It’s the month of harvest.
I have no idea when that happened. Only yesterday someone mentioned it was 6 months until Yule… August has always been a fairly nice month for me — it’s my birthday month, and was always a time of Summer holidays. This was my time to go exploring the woods, visiting the Hawk Conservancy and heading out onto the local lake in a boat.
Nowadays, I work through the holidays, and this year, it’s the month of movement. I’m trying to keep myself on the “excited” side of panic…
~
At the beginning of the year I set myself four goals: track my daily wordcount, write a minimum of once a week, “sort out” Resilience, and submit my manuscript to someone by July 1st. So, how did I do?
i. The Daily Word Count
I completed a #writechain of 90 days, and gave myself leave to take a couple of weeks off through July. Now though, I’m ready to pick up a ‘light’ habit of writing again. I don’t like time-goals, but want something that will only take 10 or 15 minutes. With a house move & job shift resulting in longer work days and FantasyCon in early September, I need to keep myself from burning out.
Thus, I’m settling for 55 new words a day, via editing. This led to 5,308 words written during July. I suppose it’s not bad if that was my “month off”.
Planes Shifter: From 87,560 To 88,741
Short Story: From 432 To 685 [COMPLETED AND SUBMITTED]
Sekrit Project I: From 3,820 To 4,094 [First Draft: Completed and Submitted for Feedback]
ii. Write Once a Week
I gave myself permission not to write anything new this month. But I still wrote something once every seven days.
iii. Work on Resilience
Resilience is unlikely to be worked on until October.
iv. Work Towards Submission by July October
I’m around 20% complete with the edit; which is going slower than I’d hoped, but progress is progress.
v. Read 24 Books
Not strictly a writing goal, but with my annual attempt to rekindle my label of “avid-reader” I’m trying to set an achievable goal of one book a fortnight.
The reviews of the first 10 books are up, and I completed a beta read of Ellie’s novel (which was awesome; I shall put up a review once it’s out in December). However, I’m now 2 books behind. Finger’s crossed I can catch up soon.
This Month’s Score: 1/2
This Year’s Score: 12/14
~
In Other News
* I completed and submitted a short story for the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival. As is typical, when I remembered to go back and count the daily wordcount; I found a sentence I wished to change: but had already submitted it. Another chance to learn about letting go.
* I’m officially moving in September. Other Half and I will finally be living together for good — without any more placements keeping us apart. This is incredibly exciting, and also somewhat stressful — this month our joint tenancy officially started, since he needed to move in before me!
* OH and I saw How to Train Your Dragon 2 — the third time we’ve ever been to the cinema together (POTC3/How I Live Now being the other two). We then went degu shopping and got KFC.
* My main Sekrit Project has reached an end. I’ll be staying at my current job, but moving base. There were so many possibilities for my career that I couldn’t share; but it’s all settled now.
* I’ve began wearing glasses for six weeks now. It’s beginning to feel more natural, although I’m not 100% convinced it’s helping. Time will tell.
* I celebrated a year of engagement, and seven and a half years with my other half. He, did not celebrate with me, since he was on night shifts 120 miles away. *counts down days to September*
* I began the edit of Planes Shifter: rewritten. This means I’m currently drinking more cider than usual, and listening to many TED Talks. It’s slow progress, but progress none-the-less.
* I had a haircut, which had a really strong impact on me — something I hadn’t expected.