September 2021 in Review
Health/Fitness
I scraped my way to my "exercise 20 times" goal in September, putting in my 20th session on the last day of the month. \o/ Records indicate that I did better at not eating when I wasn't hungry, so that's good too. Average exercise per session was lower, because I really did the minimum allowed for several of my sessions.
I feel like I should get another exercise game, because I did so much more regular exercise when I was playing Pokemon GO. I could just go back to Pokemon GO. But the thing I did not love about Pokemon GO is that it strongly favored playing the game in densely-populated areas that had more pokestops. When I was playing the most, I did a ton of driving to get to area with more pokestops than my neighborhood. I don't want to go back to spending time and money driving around just to play my exercise-incentive game. (This also lets out playing games that use the same model as Pokemon GO, like Ingress.) But I am not motivated to look at new exercise games. I remember the last time I posted about this, I even got some recommendations that I never looked into.
Writing
After putting "get A Game to You to 50% complete" down as an actual goal (not even a stretch goal), I decided what I wanted to do in September was edit Demon's Alliance.
Thank you, brain.
I spent most of my September staycation working on Demon's Alliance, but I did some writing on A Game to You because I hate failing at goals. I wrote 3500 words to get to 49.4% on Wednesday 9/29, and then got to 49.9% yesterday. My next bullet point would've taken me to 51.25%. Thursday was very tiring and I did not want to put in another 3k day, so I broke the next point into two parts and wrote the first of them. Good enough.
A Game to You is now at 57,123 words. I estimate there's another 45-60k left to write. Nanowrimo starts in 31 days. Regardless of how much or little I write in October, it's likely that I'll need to start a new book at some point in November in order to write 50k of fiction for Nano. I should maybe prioritize 'finish an outline for something new' this month.
The Business of Writing
I finally got to work on edits for Demon's Alliance in September. This is not what I'd planned to do in September, but since I've been procrastinating on revising this draft since January, I'll take it. I have two items left on my editing/revision list. I'm contemplating working on revisions to Angel's Grace now, rather than finishing up Demon's Alliance. That way, if I decide I want to add something to Demon's Alliance, I can do it before my final read-through instead of afterwards.
Reading
Victoria Corva released Non-Player Character to KS backers in September, and I tossed aside the M/M romance I'd been slogging through to devour the new release. I read it slowly, partly to savor it and partly because I wanted to litter it with cheerful comments. I need to write a review for it, but the short version is: DELIGHTFUL, highly recommended.
Then I finished it a few days ago and haven't wanted to pick up anything else, so reading streak is once again broken. XD
Art
Maggie gave me a little hardbound book of blank pages for my birthday, and for five or six days I did a sketch or three a day in it. So way more than my usual amount of sketching for September.
During the craft-and-chats for September, I worked on pictures of Rose Thorn, one of the protagonists in A Game to You. My attempts to draw her in color were dismal failures, so I left the last one as a messy sketch. I like the last sketch version. I keep thinking "maybe I should try coloring it. Maybe this time will be different." Anyway, didn't do anything like a finished piece, but I did a lot of drawing so good enough.
Gaming
I forgot to lean a new game in September. I'm pretty sure I forgot? Maybe I learned something at the beginning of the month, but I don't think so. Oops. checks to see when she started playing Max Gentlemen: Sexy Business: yeah, that was at the end of August.
September Goal Score Card
- Assist Lut: Still doing that thing! He had some swelling in his feet and ankles, so after a week or so, he got a prescription for a diuretic pill to help the swelling go down. The swelling went away but he broke out in mysterious little bumps that are kind of like acne and kind of not. He's been picking at the bumps so now they're all scabby and look terrible. I think they're healing now, though.
- Get A Game to You to 50% complete: Technically complete is still complete. \o/
- Look at goal list occassionally: I did do this, which is why I remembered I'd put A Game to You on it. But I didn't do it often enough to remember the gaming stretch goal existed. Oops.
Stretch Goals Scorecard:
- Practice art: an unusual amount of this one! Just random drawing, not focused on learning anything in particular.
- Exercise 20 times this month: Done! Barely!
- Consumption tracking: More-or-less kept this up
- Post a few blog entries, apart from my usual month-in-review: Also done! I should check to see how far off I am from my 50-entries-for-the-year goal. Let's see: 33, not including this one. It's been 39 weeks, so I've written not quite as many in the year-to-date as I was aiming for. Still, I'll only need to do 16 more after this one to hit my goal. Just a little more than one per week. Pretty doable.
- Finish revisions on Demon’s Alliance: I did not finish this one, but I got quite far along on it, so I want to pat myself on the back for it anyway. Not technically complete.
- Finish reading a book I haven’t read before: aww yiss and it was a great book, too.
Notably, I failed dismally at my usual "maintain bullet journal" goal. Early in September, I fell behind on it. Since I've started keeping a bullet journal, I've often fallen behind. In the past, I've always reconstructed what I could and continued. But this time, I just didn't care enough to resume.
A few days ago, I picked it back up again. The bullet journal is helpful for reminding me to do a lot of recurring tasks, like maintenance on the house and Lut's bi-pap, and cleaning on a semi-regular basis. So I plan to get back to it in October.
October Goals:
- Assist Lut
- Look at goal list at least once per week.
- Look at to-do list at least once per week. Make an effort to do the tasks that linger on it.
- Write some of A Game to You
- Work on edits for Demon's Alliance and/or _Angel's Grace
I did not enjoy having goals with ambition in September, so ambition is going back into the stretch goals where it belongs.
Stretch Goals:
- Make the character voices more distinctive in A Game to You
- Work on A Game to You.
- Work on notes/outline for a different book
- Exercise 20 times this month
- Consumption tracking
- Make an art
- Work on cover art for Demon’s Alliance and/or Angel’s Grace
- Practice art
- Post five blog entries, apart from my usual month-in-review.
- Finish revisions on Demon’s Alliance
- Start revisions on Angel’s Sigil
- Maintain bullet journal
- Learn a new game
- Finish reading a book I haven’t read before
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