January Wrap-Up/February Plans
Feb. 3rd, 2020 12:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todisturbtheuniverseOh, 2020. We had such high, high hopes for you, and already, you have proven us fools. Proven me a fool, specifically.
I jest (mostly). January was just much busier than I'd anticipated, and I was not feeling motivated to write even when I did have the time. This is a continuation of the malaise that started in mid-November, after sending a project off into the ether, and I was hoping to shake it with the clean break of a new year, but...alas. I'm determined to make improvements in February, though.
These are the goals I set for this year, and how well I measured up in January:
1. Complete the next draft of the supernatural/paranormal-adjacent, fantasy novella project.
Obviously I wasn't going to just grind this out in one month, so this is an ongoing thing. I did finally pick up this project again. I reread my entire first draft and what I have of the second draft. I compiled all the external feedback I've received so that it's organized by chapter, and added in my own notes. I started brainstorming solutions to the problems I'd pinpointed in the manuscript. I didn't actually get any new chapters on the page, but all this pre-work was necessary to get going again. I hadn't actually reread the story in more than a year; I definitely needed a refresh.
I did a lot of other things to refill the creative well, though. I read six books, including the absolutely fantastic Unnatural Magic that I picked up while traveling based on staff recommendation at Powell's Books. Seriously, I desperately hoped that book would never end. One of my casual goals for the year is to go back to my roots as an English Lit major and fill in some gaps in my classical education, so I also picked up Little Women and really adored it, even despite some of the underlying religious stuff. There were tears. Technically I didn't finish Frankenstein until February 1, but read the bulk of it in January, and...whew. I know, I know, how does one major in English Literature and somehow miss Frankenstein? Hell, how do you make it through high school and miss Frankenstein? I'm going to blame it on the year of English I skipped in high school; I missed Romeo and Juliet then, too. Anyway, Frankenstein: powerful, moving, quaint 19th-century obsession with frame stories, sure did feel a great deal of outrage toward Frankenstein-the-man for his self-absorbed nature.
I also played a fair amount of The Outer Worlds. I just don't game the way I used to; it sort of bums me out, especially after a nice day like this past Saturday where I accomplished a bunch of chores/errands in the morning/early afternoon and then got to play for five hours and just drank in every minute of it, but my life is more...varied...than it used to be, and that's okay. Anyway. I haven't gotten very far story-wise, only just completed Radio Free Monarch, but have been running around doing a lot of side stuff and exploring, and really enjoyed it. I think I've even sort of adjusted to first-person, which was a big question for me at the beginning.
I finished up Castlevania with a friend. Delightful show. Love the action and animation. Will go in for Trevor/Sypha/Alucard fanfiction eventually. My husband and I are also still keeping up with Critical Role (by the skin of our teeth) and re-watching The Clone Wars in preparation for the final season beginning this month.
This is somewhat creative-well related, and definitely productivity related: I got a desk at home, and a space to put it. After we last moved, in early 2016, I tossed my desk and never got a new one; our old apartment had a mold issue that claimed some of our furniture, and honestly, at the time, I hadn't regularly used the desk in a while. It had never been the right height for me to sit at and feel comfortable. Or, rather, it had one of those annoying drawers that prevented it from being the right height. Point being, I've worked off one of those lap desks for a long time now, and my writing space was the couch in the living room. I experimented with other spaces--the kitchen table, the game room--but none of them really worked, and I'd been coming back to the idea of having a desk again and again for the past year.
So, over the long weekend in January, we made it happen. There were a few apartment projects we needed to take care of, anyway: adding another one of those tall Billy bookcases to accommodate the growing Star Wars canon (Legends already occupies one Billy bookcase and then some), getting rid of the broken desk chairs in my husband's office and getting him a footrest instead, dealing with the cluttered mess that the game room had become. We dealt with everything, and now I have a room with both a desk and my piano in it. There are drawers in the desk, so I have space to store stuff out of sight that didn't ever really have a permanent home elsewhere. I got a bunch of the art we'd had just lying around put up on the wall. The whole space is just so cozy now. My husband's office is way better, too, with those old broken chairs out of the way. This has already helped my productivity a ton; I spent a lot more time writing after the weekend that we set up the desk. Plus, I have separation of productive activities/relaxing activities now. Before, I did everything on the couch. Now, when I'm on the couch, the laptop is in an entirely different room and I'm not working, I'm chilling. It's really great.
Anyway, having reviewed all that, I certainly didn't just...sit around in January. Still looking forward to a more productive February, where I'll carry on with those goals set above.
I jest (mostly). January was just much busier than I'd anticipated, and I was not feeling motivated to write even when I did have the time. This is a continuation of the malaise that started in mid-November, after sending a project off into the ether, and I was hoping to shake it with the clean break of a new year, but...alas. I'm determined to make improvements in February, though.
These are the goals I set for this year, and how well I measured up in January:
1. Complete the next draft of the supernatural/paranormal-adjacent, fantasy novella project.
Obviously I wasn't going to just grind this out in one month, so this is an ongoing thing. I did finally pick up this project again. I reread my entire first draft and what I have of the second draft. I compiled all the external feedback I've received so that it's organized by chapter, and added in my own notes. I started brainstorming solutions to the problems I'd pinpointed in the manuscript. I didn't actually get any new chapters on the page, but all this pre-work was necessary to get going again. I hadn't actually reread the story in more than a year; I definitely needed a refresh.
2. Writing and writing-related activities on no less than 240 days this year, i.e., the GYWO goal.
To be on-pace, I needed to do something writing-related on 20 days in January. I fell just short at 18 days. Given how December went, I'm not going to fuss about this; it's an improvement over the previous month. I'm planning to make up the days in February to get back on-pace (or ahead, here's hoping).
Some related stats:
To be on-pace, I needed to do something writing-related on 20 days in January. I fell just short at 18 days. Given how December went, I'm not going to fuss about this; it's an improvement over the previous month. I'm planning to make up the days in February to get back on-pace (or ahead, here's hoping).
Some related stats:
- 11,639 words written (really very low for me, to be honest)
- ~16 hours spent on writing/writing-related activities
- Average of 31 minutes per day spent writing
3. "Fun writing," in whatever form it takes--and other activities that refill the creative well.
I tentatively started a couple of fics on days where I could not otherwise bring myself to write, but in reality, most of my "fun writing" this month was campaign prep for Pathfinder; I ran another two games that were still socially-heavy and needed content. Someday I'm going to send my players to a dungeon with no lore and no NPCs and set them loose. Someday.I did a lot of other things to refill the creative well, though. I read six books, including the absolutely fantastic Unnatural Magic that I picked up while traveling based on staff recommendation at Powell's Books. Seriously, I desperately hoped that book would never end. One of my casual goals for the year is to go back to my roots as an English Lit major and fill in some gaps in my classical education, so I also picked up Little Women and really adored it, even despite some of the underlying religious stuff. There were tears. Technically I didn't finish Frankenstein until February 1, but read the bulk of it in January, and...whew. I know, I know, how does one major in English Literature and somehow miss Frankenstein? Hell, how do you make it through high school and miss Frankenstein? I'm going to blame it on the year of English I skipped in high school; I missed Romeo and Juliet then, too. Anyway, Frankenstein: powerful, moving, quaint 19th-century obsession with frame stories, sure did feel a great deal of outrage toward Frankenstein-the-man for his self-absorbed nature.
I also played a fair amount of The Outer Worlds. I just don't game the way I used to; it sort of bums me out, especially after a nice day like this past Saturday where I accomplished a bunch of chores/errands in the morning/early afternoon and then got to play for five hours and just drank in every minute of it, but my life is more...varied...than it used to be, and that's okay. Anyway. I haven't gotten very far story-wise, only just completed Radio Free Monarch, but have been running around doing a lot of side stuff and exploring, and really enjoyed it. I think I've even sort of adjusted to first-person, which was a big question for me at the beginning.
I finished up Castlevania with a friend. Delightful show. Love the action and animation. Will go in for Trevor/Sypha/Alucard fanfiction eventually. My husband and I are also still keeping up with Critical Role (by the skin of our teeth) and re-watching The Clone Wars in preparation for the final season beginning this month.
This is somewhat creative-well related, and definitely productivity related: I got a desk at home, and a space to put it. After we last moved, in early 2016, I tossed my desk and never got a new one; our old apartment had a mold issue that claimed some of our furniture, and honestly, at the time, I hadn't regularly used the desk in a while. It had never been the right height for me to sit at and feel comfortable. Or, rather, it had one of those annoying drawers that prevented it from being the right height. Point being, I've worked off one of those lap desks for a long time now, and my writing space was the couch in the living room. I experimented with other spaces--the kitchen table, the game room--but none of them really worked, and I'd been coming back to the idea of having a desk again and again for the past year.
So, over the long weekend in January, we made it happen. There were a few apartment projects we needed to take care of, anyway: adding another one of those tall Billy bookcases to accommodate the growing Star Wars canon (Legends already occupies one Billy bookcase and then some), getting rid of the broken desk chairs in my husband's office and getting him a footrest instead, dealing with the cluttered mess that the game room had become. We dealt with everything, and now I have a room with both a desk and my piano in it. There are drawers in the desk, so I have space to store stuff out of sight that didn't ever really have a permanent home elsewhere. I got a bunch of the art we'd had just lying around put up on the wall. The whole space is just so cozy now. My husband's office is way better, too, with those old broken chairs out of the way. This has already helped my productivity a ton; I spent a lot more time writing after the weekend that we set up the desk. Plus, I have separation of productive activities/relaxing activities now. Before, I did everything on the couch. Now, when I'm on the couch, the laptop is in an entirely different room and I'm not working, I'm chilling. It's really great.
Anyway, having reviewed all that, I certainly didn't just...sit around in January. Still looking forward to a more productive February, where I'll carry on with those goals set above.
