previously. Some of it is pure laziness, for certain – I just can’t seem to find the willpower to exercise when I’m out West – but at least part of the problem is the camp that I’m staying in this time around. It’s a gorgeous camp and I love it, but the food here leaves something to be desired for sure. The supper-time meals are great, but everything else is fat, carbs, and sugar in increasingly alarming amounts. There are a few fruit and veggie options to pick from, but they’re so few that you get sick of them within a couple of days, and the food that they prepare us to take to work for lunch are just enormous carb-bombs…things like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hamburgers. I’m not putting all of the blame for my poor eating habits of late on the people who make the food here, but you have to stand with me on this one: the fewer options that are available, the more likely you are to choose bad ones.

I may have to take a few snacks out with me next shift…some freakin’ trail mix bars or something. 😛

That said, someone needs to give me a huge kick in the ass because I took my yoga mat out here with me specifically so I could do some stretching and things like push-ups and crunches, and the damn thing hasn’t even been unrolled yet since I got her. MOTIVATE ME, people! 🙂

Goal #2: Be more active on social media and work hard on my “author platform”.

The week didn’t start particularly well, but I managed to get a bit of a jump on things over the past few days. I’ve been trying to be more active on Twitter, and have seen a few new followers pop up as a result, not to mention a few new names popping up in my WordPress notifications. Hi everyone! Please stay a while!

Aside from that there isn’t much to report except for the fact that I’ve discovered a bit of a disconnect between my blog posts and Facebook. It turns out that although my posts have been showing up on my Facebook timeline every day like clockwork, they haven’t been showing up on many peoples’ news feeds. The issue doesn’t seem to have anything to do with interaction (Facebook algorithms make sure that you see more posts by people whose posts you’ve liked or commented on in the past) because a few people who always view, like, and comment on my posts have informed me that they’re seeing only one or two posts a week, if that. I’m currently working on ideas to fix this, and if anyone has any ideas I’d be happy to hear them.

Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.

As explained last week, I haven’t been working on this because my tablet setup is not conducive to editing processes. However, I can honestly say that I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I only have two more chapters (although one is as long as two chapters) and a short epilogue to finish editing, so I’ve been doing a lot of “mental” editing lately, working through the final scenes in my head and trying to make sure that I’ll be able to whip through those last bits as quickly as possible on my off days. Hopefully my manuscript will be off to my beta-reader by the time I come back out for my next shift.

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

As promised, I went back through my blog posts and the other bits and pieces that I’ve been scribbling out and backtracked to get my word count for not only this week past but the infamous week before as well. The results are thus: week number 3 saw a word count total of 3820 (respectable), and this past week saw a word count total of 3630 (pretty much as respectable). I honestly thought that I wrote more than that this week, though. Mostly what I wrote was just the past few blog posts, but still. I’m genuinely surprised. These days I have a very delicate system of work, sleep, food, shower, and blog-writing time hanging in the balance, but I guess I’m going to have to try and carve out another tiny section of the day with which to write something with a bit more girth.

And with that said, it’s time for me to go get the aforementioned shower and maybe see about squeezing in an episode of one of my shows as I drift off into some much-needed sleep.

Accountability Tuesdays: Week 52 and A Year in Review

This is it. Not only is this my last accountability post of the year, but at midnight tonight 2013 will be complete.

Image borrowed from seaandbescene.com

It’s been a busy and interesting year. I spent the first six months of the year working out West in the Alberta oil sands on a 2 weeks out, 2 weeks home schedule that involved a heck-of-a-lot of flights back and forth across the country and quite a bit of time away from my daughter and husband. The other six months I spent contentedly unemployed, enjoying just being home but also very busy with a growing toddler, your usual insane amount of housework, and trying to fit lots of writing and a reasonable amount of leisure time in there was well.

This year I turned 29. Thanks to my work out West I paid off both my and my husband’s student loans, and completed the payments on our car, leaving us with no other debt besides our mortgage. I also struggled – both during work and during unemployment – to work as hard as I could on my writing, both the fiction and the blogging varieties. This year I participated in my sixth NaNoWriMo and netted my fifth win.  I also (nearly) completed editing on my first ever finished manuscript, and I wrote a significant amount toward a fantasy adventure that I’ve been working on for several years now.

I wrote 248 blog posts this year. Two hundred and forty-eight.

My daughter turned three years old this year. I made her a kick-ass MegaMan costume for Halloween, which she loved, and I built (from scratch) a tickle trunk for her for her birthday. Speaking of which, I baked and decorated about a million My Little Pony cupcakes for that birthday as well.

We had an awesome holiday, I was given some truly awesome presents by my husband and my whole family, my daughter proved that she could quickly figure out the use of a kid-tablet that’s marketed more toward older kids, and here we find ourselves at the end of 2013, just waiting for the clock to tick over.

And so here is my last bout of accountability for the year, with comparisons to the “Wildly Improbable Goals” that spawned them in the first place.

Health and Body Image Goal

1. Get into some kind of shape that makes me feel good about my body again…I’m not looking at a particular amount of weight-loss or anything specific, just a state of physical being that I feel good about. I slate this as a wildly improbable goal because, as I’ve mentioned before, my work schedule makes devoting time to such a thing particularly difficult.

A year has passed since I wrote the above, and not a lot has changed outwardly. If I were to go hunt down a photo of myself from last January and compare it to a photo now you probably wouldn’t see much of a difference. I had periods throughout 2013 where I did an excellent amount of exercise, and periods when I was more slovenly than I’ve ever been in my life. I had periods during which I ate pretty well, and periods during which I deserved every second of the stomach pains that I incurred. I managed to work myself toward running a 10 min/mile, and then completely lost that ability.

But here’s the thing: though I didn’t lose any (significant) weight or inches, wasn’t able to go down a pant size or stick to a healthy eating routine, I did accomplish something. I came to a realization that while I do want to lose some weight and become healthier overall, I am perfectly satisfied with my body the way it is right now. I don’t feel fat, I don’t feel ugly. I feel like a mom and a wife and a tradeswoman, and that’s okay with me, even if I go a whole year more without losing a single pound.

Editing Goal

2. Finish editing my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide. It’s time to get this f’er on the shelves, damn it!

A good chunk of 2013 saw this goal effectively ignored, due to my complete inability to find a decent word processor to work from my tablet while I was out West. But when I did finally get to work on this goal, I really went crazy. Everything came to a screaming halt once the holidays hit, but to date I only have approximately two and a half chapters (which, I think, are the best-written chapters anyway) to finish editing. So while I didn’t technically complete this goal, I feel very good about where I managed to find myself and am confident that I’ll be able to do something great with my manuscript in the new year.

1,000,000 Word Goal

3. Write 1,000,000 words in 2013. This is the big one. Where am I going to find the time? I have no idea. But between blog posts, drabbles, new stories, and new scenes added to NtH during editing, I want to accomplish a total word count of ONE MILLION words by the end of 2013. Wouldn’t that be something? I think it would.

It became evident within the first few months of the year that this wasn’t likely to happen. There just weren’t enough hours in the day while I was out West in order to write the 83,333 words per month necessary to complete this goal. I eventually came to the conclusion that 500,000 words was a more reasonable goal, though I continued to refer to it as the 1,000,000 word goal, because wouldn’t that be awesome? Unfortunately, as with my editing goal, the holidays hit at just the right time to keep me from progressing quite far enough. As of the completion of this post, my grand total word count for the year of 2013 came to 457,067 words. I didn’t come anywhere near my original million word hope, and I came several thousand words short of my revised half-a-million word hope, but I have to be honest: I’m quite amazed with what I did manage to do. I’ve been writing for more than 15 years, and I don’t know if I wrote so many words over the course of the first 14 all together, never mind that many over the course of one year. I’m incredibly proud of myself and have every intention of blowing away that personal record in 2014. Here’s to acting like a real writer. 🙂

So there it is. One year ends, another one begins. I hope everyone has a great New Years Eve, and that everyone greets 2014 with heads held high.

See you all next year. 🙂