Accountability Wednesdays: Weeks 34, 35, and 36

Can I start out this post by getting a little weepy? Don’t worry, there haven’t been any more deaths in the family or anything like that, but I have another reason to be a bit teary-eyed today. You see, as this post becomes live my daughter – my only child, by the way – is taking part in her first ever class of kindergarten. For the rest of the year, three half-days a week, she’ll be taking part in a “school” program for 4-year-olds, making new friends, learning new things, and getting used to what it means to be in school with teachers instead of home with parents. I know that she’ll do great, and I know that it will be very good for her, and I’m not worried at all about her…but I can’t help being just a little bit sad. My baby girl isn’t a baby anymore. How does that happen? And how can I stop it? *cry*

Okay, okay…I’m okay. Let’s move on to other, less teary things.

The past few weeks have been rough, and you may have noticed that as a result I missed two accountability posts in a row. So this week will be a bit of a conglomerate of the past three weeks.

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

I’m currently back out West again, so I can’t quote any numbers, but I can tell you that I’m currently experiencing a bit of an up-and-down period. Before the weeks that I missed, I’d been cutting out all beverages aside from water and tea, as well as trying to eat less in general, and that was going well. By the time I got home from my last shift I’d lost almost four pounds. But, as you know, the weeks that followed were busy and stressful. I had a couple of nights drinking (and eating, like, a metric ton of food) with family, followed by a shopping trip that involved a lot of poor meal choices, punctuated by a few days of flat-out refusing to do anything at all because I was so tired. As a result of all of that I’m fairly certain that I’ve gained back at least half – if not all – of what I lost. But I’m not letting that drag me down. I’m back on to the water and tea, and I’m determined to get a decent amount of sleep while I’m at work this shift. Wish me luck.

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

This goal has taken a back seat recently, since I’ve been so busy and stressed out, but it’s not all bad. I’ve had a difficult time keeping up with the blogging community because that involves so much reading, but I’ve been more active on Twitter, and I’ve been continuing to post videos on YouTube (please check them out…my handle is toreshitobinable). I even recorded a new video from my camp room last night, though it’s not been posted yet. All in all, I think I’m managing pretty well considering how busy I’ve been of late. This goal could definitely use more work, but I’m satisfied that I haven’t been screwing up too much. 😛

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

Awesome, awesome, awesome news on this one! I didn’t get to talk about it two weeks ago, but I completed my mini-goal of finishing the final edits on the manuscript by the end of my last shift. I then shipped off the finished manuscript to my beta-reader for a final run-through, for which I am currently awaiting word on. But the best part? While I’ve been waiting for her, I fixed up my book cover, created a rear cover with a summary, and went through almost every step to self-publish on CreateSpace. My files have all been approved and I literally just have to hit “Print!” As soon as I get word from my beta-reader I’m going to go through the manuscript one more time to check for hidden typos and the like, and then it’s off to the printers! I’m so excited! I am seriously, genuinely almost there! AHHHH!!!!!!

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

You know what? I don’t even care about this goal right now because I’m so excited about my novel! AHHHH!!!!

Okay, okay, I do still care, but I can’t really report because I haven’t been keeping proper track of everything the past couple of weeks. I know that the first week I missed I had something like 7000 words, then the second week I wrote effectively nothing, and this past week I wrote probably about 3000 worth of subscription box reviews, so let’s just call it about 10,000 over the past three weeks. That puts me in around 200,000 words so far this year. That’s very far behind, but once I get the self-publishing bit out of the way I’ll have nothing left to do but write, and oh boy, have I got some stuff in my head that’s ready to get down onto paper. 😀

And on that cheery note, I’m going to dance off into the metaphorical sunset where my internal editor can live happily ever after. ❤

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 22

You know what’s incredibly adorable? A three-year-old helping out in the garden. I have the kind of plants around my house that require you to pull away the dead stuff each Spring, and the second I put my gardening gloves on the little missy demanded that she have a pair too. Fifteen minutes and one trip to Canadian Tire later and I had this helping me out with my landscaping:

That is how you make gardening fun right there. Best little cedar-chip spreader I ever met. Also, gardening…hard freakin’ work. Really brings home how terribly out of shape I am. And speaking of being out of shape…

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

I’m proud to say that I’ve managed to keep on track since my post last week. I am now in the middle of week 2 of my exercise plan, which involves three days a week of the Zombies! Run! app, three days a week of a strength-training program, and one rest/stretch day. For myself, the trick to exercise has always been keeping my brain amused. I used to read magazines while walking on the treadmill. That worked once, but at the moment I’m at a point where just walking isn’t going to do me any good. That’s why the Zombies! Run! app is great, because it’s like living a little story while learning how to run. I’m doing the 5k training version of the app, and it starts out really slow, which is good for me because I’m so out of shape that 20 seconds of running has me panting like a heat-stressed dog.

For the strength-training I’ve been following the program in a book I’ve had for a while called Buff Brides. My husband laughed at me when he saw me looking at it and pointed out that I haven’t been a bride for a while. I punched him and told him that I was pretty sure my body didn’t care whether it was going to be ultimately wearing a wedding dress or not. I chose that program because I did it before (guess when?) and it’s strenuous enough for me to get something out of it while being low-key enough for me to not want to throw up while doing it (an important factor for me). Mind you strength training is incredibly boring to me, which is why I’ve been watching TV shows while doing it. Win-win.

Anyway, long story short, I’ve been getting all my exercise in this week. The eating aspect of trying to lose weight and get healthier is a little bit more difficult and I can’t honestly say that I’m doing well there. Baby steps, right? Right.

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

I’m seriously considering removing this from the list simply because it’s hard to write about every week. 😛

Everything is pretty much the same as it has been during previous weeks. The big thing that I did this week was to participate in Jay Dee’s What Will You Write? challenge…which I won. ^_^ It was fun, and I’m expecting it to get big as time goes on, so I’ll keep participating.

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

I can’t really report anything this week because there was no physical accomplishments. In my defense, it’s been a really busy week. That said, I’ve got it mentally worked out how I’m going to proceed with the next few chapters (which will have some minor revisions), so I’m all prepared. The next two days are going to be a bit of a write-off because I’ve got company coming today and a 3-hour drive on my hands tomorrow, but I am confident that this weekend I will get a chance to sit down and really get some work done.

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

It was a good week. Even though a few of the things that I wrote are things that I don’t think are ever going to be published in any manner, I did wind up with a total of 9172 words this week, which is nothing to sneeze at. I’ve been trying to get as much out as I can before I return to work because I don’t know what my output is going to be like once that happens. I’m also trying to schedule lots of blog posts in advance, which really helps with the word count. But, that said, I’m starting to run out of ideas, so if anyone wants to make any suggestions I’d be happy to hear them. lol

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 9

By the time you are reading this I will have been home from my shift out West for approximately one full day, which also means that I’ll have been unemployed for one full day. Yes, my job has ended once again. I was aware that it might not last very long because of the nature of the work we were doing, but I was a bit surprised to have been laid off so soon. I expected to get at least one more month out of it, as evidenced by the flight I had already booked and now wont get reimbursed for. But I’m not bitter. No, really, no bitterness here at all.

Hopefully I’ll get back to work sooner rather than later (if anyone knows of any commissioning jobs starting up soon, for the love of god let me know), but in the meantime I’m going to look on the positive side, which is that I’ll have time to focus on my goals for a little while.

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

I have mixed feelings about the success of this week, but I’m going to go ahead and say that it was a good one overall. For one thing, I successfully avoided calorie-bomb beverages for five out of seven days, and on those other two days it was just half a can of pop with supper. For every other beverage throughout the week I drank either water or herbal tea (with no milk or sugar). And for the record, that’s a huge sacrifice for me because I love pop and loathe plain water.

On the exercise front I can’t say that I did anything significant, but that’s because I’m much more out of shape than I thought I was. Every time I try to do anything I wind up feeling that my heart is going to burst from my chest, and the next morning my body feels like I got hit by a truck. So my plan for the next few weeks (and hubby, if you’re reading this, make me do it) is to hop on the treadmill for half an hour a day until I start to feel like I can handle something a little more intense.

Also, as a side note, I discovered that my FitBit can sync with the “My Fitness Pal” app, which is my favorite app for keeping track of calorie intake and exercise, so yay for that!

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

Week 9 was definitely not as good as week 8, but still not bad. I slacked off a little on Twitter, but I’ve been working hard on the “reciprocation” side of social media. That is, I’ve been actually hitting the “Like” button (or the “Favorite” button, or whatever) when I like something that someone else has posted or shared. I’ve also been sharing things that I really like to help promote them, and commenting on things instead of just moving on after I’ve enjoyed them. It only seems fair. If I want people to interact with me, I should interact with them, right? Right.

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

I feel like I’m forever repeating the same things over and over again, but as previously mentioned I haven’t been able to work on this for a while because I’ve been out West. That said, now that I’m home and unemployed for an indeterminate amount of time, I plan to put a real drive on for the final draft. If I can whip through the changes that I want to make based on my beta-reader’s comments, I should have a final draft in no time. Then I can focus on things like formatting and a cover, and get this sucker published!

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

The week when I fly home from out West always takes a hit on word count because of all the time I end up spending on packing, sitting on (extremely bumpy) buses, and just dealing with the hassles of traveling in general. That said, I’m actually not too disappointed in how I did this week. Handwriting blog entries in my notebook, I managed to put 3524 words to paper this week. I hope to at least double that number this coming week, so wish me luck!

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 8

As I type this I am just over one week in to my shift, and you can’t even fathom how much I long for this particular one to be over. I don’t know if it’s the cold (Alberta, seriously, get some normal weather) or the air (my nose has been bleeding every single morning), or if I’m just straight up exhausted, but whatever the reason I am definitely ready to head back to Nova Scotia.

And with that cranky-arse attitude out of the way, let’s deal with this whole accountability deal.

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

I’m going to go ahead and really invoke the spirit of accountability here, and just admit that it has been a truly horrible week for this particular goal. I started off my shift pretty good, snacking on vegetables, avoiding any beverages aside from water and my David’s Teas, but then something snapped inside of me and I just started gnashing on sweets and cream soda like a ravenous, sweet-toothed wolf. I would like to blame a certain monthly phenomenom for this lack of willpower, but for the most part, yeah…it was just a complete and utter lack of willpower.

I have been taking my multi-vitamins every day. Does that give me any points?

The exercise side of things was just as sad. Last Wednesday my work partner and I got a job that required us to climb a crap ton of ladders and stairs. All total I estimated that we climbed approximately 300 vertical feet. And it nearly killed me. I had to grab my inhaler halfway through, and there were at least three or four instances when I had to stop because I was certain that I was as close to a heart attack as I had ever been before. That day I realized how truly out of shape I really am, and resolved to start really working to change that. The following night I did a workout video in my camp room and promptly spent the next three days hobbling around like a ninty-year-old woman.

I think I’m going to have to take some baby steps. Anyone know a good exercise program for toddlers? 😛

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

I wouldn’t say that I’ve ascended to the title of social media master just yet, but this was actually quite an excellent week for me. I spent some time chatting up fellow writers on Twitter, participated similarly in the blogging community, and even spent a bit of extra time on Facebook, promoting blog posts. Between the post promotion and mentioning my video game novelizations on Twitter, my blog saw a nice little influx of views and comments over the past few days. My numbers are still nothing to really write home about, but they’re definitely growing, and any kind of growth is good in my books.

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

As mentioned last week, there’s not a lot I’ve been able to do at the moment while I’m on shift, but rest assured that I’ve got plans made. I’ve got the key points made by my beta-reader scrutinized thoroughly, and I have a list of ideas to fix up the manuscript based on her input. I really do think that these changes are going to make my novel a heck of a lot better in the long run. 🙂

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

I can’t say that it was a great week, but I’m pleasantly amused with what I did manage to get done, considering that pretty much all of my writing while out on shift is done freehand in a notebook. By working on planning out some blog posts (including one that will be a guest post for another blog, which is quite exciting), I managed to put 4485 words to paper this week, which is nothing to sneeze at. I’m hoping to do a little better this following week because I’ve got a bit of a side project that I’m working on. Recently I discovered the website for something called the A to Z Blog Challenge and immediately signed up. Expect to hear more about it in the future, but for now it’s time to get back to work! Ciao!

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!

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.