July in Review
Health/Fitness
Exercise levels trended up. I am still struggling with "only eat when hungry". Sometimes it's not at all convenient to delay a meal for a few hours until I have the appetite for it.
At the end of the month I installed Pokemon GO on my phone, which has greatly increased my motivation to Go Outside and Go Places, on the one hand. On the other hand, the whole thing where I stop and stand around for a few minutes at every pokestop considerably slows me down. Much more than I envisioned it doing. I am not sure the increased regularity with which I am now biking offsets the lowered intensity. We'll see.
Writing
I won CampNano! With 50,150 words at the end of July 31. (The CampNano "verified" total is slightly higher, but I don't care.) This was probably the toughest time I had with Nano since 2007. I didn't have to push to make it in the end; I was at or over par for the entire duration. But it was a slog the whole time, and I never got more than a couple of days ahead. Very unlike my experiences writing the Etherium novels or Frost.
But I did it, and the book is closing in on the end, so that's good. The draft was at 88,900 words as of the end of July. I am pretty sure I am going to excise out 16,000 words from that and make that its own novella, because it is too much backstory to belong in this novel. There's, I dunno, another 30-40,000 words left in the book, I'd guess.
The Business of Writing
I did proofread Angel's Sigil. I procrastinated on a few bits of backmatter/frontmatter, but finally finished those on Sunday (in August). Alinsa is pretty much done with the layout, so looking good for the August release.
Silver Scales had the international-only Bookbub promotion, which was fun in that it sold a couple hundred discounted copies. It did not make a profit, either on the initial sale or in follow-through, though Golden Coils did see a little bump in sales afterwards.
Gaming
Pokemon GO has become my new gaming obsession. I got the 100 pokestop visits badge after 4 days. Apparently this is a lot of pokestops per day. (I hit 59 on the third day. That was too many pokestops.)
The game kind of works on a bike, in the sense that I can get to pokestops faster than on foot and loot them for stuff. (Especially gifts. MUST HAVE GIFTS FOR ALL MY TRAINER FRIENDS. Sending out presents every morning is the most fun part of the game.) I also get credit for some fraction of the distance I cover, like maybe 10-30% of it. This is probably from all the stop-and-go from pokestops -- when I'm going under 5-6mph, it counts it as distance traveled, and when I get over that it, stops counting. I've heard joggers complain it doesn't count their distance accurately either.
Anyway, I am enjoying it so far. We'll see if I stick with it for years the way some of my friends have. I beat my first gym last Tuesday morning! That was exciting. My defending pokemon even held it for half a day.
I haven't figured out how raids work yet, other than "badly". I have found a few raid bosses that were weak enough that I could solo them, so that was fun and also surprising.
I did keep posting on the Dragon: Rebirth game, but mostly once every day or two instead of frequently. It may have petered out, we'll see.
Socializing
I went to Corwyn and Kat's wedding! It was at the hotel across the street, so I didn't have to travel far for it. It was a good ceremony, short and poignant with some bits that the wedding couple included for humor. ❤
The reception was lovely, too, and I got to see several mutual friends and catch up with some people I don't see much of. It was great.
Happiness
Cancer is still the worst. I've been depressed a lot in July and I kind of feel like "I don't know what I was expecting."
Goals for coming month
Stretch goals
I kind of want a more ambitious word count goal for Princess, but I am also burnt out on writing so I'm not going to push it. The stretch goal can cover it if I regain some energy.
I did make all of my July goals, plus one of the stretch goals, so that was good. This entry was originally posted at https://rowyn.dreamwidth.org/631710.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Exercise levels trended up. I am still struggling with "only eat when hungry". Sometimes it's not at all convenient to delay a meal for a few hours until I have the appetite for it.
At the end of the month I installed Pokemon GO on my phone, which has greatly increased my motivation to Go Outside and Go Places, on the one hand. On the other hand, the whole thing where I stop and stand around for a few minutes at every pokestop considerably slows me down. Much more than I envisioned it doing. I am not sure the increased regularity with which I am now biking offsets the lowered intensity. We'll see.
Writing
I won CampNano! With 50,150 words at the end of July 31. (The CampNano "verified" total is slightly higher, but I don't care.) This was probably the toughest time I had with Nano since 2007. I didn't have to push to make it in the end; I was at or over par for the entire duration. But it was a slog the whole time, and I never got more than a couple of days ahead. Very unlike my experiences writing the Etherium novels or Frost.
But I did it, and the book is closing in on the end, so that's good. The draft was at 88,900 words as of the end of July. I am pretty sure I am going to excise out 16,000 words from that and make that its own novella, because it is too much backstory to belong in this novel. There's, I dunno, another 30-40,000 words left in the book, I'd guess.
The Business of Writing
I did proofread Angel's Sigil. I procrastinated on a few bits of backmatter/frontmatter, but finally finished those on Sunday (in August). Alinsa is pretty much done with the layout, so looking good for the August release.
Silver Scales had the international-only Bookbub promotion, which was fun in that it sold a couple hundred discounted copies. It did not make a profit, either on the initial sale or in follow-through, though Golden Coils did see a little bump in sales afterwards.
Gaming
Pokemon GO has become my new gaming obsession. I got the 100 pokestop visits badge after 4 days. Apparently this is a lot of pokestops per day. (I hit 59 on the third day. That was too many pokestops.)
The game kind of works on a bike, in the sense that I can get to pokestops faster than on foot and loot them for stuff. (Especially gifts. MUST HAVE GIFTS FOR ALL MY TRAINER FRIENDS. Sending out presents every morning is the most fun part of the game.) I also get credit for some fraction of the distance I cover, like maybe 10-30% of it. This is probably from all the stop-and-go from pokestops -- when I'm going under 5-6mph, it counts it as distance traveled, and when I get over that it, stops counting. I've heard joggers complain it doesn't count their distance accurately either.
Anyway, I am enjoying it so far. We'll see if I stick with it for years the way some of my friends have. I beat my first gym last Tuesday morning! That was exciting. My defending pokemon even held it for half a day.
I haven't figured out how raids work yet, other than "badly". I have found a few raid bosses that were weak enough that I could solo them, so that was fun and also surprising.
I did keep posting on the Dragon: Rebirth game, but mostly once every day or two instead of frequently. It may have petered out, we'll see.
Socializing
I went to Corwyn and Kat's wedding! It was at the hotel across the street, so I didn't have to travel far for it. It was a good ceremony, short and poignant with some bits that the wedding couple included for humor. ❤
The reception was lovely, too, and I got to see several mutual friends and catch up with some people I don't see much of. It was great.
Happiness
Cancer is still the worst. I've been depressed a lot in July and I kind of feel like "I don't know what I was expecting."
Goals for coming month
- Care for Trask and get him various things he needs
- Release Angel's Sigil
- Write another 10,000 words of The Princess, Her Dragon, and Their Princ
Stretch goals
- Start final revisions to Frost
- Frost cover
- Finish draft of Princess.
I kind of want a more ambitious word count goal for Princess, but I am also burnt out on writing so I'm not going to push it. The stretch goal can cover it if I regain some energy.
I did make all of my July goals, plus one of the stretch goals, so that was good. This entry was originally posted at https://rowyn.dreamwidth.org/631710.html. Please comment there using OpenID.