August in Review
Health/Fitness
Avg calories per day: 1745
Avg exercise per day: 183
Weight: 170.2
So everything is basically the same as July. Eh. Good enough.
I had not been outside to walk at all for the last week of August, despite the weather being pretty reasonable for walking during most of that week. I did aerobics videos a couple of times and spent like three hours cleaning instead.
Writing
I decided to write the next book in the Demon's Series. The new working title is Demon's Alliance, and I expect it to be the first of another two books that go together, the way Demon's Lure and Angel's Sigil did. I've got the outline for Demon's Alliance nailed down pretty well, but I kind of want to finish the outline for book 4 before I start writing Demon's Alliance. We'll see if I actually do that or not. I have made a lot of notes so far, way more than I usually do before writing a book. This included re-reading Lure and Sigil and making tons of notes of names and places and other details from them, so that I have a handy reference whenever I need to look something up. Soon, I'll get to see how much this helps with writing, and with editing. I am hoping that thinking through the outline more will result in fewer incidents of "oh, I should change the entire climax now that I've finished writing it the first time." At the least, I'll have fewer "look up/make up a real name instead of this placeholder" notes.
The Business of Writing
Finished initial edits on The Lord, His Monster, and Their Lady and sent it to first readers, woo.
Alinsa finished initial layout on Spark of Desire, so I get to review that for typos, woo! I should see if anyone wants an ARC for the purpose of writing a review.
Art
I didn't finish the Spark cover, but I did more work on the Lord cover. It is now at the stage when I am disappointed that it didn't come out better but do not know how to make it better. *glowers at it*
I understand that it's very common for art to have an "ugly" stage before it's finished, but I kind of feel like my art reaches this stage when I finish it. While I'm still working on a piece I think "oh, this should be good when it's done!" And then I get to the end and think, "Wait, is that it? I thought it would be better."
Anyway, I'll put some work into it regardless and see if I can push it a little higher.
Home Maintenance
New gutters are installed and helmeted! (This was done in two different stages). They are not paid for yet because they haven't billed me. Not sure what's up with that. When they finished installing the roof, Daniel came the same day to get the check for the roof part.
For house-painting: Diane's quote was 20% lower than the other painter, so I went with her. House painting to start in the first or second week of September. My experience with Diane's company is "perpetually behind schedule but will reliably get the job done," so I expect this will be slow but it'll be finished eventually.
I've been thinking about making the basement less disgusting but this requires professional help at this point. Maybe after house painting is done and it and the gutters are paid for, I will call 1-800-GOT-JUNK to haul away the water-damaged furniture in the basement.
Goal Scorecard
Assist Lut: Yup! \o/
Schedule to have the house painted: Scheduling with Diane is more theoretical than practical, but I'm gonna call this done.
Stretch Goals
Finish initial edits on The Lord, His Monster, and Their Lady and send it to first readers: Done!
Figure out what my next writing project will be and start that: Did this!
Finish the cover for Spark of Desire: Nope, forgot this was on here.
Work on art/sketch weekly: Technically, I worked on art three weeks out of four, so this was closer than I thought. That work was spread across five days in two spurts, and all on the cover for The Lord, His Monster, and Their Lady.
Goals for Next Month:
Assist Lut
Finish the cover for Spark of Desire
Stretch Goals
Start writing Demon's Alliance
Work on the outline for the fourth Demon's Series book
Work on art/sketch weekly This entry was originally posted at https://rowyn.dreamwidth.org/652743.html. Please comment there using OpenID.