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!

August 2015: Goals In Review

This post is a few days late because I wanted to finish up with the FODMAP Diet Experiment and then it was time for the monthly Insecure Writer’s Support Group post, then we had the little missy’s first day of school, followed by a Flash Fiction Friday post, and now I’m writing this instead of a Memoir Monday post because I’m not waiting any longer, dammit!. August is over and done with, we are firmly within the realm of September, and it’s time to get down with the goals in review before October sneaks up on me.

Goal #1: Take care of myself more.

This may shock you right out of your socks, but I had a lot of ups and downs with this goal during August. Astounding, right? I bet you can’t even believe it.

There are a number of factors to look at. For one thing, I did the low FODMAP experiment for two weeks while I was on shift out West. I was hoping that it might help resolve some specific digestive issues I’ve been having as of late, but in the end it made absolutely no change. I do admit that it’s a healthier way of eating (the four-pound weight loss just helps prove it), but I can honestly say that sticking to the diet mostly just made me depressed. Maybe that’s a sign that my body has become so used to copious amounts of sugar that it can’t adjust (which is definitely not a good thing), but all I can say is that I would rather be happy and a little unhealthy than a little healthier but depressed all the time.

Another aspect of this goal is that I spent a good deal of the month (the end of one work shift and the entirety of another) fighting with two warring aspects of my brain: one wanted copious amounts of sleep, the other wanted to actually enjoy a few moments of my evenings. The second part often won because even on the nights that I went to bed super-early I still woke up feeling pretty much like hell anyway. This further cements my belief that my body is somehow broken because it seems to need a minimum of nine hours of uninterrupted sleep in order for me to actually feel refreshed in the morning. Since this is literally impossible while I’m on shift (12-hour day, plus 1 hour travel, plus 1 hour for shower and dinner, plus 1 hour breakfast and getting ready in the morning means I’d have to fall immediately asleep directly off the bus in the evening) I find myself stuck with this pretty frustrating predicament that isn’t likely to be amended any time soon.

Finally, I have to admit that I did pretty much negative amounts of relaxation this month, unless you count those half-hours per night that I would crash on my camp bed and watch YouTube. My days off were surprisingly busy, considering that there were no major events going on, and then there’s the work days, which you’ve already heard plenty about. Long story short, I’m wound tighter than a drum and could really use a deep tissue massage.

Goal #2. Continue to build my readership/viewership.

I’ve been so bad at this for so long, and honestly I’ve been trying to be better. I’ve been trying to work myself into some kind of a groove wherein I actually think about tweeting or instagraming every now and then. It’s ridiculous because both of those things take literal seconds to do, but my brain just never goes there, or I only think about it when I’m working or otherwise indisposed.

The blog, unsurprisingly, has had pretty dismal stats for the past few months as a result. You really don’t realize what a help it is to share on your Facebook Author Page, or to regularly tweet something that leads back to a blog post, but it really does make a huge difference.

The good news is that my YouTube channel is still gaining steadily. At last check I’m up to about 350 followers, which amazes me considering the quality of my videos and the content involved. I wish I could somehow turn that into better stats for the blog as well, but despite mentioning the blog at the beginning of every video and linking it in the description boxes, it’s just not helping at all.

Finally, there’s the book, and I have to say that talking about it every month really makes me feel like I’m spinning my wheels. I’m not surprised that I have abysmal sales, considering the indie-ness that is my current situation, but it’s definitely no fun to talk about it every month. I haven’t had a review in quite a while either, which is also unsurprising, but the combination of no sales and no reviews really makes the world feel stagnant.

Goal #3: Write. Write a lot.

And finally we come to the writing, but unfortunately I don’t have good news like I had last month. It wasn’t an absolutely horrible month or anything, but I was hoping it would be a lot better. If you read my IWSG post you’ll know that I fell under the 20,000 mark this month with approximately 17119 words, and most of those words were just keeping the blog running. I actually wrote very little fiction, did very little revising/editing, and all in all just did a poor job of being a writer. I’d like to be able to say that I’m going to do better in September, but the truth is that I just feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels lately and maybe I just need to take a break.

So that’s how my month went, for better or for worse. What about yours? Did you accomplish anything? Go anywhere? Do anything fun? Please share in the comments!

July 2015 Goals in Review

Another month has come and gone, and frankly I’m a little shocked. Where did the time go? My summer (such as it is) is half gone! Well, some of the month went to parties and other celebrations, some to shopping trips and errands, and a large chunk of it to the day job that is slowly, slowly devouring my immortal soul. July disappeared on me in the blink of an eye – and a fair share of alcoholic beverages – but what about my goals? How did they fare?

Goal #1: Take care of myself more.

There are a lot of considerations to take into this month. First, the month started out in the second week of my last work shift, and it was a bit of a rough one. Between the smoke from the fires in Saskatchewan and a few days of rain that turned the Alberta dirt into a slippery mud deathtrap, I didn’t get out for any runs for the remainder of that shift. I was also eating pretty poorly because, dammit, I shouldn’t even have to defend myself when it comes to Wapasu camp food. Google “Wapasu” and you’ll probably find at least ALL OF THE PEOPLE complaining about the food.

[/mini rant]

Then I went home, and things didn’t really get any better because they were some of my busiest days home in ages. In twelve days I drove to my hometown for an all-night bachelorette party, drove home the next morning to celebrate our anniversary with my husband and some friends, spent almost three full days in Halifax shopping and visiting friends, and spent two more days back in the hometown to celebrate the mother-in-law’s fiftieth birthday. And that’s not taking into consideration that I was trying to spend time with my daughter, filming and editing YouTube videos, trying to squeeze in writing and blogging time, and doing all that good constant stuff like cooking and cleaning and errands. So, basically, my days off were a whirlwind of alcohol, fast food, and stress (albeit, most of it the good kind of stress).

It wasn’t until I got back to work that things started to work themselves out a little bit. The weather cooperated for my first week, so I managed to get several good runs in before the monsoons started up again, and according to my FitBit I was successful in averaging 10,000 steps per day throughout the shift. I can’t say much about eating well because there’s only so good you can eat at Wapasu (seriously…ask around), but I did manage to go the entire two weeks drinking only water and the occasional tea. That’s a pretty big deal for me since I usually drown myself in pop while I’m on shift.

So basically the month finished off strong, and now the key is to take those good habits home with me. Wish me luck!

Goal #2. Continue to build my readership/viewership.

July was not a good month for this goal because of the never-ending streaks of busy that I previously mentioned. It was difficult enough as it was to get my blog posts written and my YouTube videos shot without also worrying about tweeting and ‘graming and remembering to post stuff on my Facebook page. Basically the whole social media system just shut down on me this month: I’m even still catching up on replying to blog and video comments because they just piled up so high on me.

But despite my disorganization and inability to add extra hours to the day, my numbers are still rising. It’s a slow rise, but I regularly get notifications for new followers on all fronts. About the only numbers that have remained stagnant are book sales, which is admittedly depressing, but unsurprising.

Goal #3: Write. Write a lot.

With the previous two goals filled with “oh my god I was so busy”-ness, you’re probably expecting me to say that it was a bad month for this goal. Oh, my dear readers, you know me so well.

Except that I’m happy to prove you wrong with this bomb: July was actually my best month of 2015 so far!

I’m not entirely sure when or how it happened, but somewhere along the line I managed to write 24233 words, and over half of those words were fiction in the form of new and revised scenes for Book One of “The Other World”. Because of this truly spectacular (and unexpected) month, I am very close to finishing the second draft of my manuscript, which means that I can ship it off to my beta-reader and get to work on Book Two! That’s big progress for me, and I’m genuinely proud of myself, which doesn’t happen very often and this is totally awesome.

So all in all, thought it had its share of bumps and seemed to have gone by in a blink, I’m going to go ahead and call July a win! Here’s to extending that trend in August!

How was your July? Did you get anything accomplished? Do anything fun? Please share!

Totally-Probable Goals for 2015

Well, ladies and gents, this is it: it’s officially 2015. Where the heck did 2014 go? I honestly have no idea. I really feel like it was just yesterday that I was making my list of goals for 2014, and now here I am making new ones for 2015. I must be getting old or something, because time…man.

Anyway, let’s look at happier things than time flying out beneath me. First of all, if you saw my “Year in Review” post yesterday you’d have seen that I had approximately 35,000 views last year. At first that didn’t seem like a very large number to me, but then I looked at previous years and realized that the most views I’d gotten in a year before this past one was about 11,000. So that means that my view base has more than tripled in one year! Not too shabby, I’d say. However, something that I noticed when comparing my stats with some of my fellow bloggers’ is that while I have more views than several of them, almost all of them have significantly more comments than me. This makes me wonder if there’s something about the way I write, the topics I choose, or some other factor that makes people not want to bother interacting with my posts, and that’s something that I’d really like to work on. So if anyone has any thoughts, comments, or suggestions, please let me know! Interaction is important. 🙂

So with that out of the way, what about the coming year? Well, I’ve learned a few things from last year that I plan to apply to the coming year. First and foremost, I am not making any goals pertaining to weight loss. Screw you, diet industry. And it’s not that I don’t think I could stand to lose a few pounds, but I’m just sick and tired of setting myself up for failure. The fact of the matter is that regardless of how I feel about my weight, it is not the most important issue in my mind, not by a long shot. Therefore making a goal like that, I may as well just admit today that it’s not going to be accomplished. Hands down, when my options are to exercise, to write, to sleep, to spend time with my family, to play games, or to work on the blog/social media/etc, exercise will always be the absolute last choice. There’s no denying that. So from here on out, no goals about weight loss. Weight loss would be awesome, but I’m not holding myself to a goal like that any more.

Second of all, in the past two years I’ve made my list of goals and then reported on them on a weekly basis: my “Accountability” posts. I’m not going to do that anymore. About midway through 2014 I began to realize that those posts were more or less a way for me to have a really easy writing day every week, and that they weren’t contributing anything to the blog. Yes, occasionally I got some interaction on those posts from readers, but I think I would have gotten just as much interaction had they been monthly posts instead of weekly ones. So from here on out, my “Accountability” posts will be an end-of-month report instead of a weekly whine-fest. (Oh yeah, I’m going to try to work on the whining too…lol)

Third, sometime over the course of the next month (before I return to work), I’m going to try and straighten up the blog a bit and create an actual author page. I like the blog the way it is and I don’t really want to change it, but I think that as a published author I should have at least one page that just says who I am and promotes the book. Something a little more professional-looking, yes? Maybe with a couple of widgets so that you can still connect to my forms of social media via that page. We’ll see how it turns out. 😉

And finally, I guess it’s time to talk about the actual goals. So what are my goals for 2015?

Goal #1: Take care of myself more.
I may not be making any goals about weight loss, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make a goal pertaining to my physical and mental well-being. This is a very broad goal, but basically boils down to the fact that I want to work on thinking about myself more often. I’ve already started the trend by taking the time to pamper myself with things like a manicure, or an extra-long shower while wearing a mud mask. Little things to help relax, you know? But I’d also like to work on other little things, like forcing myself to relax and read/play games/watch shows more often, getting up and moving every now and then, and maybe even eating a little better (although that one will always be a huge stretch for me). Basically, this is an all-encompassing goal for the betterment of my personal lifestyle. Wish me luck.

Goal #2: Continue to build my readership/viewership.
Last year this goal was to “work hard on my author platform”. This is basically the same idea, except I’m not really calling it an “author platform” anymore. I’m preferring to think of it as a “me platform”. Yes, the biggest part of my online presence is meant to be “author” me, but there’s really no sense in pigeonholing myself like that. If people find me through Instagram because of a cute pic I posted, that’s awesome. If people find me because they stumbled across one of my unboxing videos on YouTube, that’s awesome. Any way that people come to me is great; it’s not just about directing them to the blog. Ultimately, of course, the goal is to connect with as many people as possible in hopes that they will one day become the readers of my books, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to be chasing after them with a jpeg of the “Nowhere to Hide” cover, screaming for them to buy. No, I want people to find me whichever way they can, and hopefully that will eventually lead to more books sold. If not, hey, it’ll still be pretty awesome just to be viewed.

Goal #3: Write. Write a lot.
I seriously considered setting myself another specific word count goal this year, but I eventually decided against it. You know why? Similarly to the weight loss goals, it just sets me up for failure. I don’t need a specific word count to strive toward; all having one does is make me panic as I steadily realize that I’m running out of time. So this year I’m just focusing on the writing. I’m going to try for 500-1000 words per day, but I’m not going to panic if I don’t accomplish that. Just as long as I’m writing. And I will still keep track, but only because I’ll be interested to see what the final numbers work out to. Hopefully this last goal will lead to the publishing of another book this year, but again, I’m not going to hold myself to it because I don’t want to rush and stress myself out. All things in good time.

So those are my goals for 2015. Take care of myself, keep building the blog/YouTube channel/various other social media outlets, and write like I mean it. I think they’re pretty good ones, ones that will keep me grounded this coming year without stressing me out.

What do you think? Have you made any goals for 2015? How are you planning to go about achieving them? Please share! We can support each other. ^_~

Accountability Wednesdays: The LAST ONE!

Guys…guys…guys…can you believe that it’s almost the end of 2014? Like, seriously. I’m wigging out a bit.

And with that, you may have noticed that the next two Wednesdays are Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, which means that I definitely will not be writing accountability posts. Therefore this is going to be the last one! I’ll include other stats and whatnot into my “2015 Goals” post when I write it, but as far as 2014 is concerned this is the last of the accountability. Woo! I actually feel a bit liberated. So let’s get this over with!

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

This was not a good year for this goal. There were a lot of excuses (good and bad), a lot of roadblocks, and a lot of reasons to spend my time on anything other than exercising. In the end, not only did I not lose ten pounds, but I actually gained several. As of this date I’m weighing in at about 2 lbs higher than what I began with in January.

The upside of that is that, strangely, I feel a lot more comfortable in my skin now than I did at the beginning of the year. I have my trouble spots, I have my little bits that bother me, but all in all I’m happy with the way I look, which I think is much better than actually losing the weight.

In addition to that we have the health issues, which are slowly coming under control. I had a lot of tests done on my gastrointestinal track and was eventually given a medication that helps to stop the stomach spasms that plague me whenever I travel. Then I was later given a medication for the anxiety that no one really realized I had until I mentioned to my doctor that I was the kid who threw up on the first day of school every year. Said prescription is not something that I can take every day forever (the effects weaken as you take it too much), but at least it’s available for me when I need it, and knowing that it helps proves that it’s a treatable condition. Two thumbs up to that.

So all in all, I guess it was a good year for this goal. My original intentions for the goal were not realized, but I came out of it happier and healthier, if in different ways.

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

I’m on the fence about the success of this goal. I definitely took a couple of steps in the direction by joining Self-Publisher’s Showcase, tweeting more often, and finally recently giving in to Instagram, but I don’t know that the results have been so great. Over the course of the year I think I gained something like 80 new followers on the blog, maybe 50 new followers on Twitter, and a whopping 10 subscribers on YouTube, and while that’s great, it doesn’t feel like a lot compared to the amount of work I put in. Then again, I have a full-time job, so maybe the work I put in just feels like more than it really was.

In the end, things have been pretty good, but I hope to expand upon this goal in the future by looking to gain more followers on all mediums, as well as more readers now that I’ve got something for sale for them to read.

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

You all know how this goal went! Though it was stressful at times and I definitely wanted to give up more than once, I managed to slog through the editing process not once, but twice, and with the help of my wonderful beta-reader I think I wound up with a much better novel than I started with. I then scoured the depths of the internet to learn how to properly format a manuscript for self-publishing purposes, designed my own cover with the use of a photo taken by my very own father, and painstakingly slapped it all together on Create Space until the result looked correct. Then I ordered the first ever print copy of my first ever completed novel and just about cried on camera as I did an unboxing video of it.

Of course it hasn’t all be unicorn rides and fluffy kitten snuggles since then. I’ve sold approximately 30 print copies (mostly to family), and approximately 15 e-book copies (mostly to NaNoWriMo friends), and I gave away almost 200 e-book copies for free on Halloween, so all total I’ve made something like $60 or $70 on this book thus far. Marketing yourself is a difficult business, especially because you have to be careful not to be annoying, and zombie novels are not for everyone, so I’ve got a long road ahead of me. But in the end, I’m just so happy to have actually done it, to be able to say that I am a published author and that my book is available on Amazon and Kindle. That is super-cool, and it just motivates me to write more, to publish more, and to prove that I can be a professional fiction writer while also working a day job to support my family. Boo-ya.

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

Well I’ve been very positive in this post up to now, but there’s not a lot good I can say about this goal. At the beginning of the year I reduced my previous year’s goal by half, thinking that surely I would be able to handle it, but there were many road-blocks in my way.

Now, mind you, most of those road-blocks were completely reasonable ones. For instance I spent several months putting writing aside in favor of editing so that I could publish the novel. I also had a hard go at NaNoWriMo this year because I was working and thus only able to do my daily writing by hand. In addition to those blocks the length of my blog posts went down this year as I struggled to schedule stuff in advance so that I could work on more important things. All in all, it just turned out to be a pretty stressful year for writing. But the good news is that I did manage to keep up with the blog, only missing three or four scheduled days the entire year, and I’m also coming out of the end of 2014 with a very-nearly completed first draft of Book One of my upcoming “Other World” series. So that is definitely something!

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In the end, the year was full of ups and downs, as is wont to happen, but it was a pretty good one overall. I have my (relative) health, my small group of followers, my awesome self-published book, and the makings of more books coming into the new year with me. I think all of that deserves a celebration, so I’m going to spend the last two weeks of this year not worrying about anything except Christmas and having an awesome time with my family. How does that sound? ^_~

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 48

While reading this week’s accountability post, I ask you to remember that I threw a 4-year-old’s birthday party last weekend. That should earn me some amount of sympathy, right? Puh-lease?

Shown above: the only calm, quiet moment during the whole thing.

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

I don’t know why I even bother to keep talking about weight, so I’m not going to. Ha!

On the health side of things, however, I’m not feeling too bad. I kinda feel like I’m one step away from being a druggie, but with the help of a prescription to reduce stomach spasms, another prescription to help prevent anxiety attacks, and a combination of vitamins and fiber supplements, I haven’t been feeling half bad. I’ll give it a few more weeks before I make any assumptions, though.

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

Things have been a little quiet lately since I’ve been pretty busy, and to be honest I’ve been spending more time on BzzAgent and Influenster campaigns than working on my author platform. I hope to rectify that in the New Year, but if I’m even more honest I probably won’t be too diligent for the remainder of December. Hey, everyone needs a break sometimes, right?

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

You know what makes a great Christmas gift? A completed self-published novel, for which there is a link in the menu bar of this page. I’m just sayin’.

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

Would you be surprised if I told you that I don’t have a number for you? It’s kinda my thing now, not having numbers.

The long and the short of it is that I didn’t do much writing last week, and I gave up on NaNoWriMo at about 32,000 words. I probably could have finished, if I’d really out my nose to the grindstone, but doing so would have contributed to a very stressful week, and I really don’t need that right now. So I decided to take it easy instead. But fear not…I’m still working on the book, and I plan to make it next year’s goal to get it edited and in print. So it’s not all a loss. 🙂

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 47

My good people, how are you today? I have to be honest with you, I’m still trying to wake up, and there’s a reason for that, but more on that later. First I have to quickly correct a mistake. Remember the other day when I posted a bunch of random stuff that I had gotten behind on? Well I missed one. Arg! So now I’m backtracking to let you know about a little interview I did for a fellow blogger who does “NaNo Spotlight” posts every year during NaNoWriMo time. My spotlight can be found here, over at the Kelworth Files, so please check it out, and if you have the time check out some of the other spotlights as well!

Now on with all the other nonsense!

Goal #1: Lose ten pounds and become healthier overall

Okay, so it’s been a really long time since I actually bothered to weigh myself so that I could make a proper report, so I literally just stepped on the scale for the purpose of this post. Then I had to go through my archives to remind myself of where I started, and now I can report to you that I am still approximately 40% in the wrong direction. I mentioned before that over the course of several months I actually gained ten pounds rather than lose any, and now I’ve lost about six of those pounds, which still leaves me in the wrong side of the column. The upside of that is that for whatever reason, I actually feel like I look better later. Don’t ask me what’s up with that. Maybe I’ve just gotten so lazy that I’m convincing myself to change my mind, but I honestly have been feeling pretty happy with my appearance. Whatevs.

On the health side of things, the reason I feel so tired as I’m writing this is because I’m trying out yet another new medication. The prescription I got last month has been helping, but there are still other issues that need to be resolved, and so I’m trying out a new med that my doctor thinks will be helpful, but that so far makes my mornings feel like my brain is moving through molasses. Wish me luck with that.

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

I’ve gone a little downhill this week when it comes to the author platform side of things, because I’ve been busy with lots of life stuff, and when I do get a moment on the computer I’ve been using that time to do YouTube videos and bang off quick additions to my BzzAgent and Influenster campaigns. I’m hoping for things to even out a little next week, once my daughter’s birthday party is over and I have significantly less to worry about.

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

Done and done, and still not getting tired of saying it.

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

Oh MAN is this goal not going to happen. In fact, it’s not even going to come close! But I’m okay with that. I’ve come to terms.

Here’s the deal… Right off the bat, I spent a great portion of the year working on goal number 3, which was really important and I’m not the least bit sorry about that. But then I also had several periods throughout the year during which I did very quick, simple blog entries so that I could focus on other, more important things, so I lost a lot of words there as well. And then came NaNo. I’m really proud of the 30,000 words that I managed to handwrite in those first two weeks, but the end of the month came to a complete standstill. I had way too much (again, more important) stuff to worry about, and so as of today, with less than five days of NaNo left, I’m only up to about 33,000 words. Could I finish if I really wanted to? Probably, yes. But I’d have to lose a ton of sleep and gain a ton of stress as a result, because, again…more important stuff to do. So it is with a heavy heart (and yet, lighter shoulders) that I admit defeat to NaNo this year, for the second time in a row. But don’t worry…I plan to continue working on the manuscript and expect to have it done by the end of December, so I can start editing in the New Year.

But the 500,000 words thing? Not gonna happen. Just letting you know.

The Post Where I Catch Up on Things and Explain Absenses

If you follow my blog you may have noticed that I missed three posts this week: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, which should have been one Accountability post and two “642 Things to Write About” posts. And if you’re a follower you would also know that for me missing posts doesn’t happen very often, so I hope you’ll sympathize when I say that there just wasn’t any time. I traveled home from my shift out West on Monday/Tuesday, and though I normally would have gotten the “642 Things” posts written and scheduled during my layovers, I was actually feeling quite unusually nauseated and motion sick during my flights, so I instead spent my layovers curled up in the fetal position on the seats at flights’ gates. Then I got home and threw myself immediately into decorating for Christmas, which may seem like something that isn’t exactly a panic just yet, but since I fly back to work for two weeks on December 1st I really wanted to get the Christmas stuff out of the way so that I can actually enjoy it a bit before I leave again. And on top of all that my daughter’s 4th birthday is next weekend, so I’ve been running around getting stuff together for that. On the upside of all of this, I’ve only been home for three days and I’ve got quite a ton done. Today I should get  a ton more done, and then I should (mostly) be able to relax a little for the rest of the week.

In the meantime, here’s a couple of things you’ve missed because of my sporadic week:

Authors Answer #3 is up, and it’s a pretty interesting one! In this installment the 10 other authors and I discuss how easy or difficult it is for us to write characters with a different set of beliefs from our own. Check it out!

My goals are a bit scalded from being on the back-burner, and I refuse to step on a scale today, but I can tell you that social media has been my friend, I’ve sold a few more copies of the book, and my arm is damn near broken from all the handwriting I did while I was out at work without my laptop.

NaNoWriMo has also been put on the back burner due to all the stuff I’ve been trying to get done, but it’s not as bad as all that. Before my sickly travel day I managed to get my (HANDWRITTEN, remember) word count up to 30,000 words. That means that as of today I’m 5000 words behind, but you must remember that I’m also home now…where my laptop is. If I could HAND WRITE 30,000 words in 18 days, I’m sure I can use my almost 100-words-per-minute typing speed to bang out the last 20,000 words in 9 days.

I KILLED a brand-new pen, straight out of the box!

Maybe.

We’ll see. >.>

I feel like I’m missing a thing or two, but at the moment I can’t think of anything and I really should go about trying to get the rest of my nonsense done so that I can have a bit of time to myself, so I’ll leave it at this for now, and I’ll say that I’ll try to have proper posts up for next week, but I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I don’t. Because you’re all awesome. You know it. ❤

Social Media of the Future

Note: Today’s post is courtesy of a prompt from “642 Things to Write About“. Today’s prompt is: “Write Facebook status updates for the year 2017.”

For the sake of having a nice number, I figured I’d do one for each month.

January

Happy New Year everyone! My resolution is to write more this year than ever before! Woo!

February

Final Fantasy OhMyGodHaven’tWeRunOutOfNumbersYet from my hubby for Valentine’s Day…he knows me so well. ❤

March

Anyone want to line up some March Break play dates? I am SO not used to having the whirling dervish in the house 24-7.

April

Thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone! I’ve gotta be honest though, 33 doesn’t feel much different than 32. 😛

May

Goddammit, why are we still running our pellet stove? Come on, Spring, where the hell are you?!

June

Congratulations to all the little rugrats on their Grading Day! So proud of my little missy for acing the 2nd grade!

July

Big Summer Sale, everyone! For one week only, get the ebook version of Book One of the “Other World” series for FREE! Get it now because Book Two will be available before you know it!

August

Oh man, we’re more than halfway through the year and I have amassed twice as many new goals as I have finished old ones. Will I never get the hang of this nonsense we call life?

September

It’s Day One of the third grade! Good luck little missy! I know you’re gonna do just as great as usual. ❤

October

Joining our Halloween decoration family this year is Michael Myers and Pinhead. Hubby, dear, I think we’re starting to run out of room for this stuff.

November

Damn you and your strange, masochistic allure, NaNoWriMo…don’t you know I have a book release to deal with? Only 30k words to go…@_@

December

Happy Holidays everyone! Some wonderful presents in the Tobin house today! I think my little missy will be quite well to do with until 2018….next month. XD

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 45

Ladies and gentlement, we are a week and a half into National Novel Writing Month, and I am exhibiting signs of writing insanity and breakdown! I am getting constant comments from coworkers on how I can possibly write so much by hand and not be in horrible pain. And then, on “Double Up” day (when you are encouraged to double your word count for the day), I wrote so much that I genuinely was in a great deal of pain (luckily it felt better by the next morning). Today my pen started to act up, and upon examination I had run it completely dry…the same pen that I had pulled fresh from the pack less than five days prior! And now I’m getting into the giddy multiple-personality stage of the game, wherein one voice is screaming at me about how horrible the story is, and the other is screaming that editing is for December. My GOD, do I love NaNoWriMo!

But I digress. Let’s get this accountability nonsense out of the way, shall we?

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

Let’s not mince words here, people. This goal means nothing to me at the moment. How can I think about weight loss when I’m trying to HANDwrite almost 2000 words per day (whilst simultaneously working 12 hours a day)? I can’t, that’s how! Then again, all this writing has been distracting me from eating maybe there’s something to be had there…

Anyway, the real important thing is that the meds my doctor gave me seem to be helping quite a bit. There’s still an anxiousness factor that I can’t seem to get past, but hopefully as time goes on and I have fewer issues, the anxiousness will abate. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

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

Man, I have been ALL over Twitter this week. I’m just sayin’. Mostly that’s been because I’ve been hanging out and chatting with the #NaNoWriMo crowd, but that’s all good. It’s been keeping me (somewhat) sane through all the writing sprints.

In future news, I have my first ever Influenster Vox Box waiting for me when I get home next week, and I should also have my second ever BzzAgent campaign box waiting for me by then as well, so look forward to some fun! The Vox Box has a game for my daughter to play, so that should be tons of fun!

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

Nope, still not tired of reporting the completion of this goal. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

On an unrelated note, buy my book! 😀

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

Obviously I’ve gone a little wacky this week, and it’s mostly the symptom of this goal, exaccerbated by NaNoWriMo. I have been writing like the wind, killing my wrist, and putting together a manuscript that I really hope I will be able to make something off in the months following NaNoWriMo. If I were able to write by laptop (since I’m out at work I am severely limited in what I can accomplish) I would probably have twice the word count, but I am happy to report that as of your reading this I have already written 18,598 words for NaNoWriMo so far. Now, not all of those words were this week, but if you tack on the words I wrote for recent blog posts it makes this week’s total 16,723. And remember, the overwhelming majority of that was BY HAND. I’m going to be crippled by the time I get home to my laptop, but I’ll have one hell of a notebook to bring with me.

And with that all said, I need to lay my head down for a moment and “rest my eyes”. If you hear snoring, don’t worry, it’s just, um…the gears in my head turning. Yeah, let’s go with that.