October 2021 in Review
Health/Fitness
Managed exercise 20 times this month, mostly the bare minimum. But I haven’t quit! \o/
Writing
As of October month-end, A Game to You was at 71,815 words: added 14,400 words to it and took it from 50% done to 63% done. I estimate another 30k-45k to finish the draft.
I strongly suspect this will be another draft like the drafts for book 3 & 4 of Demon's Series, where I sit on it for several months or a year because it’s too much work to edit. But it’ll get done eventually. Unlike Fellwater, which is not only too much work to edit but also super embarrassing to imagine other people reading it. ^_^
I also sorted out a timeline for the Alien Peacelords book. I want to play with it some more and see if I can tighten it up. But it’s good enough that I can at least start writing the new book when I finish A Game to You, so that’s nice.
The Business of Writing
I picked off some of the low-hanging fruit for Angel's Grace, and edits on that are now at 14.75% complete according to my estimate. Progress! About as much progress as I made on A Game to You, even.
Reading
I finished Definitely, Maybe, Yours even though I didn’t like it. I think next year I will give myself reading credit for the % read instead of just for finishing books, so that I can give myself credit for the books I DNF. “Finish what you start” is useful for something like “writing a book”, where I know I will share and enjoy the finished product much more than the WIP. But finishing reading books is not more important than the act of reading by itself. I don’t know that I benefit much more from finishing one book than I do from reading half of two different books.
After that I started a nonfiction essay collection, and then DNF’d it in favor of an upbeat middle-grade fantasy. I am pretty sure I will finish the MG fantasy and be happy about it, so that’s nice.
Art
So I did a surprising amount of art in October? I painted along with three Joy of Painting videos, did a grayscale sketch of one of A Game to You’s protagonists in male form, and painted another sketch of the same character in female form. The portraits were done during the weekly Craft-and-Chat sessions with my fediverse friends.
October Goal Score Card
- Assist Lut: Done!
- Look at goal list at least once per week.: Er. Whoops? There were at least a few times when I was sitting at my computer and had the specific intention of looking at my goal list, and then somehow did not. O_o I didn’t even update the list on my bullet journal spreadsheet until the month was almost over.
- Look at to-do list at least once per week. Make an effort to do the tasks that linger on it. I don’t think I managed this once a week, either, but I have cleared off all the current tasks on it? So not as much fail as the goal list one.
- Write some of A Game to You: done!
- Work on edits for Demon's Alliance and/or _Angel's Grace: done!
Stretch Goals Scorecard:
- Work on notes/outline for a different book: Finished the timeline for Alien Peacelords!
- Exercise 20 times this month: Yes!
- Consumption tracking: More-or-less, yup
- Make an art: made several, whoa, weird
- Practice art: did some of that, too
- Post five blog entries, apart from my usual month-in-review: Posted five exactly!
- Start revisions on Angel’s Sigil: It has begun!
- Maintain bullet journal: Did reasonably well at this one
- Finish reading a book I haven’t read before: done
November Goals
- Assist Lut
- WIN NANOWRIMO: This will probably be finishing A Game to You and starting Alien Peacelords, but I’m okay with whatever gets me 50k of new fiction.
Stretch Goals: You know, winning Nanowrimo is enough. Not putting anything else down for November, even as a stretch goal.
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