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 26

Two things to mention before I get to the heart of the matter today. First of all, it’s week number 26! That means I’m halfway through the year! And while I’m nowhere near where I would need to be to be on track with my million word goal, I’ve written more in the past six months than in the previous 2 years combined! But more on that later.

The other thing I want to mention is that as you are reading this I am packing up my last couple of bits and bobbles from the control room at work, chucking it all in a backpack, and awaiting the bus that will return me to camp where I’ll giddily await my plane home. My last plane home. That’s not to say that I won’t end up back out in Alberta for work in a few months or so, but for now I’m heading home with nothing on the horizon except spending quality time with my family and maybe enjoying a number of alcoholic beverages from the comfort of my back deck. Look upon me and be in awe, for I am officially ON VACATION!

Okay, that’s enough of that. 🙂

Health and Body Image Goal

I’ve been a bit on the ins and outs with this goal, unfortunately, but I’m still not doing too badly. As I mentioned last week I did, in fact, drag myself to the gym and try running on the treadmill. It wasn’t ideal, but acceptable. I figured that’s what I’d do until my stomach felt better. But then my stomach felt worse. I don’t know if it’s the actual physical exertion that’s bothering me, or if it’s the camp food (which, thank god, I won’t be enjoying any more of any time soon), or if I’ve been suffering from some as-yet-diagnosed condition inherited from my sickly parents (love you guys, really :P), but I’ve hardly been able to stand leaving my room in the morning and suffering through the bus ride to work, never mind exercising on top of that. Luckily, about two days ago, my symptoms seemed to subside and I’ve felt halfway decent since then, so here’s hoping all will be well when I get home and try to run around my neighborhood again.

All that said, I’ve still been managing to eat pretty well. I’ve had a cookie here, some pop there, but for the most part I’ve been eating decent food (or as decent as it gets on camp) and not too much of it. I haven’t weighed or measured myself recently because I doubt I’ve lost anything during my refusal-to-exercise days, but I’ve recently had an unusual number of coworkers tell me that I look like I’ve lost weight, so I’m just going to go ahead and say, “Woohoo! I look like I’ve lost weight!”

Editing Goal

I have a stupid, STUPID confession to make. I did try to get some editing done this week, I swear, I really did. But when I finally took out my tablet and opened up the files I transferred there for editing purposes, I discovered something idiotic. Of the four different word-processor-ish apps I have on my tablet, none of them open rtf files. Guess what format all my files are in? After two days of searching for an Android program that DOES open rtf files (for free, because screw that, I’m not paying for an app that I only need for a week) I gave up and admitted defeat. Apparently the world of tablets and smartphones does not believe in the existence of rtf files. So the editing will have to wait for this coming week. Grr.

1,000,000 Word Goal

I have been writing like a maniac this week, mostly due to my rediscovery of 750Words.com. I don’t know what it is, but I love just typing and typing and typing and watching the word counter go up. It’s addictive. Over the course of the week I’ve written blog posts, typed out a few scenes for Returning Hope, did a couple of writing exercises, and did a little bit of free-writing (i.e. writing whatever came to my head as it came to my head). Through all of this combined I managed to once again beat my best week score with a total word count of 16556. In addition to that, I’m happy to announce that I’ve reached a yearly total so far of over 165,000. Again, it’s nowhere near where I need to be for my goal, but it’s a heck of a lot more than I normally would have written, so I’m proud. Revel in my pride! Only six months to go to try and boost that total up as high as I can!

And with that said, I plan to spend the next several hours in the lounge at camp, with my feet up, reading A Dance With Dragons, and waiting for my final flight home. See you soon, Cape Breton!

Catch Ya on the Flip Side, Alberta!

As has been known to happen on occasion, my life has come to another set of crossroads. Tomorrow, after a mere 5-1/2 hours of jumping around the office like a lunatic, my job will be done. I’ll board a bus to go back to camp, where I’ll have a snack, grab my bags, and wait for the bus that takes us to the air strip. Once I’m on the plane it will be a moderately uncomfortable nine hour flight, and then I’ll be back home, with no idea of what the future holds.

I am amazingly calm about that fact.

Less than two years ago my world was turned upside down when the mill where my husband and I both worked shut down. At the time I had only been back for two months after having been off on maternity leave, and my husband was home taking a few months of parental leave. We’d been trying to work out what we were going to do for child care when he returned to work (and how the hell we were going to afford it); we still had student loans to pay, a car loan to deal with, and a mortgage hanging over our heads, to say nothing of the fact that we had a tiny little princess who relied on us to take care of her.

Those weren’t good days. I readily admit that on the day the announcement was made I broke down more than a couple of times. I was the only woman in the section of the mill where I worked, and as such I spent a rather large chunk of the day locked alone inside the women’s locker room, trying to gather up the pieces of my shattered psyche. I had no idea what we were going to do. Numbers kept running through my mind, and those numbers told me that there was no way we could pay our mortgage, our car payment, our student loans, and all those little things like food and heat on two unemployment checks. A quick call to the bank that holds our mortgage revealed that there was no kind of safeguard for this situation: we would still have to make our full payments. A longer look into the local job bank website revealed what I already knew: that there were no other jobs for an instrumentation tech or an industrial electrician nearby enough that we wouldn’t have to move to obtain them (and since the housing market in our area is so bad, there was no way we’d be able to get rid of our house and move). Basically, the weight of the world fell down on me all at once. We were trapped in a town with no job opportunities, in a house that we had little to no chance of selling, with bills that we would have no way of paying. We had a little savings set aside, but it wouldn’t last long. By the end of that first day I was Googling the repercussions of filing bankruptcy.

In retrospect, my reaction was a little more dramatic than was necessary, but it was still a rough time. I had no idea what we were going to do, and I was STRESSED OUT. There were no jobs in our field that were a reasonable distance away, and the jobs outside our field barely paid more than what we would be receiving on employment insurance. The only other skill I felt I had was writing, but I had no idea how to go about that, and writing takes time that we didn’t really have.

My husband and I had to make a hard decision; one of us would have to stay at home with the baby while the other went out West for work.

Those who don’t live in Canada might not understand exactly what I mean, but I can put it pretty simply: the overwhelming majority of good jobs in Canada are located in Alberta, specifically on the oil sands. Lots and LOTS of people travel from their homes in other provinces to find work in Alberta. Many of the oil sands jobs involve working strange shifts, such as working for ten days straight and then having four days off, or working for three weeks straight and then having two weeks off. Depending on the company they might fly you back and forth from your home for every shift, or you may have to pay for your own flights if you want to go home. Some jobs require you to find a place to stay nearby (and, ideally, pay you a “living out allowance”) and others book you a room at a “camp” where you stay while you’re on shift.

To put it in simple terms, working “out West” is not an ideal situation. You’re away from home, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months at a time, away from your family, and often with many restrictions put on you (for instance, many of the “camps” prohibit alcohol and you can lose your job if you even show up to check-in with the hint of liquor on your breath). There can be good money to be made, depending on where you go and what kind of work you do, but many people won’t even consider this kind of life because of the implications of being away from home for so long.

But we had to do something, so my husband and I started applying for jobs. He got the first call, for a job that required him to find his own place to stay and transportation to and from work. It was a ten-days-on, four-days-off shift, which meant that even if he wanted to pay for the flights he couldn’t really come home (it takes almost a full day to fly from Alberta to Nova Scotia, another to fly back again, and it would cost a major chunk of his check). It was an awful job that he understandably hated, but luckily he was only there for a month when I got the call for my job. It would be two weeks on, two weeks off, the company would pay for all flights, and it was a “camp” position, so I’d have no expenditures while there. It also paid quite good money, so we’d easily be able to survive (and save!) even with my husband at home watching the baby. It was probably the best offer I could have gotten.

And it terrified me. I tried not to show it, but it absolutely terrified me. I’d never even been on a plane before, never mind flying 75% of the way across the country, and being away from my baby girl for two weeks at a time. The morning I left for my first shift I struggled not to start bawling my eyes out while sitting past security waiting for my flight. I really didn’t know how I was going to handle it.

I’ve been at that job for a year now, and it hasn’t felt nearly that long. Despite all my fears and worries, it turned out to be a great job. I’ve had awesome coworkers, and in my time out here I’ve managed to pay off all of our student loans, plus the remainder of the car loan, and I’ve put money aside for the baby’s education fund, in addition to our other savings (which will put a big chunk in the mortgage when our term comes up next year). There were lonely days, but I was able to Skype with my husband and the baby most nights, and when I was actually at home I could spend two straight weeks just playing with the baby if I wanted to. After an incredible amount of stress over the loss of both of our jobs, we found ourselves in a position to actually get ahead, and I haven’t suffered for it. The lifestyle may not be ideal, but it’s not impossible to do. It was a good decision to make.

So now that this job is over, I’m heading home without stress clouding my mind. We may be back to dual-unemployment, but it won’t last forever. We have significantly less debt than we had a year ago, we’ve saved a ton of money by having my husband stay home instead of having to deal with child care, and I’ve collected a number of contacts who could help me or my husband get an upper hand on the next job. We can’t both stay at home and relax forever, but for the time being I plan to go home, enjoy my family as much as I can, and take solace in the fact that there is no rush to work something out asap.

I’m taking a well-deserved vacation.

I’ve Been Changed in the Write Way

A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.

101. How writing has changed your life.

When I was in the third grade, we were assigned a writing project. I can’t recall exactly what the project was, but it involved writing a short story and binding it into a little book using construction paper and string. I wrote a story called “The Mystery of the Emerald-Eyed Cat” and while I can’t recall precisely what the plot of the story was, I remember that I bound it in green construction paper and that I drew mean-looking cat eyes on the cover. I also remember that I signed my name on the front with an extra middle name that doesn’t actually exist, but hey…kids are weird.

Anyway, I remember my teacher at the time, Mr Power, telling me how good the story was and that I should write more. Looking back, he was obviously just being a sweet, encouraging teacher, but at the time I took him at his word it was pretty much then and there that I decided I wanted to be a writer.

My writing continued on throughout grade school with my best friend and I writing what we called “The Game Masters”. They were two separate series’ with the same basic plot, one written by each of us. They had the same characters, but in my series I was the main character, and in hers she was the main character. We would write our stories in those thin, crappy scribblers that little kids get for school, and whenever we each had a full chapter or so we would exchange and read each others’. It was great fun, and though I’d probably cringe terribly to read those stories now, they seemed pretty damn awesome at the time.

From there on my writing has waxed and waned due to any number of reasons, but I’ve always returned to it. I wrote nonsensical mini-stories in junior high school, fanfiction in high school, slash fanfiction in college, and eventually returned back to original fiction over the past 10 years or so. In the past couple of years I finished my first original piece, start to finish (minus the editing part), and I am currently in sight of the finish line for my second original piece.

So you see, writing has been a part of my life for a long time. As to how it has changed my life?

On the negative side, writing has definitely made my life more stressful over the past few years. It’s difficult to work a writing schedule around a full-time job and a husband and child, and even thinking about doing so makes writing feel more and more like work, which I hate. Writing is something I love to do, so I have to struggle hard not to let it become one of those things that I have to do and dread to do. I would love to be able to write for a living, but I never want writing to become a job, and sometimes when I’m trying to force myself to write a few paragraphs in camp after I’ve worked a 12-hour shift, that’s exactly what it feels like.

But on the positive side of things, writing has kept me sane all these years. No matter what else was going on in my life, I could always write. When I had a fight with a friend as a child, when I was a ridiculously awkward teenager, when I experienced heartbreak, when I had doubts about my future…whenever something frustrating was happening in my life, I still had writing. Some people escape into books written by others, but I’ve always been able to escape into stories written by myself. I can pour my feelings out into my characters when I don’t know what to do in real life. I can torture my characters to make myself feel better, or give my characters the world for the same reason. I can twist reality exactly as I see fit, which is even more satisfying than you might imagine. Writing, for me, has always been one of the most cathartic things I can do. It keeps me from punching holes in the wall and screaming until my voice gives out. It is my Valium.

So I guess, what you could say, is that writing has changed my life by helping to prevent me from becoming a violent lunatic, because I can just write violent lunacy instead! That sounds sane, right? Right?

Accountability Tuesdays – Week 5

Tuesday again! That means I’m halfway through my work shift, and that it’s time for me to feel bad about myself again! Huzzah!

First I’d like to mention a mini-goal that I reached yesterday: WordPress informs me that the post I made yesterday was my 200th. Woo hoo! Honestly I’m finding that more than a little difficult to believe…I don’t think I’ve ever stuck with anything so long before, so yay me! Here’s to another hundred posts!

On to making myself feel bad…

Health and Body Image Goal
If you could be legally punished for neglecting to take care of yourself, I’d be put away for life. I’ve been trying to eat decent foods, I will say that, but there’s only so many options at camp and after a while you start to get sick of salads and oranges and whole wheat bagels. Additionally, I’ve found myself completely unwilling to exercise at night. I keep telling myself that it’s going to happen, but it never does. I swear it’s not because I’m lazy. It’s just that I work for 12 hours plus an hour’s worth of bus rides, then I have to eat and shower, an sometimes I have to do my laundry, and… Okay, yeah, I know, I’m making excuses. Shut up. 😦

Editing Goal
And as though I weren’t feeling bad enough as it is, I have to admit that I still haven’t touched my manuscript. I’ve become so obsessed with finishing my current work in progress that I just keep writing and never get around to the editing. The caveat of that, of course, is that I’m going to end up with two manuscripts that need revision and editing. So really, I’m just punishing myself in the long run. Ugh.

1,000,000 Word Goal
Okay, here at least I can feel a little good about myself. This week, mostly between taking commissioning calls at work, I managed to scribble out 2837 words worth of blog entries and 4730 words worth of my work in progress, for a weekly total of 7567 words, my best yet this year. Yay! I may be way behind on the goal, but man, I’ve been writing a heck of a lot more than usual. I may just be a “real” writer after all!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I wrote a ton o blog posts this week but didn’t get around to typing them up, so I better get my butt in gear.