Right, so ... not really updating much lately
I keep meaning to write something in here, but really, it's just life, life and more life.
We had a wonderful time earlier this month visiting my husband's grandparents in Florida. His Grandma passed away a few days later; as much as it hurts to know that, I'm very glad that we were able to see her first.
We're starting to see tiny glimmerings of spring. There are patches of bare ground showing on the banks along the driveway. It's light 'til after 9 p.m. now ... a small taste of things to come. We had some depressingly chilly weather right after we got back from Florida -- nothing sucks the anticipation right out of spring like going from 70-degree weather to 0-degree weather. But Weather Underground claims it's supposed to get above freezing during the day for the upcoming week. Well, it has to warm up eventually.
I got my approval notice from the graduation office, so after seven more weeks of school, I'll have my long-deferred BA. I haven't decided yet if I want to take classes in the fall. Technically I'll have my degree, but I still get free tuition courtesy of Orion, and there are still a number of courses that look interesting. Maybe I'll just take one, to keep my hand in. As frustrated as I've occasionally gotten with some of the classes I've taken, I'm loving the feeling of learning new things and being exposed to new ideas. On the other hand, taking a year off to work on creative projects is awfully appealing ...
Speaking of creative matters, I think I might revise my creative targets to be more goal-oriented than word-count-oriented, because while yes, I've been pretty much keeping up with my word count goals (which is awesome!) I'm not really finishing anything. The word count/page count measure of progress works quite well to get from start to finish on a large project such as a novel, but otherwise, I think I might do better to focus more on finishing things (say, a short story a week) rather than trying to hit an arbitrary word count, which seems to result in me trying to make the target by writing bits and pieces all over the place. And I'm worried that it's becoming actively counterproductive when I'm working on short things -- well, okay, let's take this week: I've still got 3000 words (or so) to make my week's goals, so rather than picking up a short story that might just need a round of revisions and 500 words to finish, I'll try to find something, ANYTHING on which I can write 3000 words, even if I don't end up getting anywhere. That's not productive. It just means that I end up with dozens of half-finished projects that aren't ever going to be finished without hefty revisions ... revisions I'm not inclined to make because they don't count towards my word count goals. Yeaahhhhh.
So I guess my general plan from here to the end of the semester is to try to finish something short each week; then after the semester's over, I'll get a novel underway and go back to focusing on word counts. That sounds good.
(This entry is also posted at http://layla.dreamwidth.org/172397.html.)
We had a wonderful time earlier this month visiting my husband's grandparents in Florida. His Grandma passed away a few days later; as much as it hurts to know that, I'm very glad that we were able to see her first.
We're starting to see tiny glimmerings of spring. There are patches of bare ground showing on the banks along the driveway. It's light 'til after 9 p.m. now ... a small taste of things to come. We had some depressingly chilly weather right after we got back from Florida -- nothing sucks the anticipation right out of spring like going from 70-degree weather to 0-degree weather. But Weather Underground claims it's supposed to get above freezing during the day for the upcoming week. Well, it has to warm up eventually.
I got my approval notice from the graduation office, so after seven more weeks of school, I'll have my long-deferred BA. I haven't decided yet if I want to take classes in the fall. Technically I'll have my degree, but I still get free tuition courtesy of Orion, and there are still a number of courses that look interesting. Maybe I'll just take one, to keep my hand in. As frustrated as I've occasionally gotten with some of the classes I've taken, I'm loving the feeling of learning new things and being exposed to new ideas. On the other hand, taking a year off to work on creative projects is awfully appealing ...
Speaking of creative matters, I think I might revise my creative targets to be more goal-oriented than word-count-oriented, because while yes, I've been pretty much keeping up with my word count goals (which is awesome!) I'm not really finishing anything. The word count/page count measure of progress works quite well to get from start to finish on a large project such as a novel, but otherwise, I think I might do better to focus more on finishing things (say, a short story a week) rather than trying to hit an arbitrary word count, which seems to result in me trying to make the target by writing bits and pieces all over the place. And I'm worried that it's becoming actively counterproductive when I'm working on short things -- well, okay, let's take this week: I've still got 3000 words (or so) to make my week's goals, so rather than picking up a short story that might just need a round of revisions and 500 words to finish, I'll try to find something, ANYTHING on which I can write 3000 words, even if I don't end up getting anywhere. That's not productive. It just means that I end up with dozens of half-finished projects that aren't ever going to be finished without hefty revisions ... revisions I'm not inclined to make because they don't count towards my word count goals. Yeaahhhhh.
So I guess my general plan from here to the end of the semester is to try to finish something short each week; then after the semester's over, I'll get a novel underway and go back to focusing on word counts. That sounds good.
(This entry is also posted at http://layla.dreamwidth.org/172397.html.)