Health and Fitness

Despite Eliyahu having left, I was still pretty good about exercise: 21 times. That I enjoy watching "Pursuit of Jade" while exercising definitely helped on this front.

I wasn't as good about cooking or diet in general during May -- I only made seafood potatoes twice. I also relapsed on eating junk food in place of meals again. At least Envoy and I found a place that serves tasty sushi near his house. Sushi is not ideal, but it's better for me than most of the restaurant foods I order.

Dailies

I was good about both tracking and doing these, because I feared it was the only creative goal I was capable of accomplishing. I edited 24 times, wrote 18, and drew 21 times. Reading picked up, to 27 times.

Writing

I started a file for a new idea. The file's title is Violence Is Not the Punchline, because it's a comic idea and I noticed that when I write comics, I often use violence. Even though I don't think much of violence in fiction. I doubt I would use this as an actual title. Especially since I gave the feline character one of Lyric's bad habits: biting people when she's done being petted.

I also don't think I have the patience for illustrating a comic so I doubt this will get off the ground. I drew two of the characters and then stalled on visual concepts for anyone else. But I made 1700 words of notes and a bunch of fun ideas accreted to it. The original concept was "harem manga set in a stereotypical fantasy world, except it's me so the harem is gonna turn out like a polycule mess of disaster bisexuals instead." 

I may write a story with some of the ideas at some point, idk.

I spent more energy on Kingslayer, which has crawled up to 14,800 words of notes. I am still grappling with the middle of the story, which is less like a middle more like "a few dozen different abortive middles and endings". I clearly can't write all the middles/endings in detail so I need to figure out what gets summarized and what gets expanded and why.

I wrote a bit of A Dragon's Secret because on one or two days that was easier than working on anything else: 1000 words total, up to 60,700.

Business of Writing

I spent quite a lot of time editing A Game to You, which is not well-reflected in the stats because there is so much editing to do on that book. It's up to 45% complete, from 30%.

Art

I actually had a pretty good time with art this month? I finished a landscape by turning it into fan art (adding tiny figures of Olive and Dahlia to it) and now I'm pretty happy with it. 

I drew two pictures of Zhenshay and a bunch of sketches of Moon (both from the comic idea) . After I gave up on that, I did some random hand and horse sketches, then some "Pursuit of Jade" fan art, painting portraits of Xie Zheng and Gongsun Yin. 

So I have four colored pictures for May, which is unusual, and I like looking at all of them, which is also unusual. I shared art a little more this month so it wasn't just Maria for everything. Some things, though. I never pronounced the Gongsun Yin portrait Actually Finished; I still have to look at it again and see if want to do anything else with it.

Oh! And I totally forgot until I got to my goal list: I worked on the cover for The Jewel-Strewn Night. It's like 90% done art-wise, and I still have to do the layout, but this is far enough for the cover of a book I haven't even started final edits on. 

Reading

I finished reading Omega Heroine Wants Her Alpha Villainess, a lesbian omegaverse (but with no shapeshifters) romance manwha. I have never read an omegaverse story before! So I don't know how typical it is of the genre. This story had an unusual structure: at about 2/3rds through it looked like everything had resolved but there was still a third of the story left and I'm like "what's gonna go wrong?" The setback and then ultimate resolution were also atypical. I enjoyed the story overall. I don't read too much queer manwha because they're marketed as "boys' love" and "girls' love" and those terms alone make my skin crawl. I enjoyed this one, though.

Married His Brother and Now He's Obsessed had also finished. I'd read most of it several months ago, and finally read the last 10-20 episodes. The ending felt odd and rushed, but I liked the story overall. The first half of it is very gentle, with many things just going smoothly for the main characters and not much real drama. It does get to some actual peril eventually, though.

Both of those were manwha on Tapas. I also started a new Webtoon, Chocolate Snow. I thought it was already complete when I started it, but I checked just now and it's on hiatus; it says "season 1 finale" for the last episode posted, and I probably misread that as series finale. It's tagged "slow-burn romance". The characters wake up in bed together in the first episode, so I don't think "slow-burn" means the same thing to this creator that it does to me. It's a "Webtoon Original"; I'm not positive, but I feel like it's manga/manwha-influenced but originally written in English. I can't tell whether it's supposed to be in Korea or Japan or some other place. The main character (Daejoon) and his friend have Korean names, while the main love interest and the MC's ex-crush have Japanese names. Daejoon refers to his lover as "Aoi-san" and his ex-crush as "Sensei". So ... maybe he's a Korean man attending college in Japan? I cannot tell. 

Also, -san seems an awfully formal way to refer to a lover but idk, I am not that familiar with Japanese conventions.

Anyway, I've gotten like 25 episodes into "Chocolate Snow" and there's been only the barest hint of a conflict. It's pretty much just the male leads being super-cute together. I'll read an episode and think "I've never seen a comic better exemplify the 'I just want to draw boys kissing' mood." So many loving shots of facial expressions while they're making love, too. The male leads are drawn with proportions that make a superhero look understated -- beefier than I like tbh -- but the art is good and I enjoy the close-ups. And I appreciate leisurely stories about people being happy together.

One thing that really struck me: the first episode depicts Daejoon getting drunk and going home with Aoi, who is sober. I feared that it was going to use the "drunk sex" trope, which would be D:

But no: some time passes, Daejoon says that he's sober now, and they make out a bit. Then Daejoon wakes up in bed naked with Aoi and is like 'what did I do?' (Spoiler: nothing, Daejoon vomited and passed out so Aoi undressed both of them to clean up before going to sleep). I'm like "oh good, that seems fairly reasonable."

Then I got to the comments. The creator had put up an apology and a note that the comic had been revised in response to feedback. The earliest comments -- clearly before revision -- were all angry and on the lines of "why are you romanticizing rape?!?"

And I find it so touching that instead of being angry or demoralized or doubling-down, the creator put in the work to revise their comic in response to feedback instead. The comments from later in the comic are all positive and cheerful, too. It's sweet. It's got some weaknesses in the writing, but I'm enjoying it.

Still reading a handful of manwha that update once a week and aren't finished. I read all the free/wait-until-free episodes of Homebody but (a) it's a new series and probably won't be finished for years and (b) I was iffy about it. Oh: I also read all the free epsiodes of The Runaway Extra and the Obsessive Duke; the male lead in that one is a red flag so I haven't gone any farther with it. 

I'd unlocked a bunch of episodes of Arelyn Is Sick and Tired a month ago and forgotten about it; I finally read those. There's a handful that I hadn't unlocked yet and I have not since bothered to unlock. This has the "MC isekai'd into a child's body" trope. I get suckered into many of these because I enjoy the child-parental figure relationship in them, but the transition to "romance as an adult" is very often a dud. In this one, the male lead has already been introduced and I already don't like the ML/FL relationship. The FL's guardian, Mehen, is a delight but I don't think I'm gonna stick with this story just for him. Maybe.

Social

I've continued to be pretty social in May, going out on both Wednesday and Friday to see friends, plus a bonus trip on a Sunday for Envoy's birthday. It's more of a routine and less special-occasion stuff this month.

May Goal Scorecard

• Provide care for Dad: done!
• Schedule COVID-19 booster for Dad: done! Bonus, I even took him for it.
• Do May withdrawal from brokerage and pay May bills: done!
• Either contact an artist or start work myself on the cover for The Jewel-Strewn Night: I did this so early in the month that I forgot about it until I looked at the goal list, but yes, I did it
• Complete one creative stretch goal (can combine effort if I'm productive but scattershot): Yes, just barely.

• Check off 60 boxes on the bullet journal for writing/editing/drawing: made it to 63!
• Get A Game to You to 50% edited: I only got to 45% but I'm giving myself an honorable mention for coming close
• Exercise 15+ times: 21!
• Visit friends: getting out quite a lot for me, really
• Do some art: I think May even qualifies as A Lot of art.
• Track what I read: I've even updated my StoryGraph! Technically that happened on June 1, but hey, if I can still reconstruct it, good enough.

June Goals

May's goals were (a) very modest and (b) exhausting. I don't know why it's so hard for me to get back to creative pursuits, but: OOF. I finally got to 60 bullet points on May 28th and I just collapsed for the last three days of the month. I caught up on my journal and that was about it. I'd let my journaling slide for most of the month and then caught up in big bursts with whatever I could remember. Writing less exhaustively about each day was a good call overall, but on the other hand: I like having the record of what I did each day, and I don't want to stop entirely.

Anyway. I think the "goal is flexible" was a good plan, but my goals need to be Even Less ambitious, which is disheartening (these were not ambitious goals! I did more than this while working full time AND caring for Lut). But I don't want to feel drained dry by the end of June. So:

• Provide care for Dad
• Actually take Dad to the ultrasound appointment on June 11 instead of spacing out about it a second time
• Do June withdrawal from brokerage and pay June bills
• Pay quarterly estimated taxes by June 15
• Complete one(1) creative stretch goal

June Stretch Goals

• Figure out middle and denouement for Kingslayer
• Refine editing list for The Jewel-Strewn Night
• Get A Game to You to 60% edited
• Write 10,000 words of A Dragon's Secret
• Check off 40 boxes on the bullet journal for writing/editing/drawing
• Any of my other usual stretch goals

I am hoping that sufficiently low goals will trigger my joy in exceeding them, so I'll finish them early and forge on instead of falling over at the finish line. We'll see if this works any better than May did.

Health and Fitness

I exercised 22 times, which is pretty good given that I often miss Friday (because I visit Wyndsong) and Saturday (because I don't tear myself away from Ong's stream). 

I took Dad for a routine check-up in March. He's scheduled for a follow-up in April, and also he needs to see a nephrologist because his kidney function is poor. I made that appointment on April 2 (the doctor's office didn't even get the referral sent over until March 31), but it's on the schedule for April 23 now.

I also took myself for a doctor's appointment! I haven't had a regular GP visit for like 2 years, so that was good. My blood work showed that my cholesterol and blood sugar was high, so the doctor wanted me to eat better. I doubt I will get all the way to "eating well", but my diet has been a smidge better this month. I made seafood potatoes four times, and ate more vegetables in general than usual. And a little less sugary foods. My resolve to cut back to one Coke float per day (or equivalent sugary food) has not been entirely successful, but it's still an improvement over "I'm not even trying."

Dailies

I did better at tracking these, though I think I lost track a few times. I checked off some boxes every day, though, so I'll treat it as close enough. I drew 9 times, wrote 11 times, and edited 11 times. I wasn't reading as much; even manwha is no longer enticing me to read daily anymore. Still, 21 times.

Writing

I made more notes for Kingslayer; the file is up to 7,247 words, so 2800 this month. I opened the file for A Dragon's Secret a few times and made very little progress on it: 700 words, up to 59,700. 

Business of Writing

I still have zero enthusiasm for working on The Jewel-Strewn Night. I spent my editing time on A Game to You instead. I spent a lot of time on the editing list, breaking down the "I will never finish this" points into manageable chunks, and figuring out how to address a few issues I'd wanted to change but hadn't been sure how to do so. At long last, I have an editing list that has difficulties for every point and doesn't have anything that feels completely insurmountable. I haven't hashed out everything where I went 'maybe I should change this but idk how', but I hashed out all the important stuff.

The editing list stands at 23% done, because I've been poking at edits for a long time and had completed a good 10-15% of it over the course of all that time. Still, I made meaningful progress on it this month: at least 8%. I even counted "fix the editing list" as a significant chunk of work, given how much effort I'd put into it. And that doing so has genuinely made editing the book significantly easier.

Art

I finished "Olive in a modern business suit" and started a new fan art, this one inspired by a photographic technique for backlit images. The new fan art is close to done, but not finished yet.

Following the pattern, I showed the new fan art to Maria and the Olive fan server Maria started, which has maybe five people total on it. Maybe I'll post it somewhere else someday, idk.

I should draw another thing that's not Olive, just for variety.

Reading

I caught up on What a Bountiful Harvest, Demon Lord! and This Isekai Maid Is Forming a Union! There's like 5 recap episodes of Isekai Maid that I hadn't read, but I figured I'd read the recap after the new episodes started this month. Even though I've read the entire series in the last two-three months, I still could use the recap. There's been So Much going on with that series.

I also finished The Coming Calamaties at last! Time Princess had a live chat with the author, and that gave me the impetus to finish it. It's a good story! I am happy I read it.

Social

All three of my siblings visited for a long weekend in March, with the first arriving Thursday night and the last leaving on the following Wednesday evening. It was good to see everyone! I am not particularly good at socialing, but I didn't hide in my room very often, and we did various social things: played poker, played Pax Porfiriano, went out to dinner for Dad's birthday, shared some meals in the kitchen, and went for several long walks together. It was a good visit.

Afterwards, I realized the thing that makes most visits tiring is not so much "I've had enough of these people being in my house" but "I am incapable of sustaining quality time with anyone." Eliyahu's visits cause me zero stress because neither of us expect the visits to involve quality time. I still spend most of my time on all my solitary activities -- games, writing, drawing -- when they're here. Whereas with my siblings, I'm like 'oh they're only here for a little while, I need to make sure I'm available to be social' and so even though I am not particularly good at being social while they're here, I'm not doing much of my normal solitary stuff, either.

I also visited Wyndsong a few times, and imported Eliyahu starting on the 29th.

March Goal Scorecard

• Do not go into hermit-mode during sibling visit: done!
• Provide care for Dad: done!
• Pay March bills & brokerage withdrawal: done!
• Make A Game to You's editing list actually useful: done!
• Do a perceptible amount of work on something else: I'll count A Game to You for this, since it's where I made the most tangible progress (even beyond the editing list thing).

March Stretch Goals

• Do some art: Done!
• Visit friends: Did this!
• Exercise 15+ times: Up to 22 aw yeah
• Completed 2025 taxes: This wasn't even on the goal list, but I did it! There was even some tax weirdness (my first quarter 2025 payments had been applied to 2024 taxes instead, so they were refunded to me in 2025 and I had to pay them again now), but I took care of that too. 

April Goals

• Provide care for Dad
• Enjoy Eliyahu's visit
• Do April withdrawal from brokerage & pay April bills 
• Pay 1st quarter 2026 taxes. See if there's a way to make the government believe you are paying 1st quarter 2026 and not have them apply it to 2025 again like last year.
• Complete one (1) of the creative stretch goals. You can combine progress to count if it's scattered enough

April Stretch Goals

• Organize Jewel's editing list. 
• Write 5000 words of A Dragon's Secret
• Complete a rough outline for Kingslayer (beginning, middle, end. Does not need to be fully-fleshed out, just clearer idea of the middle stuff.)
• Make 5% of progress on A Game to You
• Any of my other usual stretch goals

Health and Fitness

I exercised 21 times in February! Pretty good for a short month. I'd thought maybe I'd done more cooking than usual? I've been making potatoes with broccoli, cheese and imitation crab every now and then since Eliyahu left in January. But it looks like I mostly did that during January and only once during February. I might have missed a time or two of cooking, though, since I wasn't as scrupulous about keeping my journal current as I have generally been for the last year and a half.

Dailies

I was not bad at keeping track of these! I have records for every day in February. I checked off editing 21 times, writing 19 times, drawing 17, and exercise 21. I was also pretty good about reading a little every day (usually manwha) -- 26 times on that.

Writing

I made more notes on Kingslayer, including starting to reorganize them to get rid of some cruft and make bits easier to find. The file is up to 4400 words, so 1100 words since January. I feel like I made more progress than this, but this is probably because I thought about it more than I wrote things down. Oops.

A Dragon's Secret is up to 59,000, so 4300 words for February. Perceptible progress, woo!

Business of Writing

My first readers were done with The Jewel-Strewn Night. Going through the comments and moving action items to the editing list took much longer than usual, but it was my only creative goal for February, so I made sure to finish it. 

Art

I finished the non-Olive-art, or at least pronounced it as done as I was gonna get it. It was based on a photo on Sandra Tayler's Discord server, so I shared it there and nowhere else. I remain weirdly more interested in painting than in showing anyone what I've painted.

After that, I went back to painting Olive, this time in a modern business suit. Her boymode in Time Princess is suit-inspired, with a neckcloth and a long coat. Even though it's much more interesting than a modern business suit, I kinda wanted to draw her in one anyway. So I did! I didn't finish it in February, though I got very close to done. To the point where most viewers will not be able to tell the difference between the version as of Feb 28 and the final version after several hours of additional work.

Reading

I started reading Tears on a Withered Flower, which probably won't finish for a few more years, alas. I didn't get to the end of the available episodes because I ran out of coins and figured I'd just let Webtoons bill me for another month of subscription in mid-March, as the most dollar-efficient method. When there aren't many episodes left on an unfinished story, I sometimes lose enthusiasm to catch up, because I know the last episode is unlikely to be satisfying. Not always, though; there's several series that I stay current on using Tapas.

I also started another unfinished series, What a Bountiful Harvest, Demon Lord! by BK_Moon, the same author who wrote The Greatest Estate Developer. Time Princess released the rest of The Coming Calamities, and I read a bit of it, but didn't get very far. I'm still enjoying it, just not patient enough to read it.

Social

I saw Kage, Sophrani, and Envoy every Friday in February, so that's on track! M also came down for a weekend, though he was mostly down to take care of financial things for Dad and related to Mom's passing. I was not very social during his visit, though we did go for long walks together with Rosie each day of it.

February Goal Scorecard

• Provide care for Dad: Done!
• Pay February bills & do withdrawal from brokerage: Also done!
• Look at comments for The Jewel-Strewn Night and make an editing list: Took me until the last day of the month to finish, so way more challenging than I expected. But I finished it! And haven't wanted to look at it since, so that part is not great, but oh well.
• Write 2000 words of A Dragon's Secret: I wrote over 4000 words! Woo, overachieved on extremely lowballed goal.

Stretch Goals Scorecard

• Edit A Game to You: I made some progress on this. I even started assigning difficulty values to the various points on the outline, so at some point I may even be able to estimate how much progress I've made. I think probably less than 10%, but mostly because edits on this book are so much more extensive than I usually deal with.
• Work on outline/notes for Kingslayer: I didn't write a lot of words, but I felt like I made progress on it, so sure, let's count it.
• Exercise 15+ times: 21! Aw yeah.
• Do some art: Finished the crypt piece and started a new fan art

March Goals

It's almost halfway through March and I have done very little creativity-wise, so I do not think this month is gonna be very productive at this point. 

• Do not go into hermit-mode while siblings visit for Dad's birthday
• Provide care for Dad
• Pay February bills & do withdrawal from brokerage
• Finish assigning values to A Game to You editing points. Break down the points that feel too complicated to tackle so they're more manageable.
• Do a perceptible amount of work on something else. 2000 words on A Dragon's Secret or notes on Kingslayer or edit Jewel or make progress on A Game to You. Whatever. Enough that I can feel like "yeah I can finish this within a few years."

March Stretch Goals

• Organize Jewel's editing list. Assign difficulty values to editing points.
• Write 5000 words of A Dragon's Secret
• Create a rough outline for Kingslayer (beginning, middle, end)
• Make 5% of progress on A Game to You after settling all the values for the list
• Any of my other usual stretch goals

It struck me while I was writing this that I do not yet have a public entry mentioning my mother's passing. I have written about her extensively in daily access-locked entries but not much has been in the public monthly reviews. Mom's health continued to decline through December. She passed away early in the morning of January 5. I don't know what else to say, but I wanted something to be in a public-facing entry for the friends who don't have a Dreamwidth account.

Goals 2025

Move to North Carolina: I have done this! I may even have completed all the bureaucracy associated with moving. I'm not sure if I had to de-register my car with Missouri.

Assist parents: I did this thing too.

Collect the rest of my Apothecaria Journal into epubs: I made two more epubs out of my Apothecaria journal. You can download the epubs:  here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PZBpM45Ot8QiTKG3e7OU701dbV8m5T-_?usp=sharing . I didn't edit this project because it's way too annoying to edit individual jpgs for each page. While I was writing the journal, I wrote two scenes between Umbral and Magnus that aren't part of the journal and aren't illustrated. Those weren't posted with the serial, but they're included in the epubs. 

Independent of my Apothecaria journal, complete six writing/publishing stages: 

I completed 5 stages:

For A Wolf-Shifter's Pack: finished initial edits, final edits, cover creation, and layout/publishing

For The Jewel-Strewn Night: finished initial edits.

I worked on some other things. I made some progress on drafting A Dragon's Secret, did a very small amount of initial edits on A Game to You, and made meaningful progress on outlining a new book. None of this is complete. None of it is even halfway done. 

I wrote a total of 45,963 words of fiction in all of 2025. The last year where I wrote less fiction than this was 2014. From 2016 through 2024, I wrote more fiction in November than I wrote in all of last year.

Last year sucked hard for writing, is what I'm saying. It sucked for every stage of the publishing process, for that matter. I set my goals low because I knew 2025 would be bad, and I still didn't meet those goals.

I am not disappointed in myself, but I am disappointed with RL. I thought we'd talked, RL. I thought you were gonna be better than this. Maybe not a lot better than this, but a little. You gotta make an effort here, RL. 

Complete monthly updates

I've been slower about doing these in 2025, I think because the hyper-detailed posts about my life make me feel like the month-in-review is unnecessary. Like 'do I read the book, do I really need the Cliff Notes for it too?' But the review posts give a nice summary view that's hard to pick out from all the everyday details. I am glad that I've kept doing them. Despite how often I felt like "I got nothing done this month either" was the takeaway. 

Also, looking back at the summary reminds me that while my mother's declining health was far and away the worst part of 2025, it wasn't the only difficult part. I had the gallbladder attack in January and the surgery in March and the move in April, too. 

Be gentle with myself

Yeah, I think I'm doing all right on this one. Like yes, I am frustrated that I didn't write or edit more in 2025. But I'm not frustrated with me. It's not 'oh, I should've tried harder.' There was a lot going on. I'm not beating myself up over it. I'm not beating myself up over the things I failed to do in RL, either. It is what it is.

Stretch Goals 2025

Keep up with the art habit now that Apothecaria's complete

I spent far less time drawing in 2025 than I did when I was illustrating daily (fictional) journal entries. But I spent enough time on art that I completed an art summary by month image: https://photos.app.goo.gl/iztciamHArjYBtVV7 . I did an absurd amount of fan art for Olive, my favorite Time Princess character, and I have no regrets. Doing more fan art of her this month. It's all good.

Exercise 15+ times per month

I did not succeed at this every month, but I'm giving this an honorable mention because, under the circumstances, I did freaking awesome at exercise. I exercise 14 times in January (because gall bladder attack), counted minimum effort in February (because gall bladder sapping all energy), counted moving prep in lieu of exercise in April, and exercised 8 times in May (because COVID and Mom's broken leg). For the other 8 months, I exercised more than 15 times. I may well have averaged over 15 times per month even if I count February and April as total losses. Given everything that went on this year, that I didn't give up on physical activity entirely is a triumph. 

Try some more journaling games

I started "Reincarnated as the Unlovable Villainess", and while I only wrote up three of the thirty days it's meant to run, I had fun with those days. 

Write 50 blog posts

The vast majority of my posts were access-locked this year, so it's not obvious to people who don't use Dreamwidth, but I wildly overachieved on this. I posted a detailed account of almost every day in 2025. It's wild. I didn't post each day -- I'd often post a batch of days at once -- but I have 160+ entries total. Not the kind of "essays on a particular topic of interest" that I think of for a blog, but whatever. I wrote a ton of nonfiction here. My diary entries probably come to 500,000 words; more than I've ever written before. It's become a habit I don't want to quit.

Goals for 2026

Modest goals seems like the plan for 2026, too. 

• Provide care for Dad
• Assuming Dad's health does not precipitously decline or some other new disaster: complete five writing/publishing stages
• Complete monthly updates
• Read 2 books 
• Be gentle

Stretch Goals 2026

• Keep up with the habit tracker most days
• Do some art every month so I can make an art summary at the end of the year
• Exercise 15+ times per month
• Try some more journaling games. Maybe a short one.
• Finish the "Villainess" journaling game.
• Redraw an old picture that I'd put considerable effort into at the time
• Promote my books a little
• Write 50+ blog posts
• Track reading
• [Open space, feel free to add stretch goals as desired]

Details

Caregiving

Dad is pretty self-sufficient in many ways, and most things he really needs help with (laundry, showering, general cleaning) his aide or the housekeeping service takes care of. Pretty sure I spend less time caregiving for Dad than I did for Lut in last few years of Lut's life. But it would not be realistic for Dad to live alone. He needs someone who can remember things for him, as well as someone who can make appointments for him and suchlike. 

Writing/Publishing Stages

The stages are:

• Outlining
• Drafting
• Initial Edit
• Final Edit
• Cover Creation
• Layout/publishing

So five of these might look like:

• The Jewel-Strewn Night: final edits, cover creation, layout/publishing
• A Dragon's Secret: Finish drafting
• Finish a new outline

It doesn't have to be these exact ones. It can be any five stages. I can finish drafting a different book, or editing A Game to You, or complete five different outlines. Whatever it takes. Also, cover creation counts as a stage whether I do it myself or hire someone to do it. Hiring someone is also work. Different work, but nonetheless work.

I finished five stages in 2025. 

Five stages is not enough to take a book from beginning to published. From 2016 through 2024, I did more than this every year. Generally a lot more than this. I've averaged two books a year since I started publishing in 2015. In most respects, I have far less going on in 2026 than I did in my most productive years. In 2018, when I published three books, I was working 32 hours a week and providing care for Lut, who'd already been diagnosed with cancer. In 2026, I'm retired, and while I'm still caregiving, I am caregiving-while-wealthy -- which is doing it on easy mode -- and my father is arguably healthier than Lut was. 

But 2026 Me is traumatized by nine years of caregiving and watching four loved ones grow sicker and eventually die. And wondering when my 88-year-old father will take a sudden turn for the worse. And that's not even mentioning the worsening state of national and global politics. There's no sense in making a comparison.

Right now, five stages feels pretty ambitious. Finish drafting a book? In this life? Idk man. Still. I want it on the goal list.

Reading

I saw a post from someone who was like "I set my reading goal at 2 books one year and I read like 13 and the next year I set it at 3 books because let's not get overly ambitious about this." Y'know, I can probably manage two books in a year. Maybe I'll even finish the webserial for Housekeeper of the Dungeon finally. (I kinda forgot it existed until I looked at StoryGraph recently and saw it on my Current Reads list). Let's not get overly ambitious on this one.

Track Reading

I've been using StoryGraph to track what I've finished; it's a little clunky but not to bad. It's hard to use for first-reading things, because I'm reluctant to enter an unpublished book that the author plans to publish later, but for most other cases, it's fine. I noticed it has a "Paused" status, so I may start using that with all my Tapas manwha that I can't finish reading because the rest is not yet written/illustrated/published/translated (I seldom know the exact source of the bottleneck.) I'm not holding myself to that, because I've started so many manwha on Tapas.

November 2025 in Review

Health and Fitness

I wasn’t tracking outside of my daily entries, which are awkward to use for statistics. It looks like I biked 16-17 times and paced on the phone 3-4 times. Some of which might have overlapped. I’ll just say 20. Exercise completely fell apart after Mom was hospitalized on the 25th, so getting to 20 anyway is pretty impressive.

My eating habits are worse: I’m snacking more as a way of self-soothing, and especially doing things like two Coke floats in one day.

I felt very burnt-out and exhausted by Mom's latest hospitalization, especially since the doctors had decided she was too confused to make her own decisions, so it was up to me and M to decide whether she should stay or not, and for how long.

Dailies

I tracked these for the first 12 days of the month and then quit. Actually, I think on Day 12 I tried reconstructing the rest of the month, rather than really keeping on top of it for the early part of the month. Either way, I didn’t record anything after the 12th.

Writing

I wrote 9147 words on A Dragon’s Secret, which is honestly a triumph for this year, good job, me. It's up to 52,209. My personal journal weighed in at 66,857 for the month. My obsession with chronicling my days is definitely cutting into my time for doing other creative activities. But it’s a coping mechanism, and I like having the record, so not gonna worry about it.

The Business of Writing

I didn't do anything business-related during November. What little energy I had went to writing, with a bit for art.

Art

I declared victory on the picture of Olive (in her boy-mode) that I'd started in October: https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonart/media_attachments/files/115/521/968/755/750/337/original/7bf1773e83cd305b.jpg

I made a handful of sketches of Olive and Olive-with-Dahlia in November, and started an ambitious and steamier painting of the two than any I've attempted before. Because of my obsession with keeping up on my journal (and also that I was more working on writing in November), I didn't finish it.

Reading

Andy Brokaw recommended Of Monsters and Mainframes, by Barbara Truelove, with a suggestion of "don't read my review, don't read the blurb, just read the book." Hoopla had it, so I checked it out. The first few pages were enough to convince me to read the rest over the course of two days. Fun book! Do not read the blurb, it's got spoilers for like the last quarter of the story, COME ON. It's an sf book with supernatural elements, queer rep, and some horror.

I read various manwha, but nothing that finished. I am still stalled on finishing The Housekeeper of the Dungeon webserial. It basically resolved the romance with 60+ episodes left and there hasn't been enough remaining plot to keep me reading the rest. I expect I'll finish it eventually, though.

Social

I saw Envoy, Sophrani, and Kage every week in November, I think. I missed a visit because of Mom's hospitalization, but only one, and since I saw them for Thanksgiving that week, still got to see them each week.

Goal Scorecard

• Provide care for parents:  Yeah this was pretty time-intensive this month
• Register the car: I actually did this! On the 24th, the Monday before Thanksgiving. Since Mom had an appointment on Tuesday the 25th (and ended up hospitalized that day), this was pretty much the last possible day to finish it in November. But I got it done! I even put the new license plate on the car the same day.
• Pay November bills: I remembered to do this!
• Post any complete entries at the end of the day: Basically done. There were a few entries I posted the next morning instead, and I think once that I got to it later in the next day. Still, I stuck to the spirit of this.
• Make meaningful progress on A Dragon's Secret: I didn't reach my 10k threshhold, but I got to 9100 and decided that was good enough, under the circumstances.

Stretch Goal Scorecard

• Exercise 15+ times: Somehow I made it to 20. I have no explanation for how that could happen.
• Track what I read: I actually put the book I read into StoryGraph, even. 
• Do some art: Didn't finish anything, but I sketched and painted and it counts
• Visit friends: \o/

December Goals

• Provide care for parents
• Pay December bills
• Send The Jewel-Strewn Night to first readers
• Brainstorm/work on a new outline: I don't think I can finish an outline in the last two weeks of the year -- I don't even have an idea I really want to work on -- but this is my best shot at making my 2025 goal of "complete 6 writing stages", since 'finish A Dragon's Secret' is even less likely to happen. So I should at least give it a shot.
• Post journal entries within 48-ish hours of finishing them: 'at the end of the day' was kind of annoying, but I still want to avoid stockpiling a week's worth of entries and posting them all at once.

December Stretch Goals

• Write more of A Dragon's Secret
• Play more of romance soloRPG
• Exercise 15+ times (organizing stuff/cleaning counts as exercise)
• Track what I read, including Time Princess
• Keep up on my Dreamwidth feed
• Ask Bookbub for a Featured Deal and run another ad campaign for a book
• Get backmatter updated for whatever book I promote
• Pick an old picture to redraw
• Do some art
• Visit friends
• Spend some time with Eliyahu while they're visiting

I have many friends who use chatbots or other plagiarism-engine apps, so I try not to be a dick about how much I dislike it. But I don't want to hide how much I dislike it, either. I call the stuff "plagiarism engines", as a shorthand, but if I am honest, it's not just the plagiarism that I hate. It's not just that it's setting fire to the planet, or that it's driving up electricity and electronics costs, or that it produces such bad-to-mediocre pap, or that it's making real artists and real authors have to defend their work as Not AI, either.

I hate the idea itself: the notion that you can strip away all human skill and effort from the act of creation. Just press a button, and voila, the thing you wanted now exists. I hate it. You can tell I've always hated the idea, because when I make a setting that has magic, it's never magic that makes art without effort. In Silver Scales, enchanters can make beautiful, interactive, three-dimensional illusions -- but they need skill and training and artistry to do so. A character with tons of magical power but no training in art can make copies and do simple/crude images, but nothing like what artists can do. It's similar in all my settings, because I do not write about dystopian hellscapes, and a world where artistry is meaningless is a dystopian hellscape to me.

You could train an LLM on only public-domain works, and make it run for years on a single AA battery, and have it generate stories that make the heart leap with joy and wonder, and I would hate it just as much. I do not want machines that make art.

I do not want machines that make human creativity irrelevant. There is no ethical way to do that because that is not an ethical thing to do.

Health and Fitness

Exercise was pretty spotty in August: 15 times, most of which were swimming. I was sick for the first week of August and for several days during the month, which cut into exercise. 

I have gradually increased the length of time I spend swimming -- I started at half an hour while Alltoseek was visiting, then moved up to 45 minutes, and now am at 60-63 minutes. I probably won’t expand beyond that range. The default swim lane reservation is an hour, and exercising for more than an hour feels excessive anyway.

Diet is about the same.

Dailies

Tracking these has remained fitful.I have down 10 times editing, 5 times writing, and 10 times drawing, which is probably accurate.

Writing

I got 730 words into the unenthusiastic scene of A Dragon’s Secret. I re-read most of the draft so far in the hopes of motivating myself to write more, but while I enjoyed the re-read, I’m still not motivated to write.

The Business of Writing

I declared victory over the last three editing points before final-readthrough of A Wolf-Shifter’s Pack, and started the final read-through. Which means I should be able to publish it in October, finally.

Art

I finished another two portraits for Ex-Villainess, and did two Time Princess fan art illos. I ended up particularly liking the one of Olive and Dahlia kissing: https://mastodon.art/@rowyn/115118505363629540

Reading

I have not motivated myself to listen to any more audiobooks while swimming. I’ve been listening to podcasts instead. Still reading a lot of manwha, almost all of it incomplete. One series, “My Failing Divorce” finally concluded. I unlocked the remaining episodes but haven’t actually read them yet. The first half of this series was fun in a “there’s never any serious threats” way. Eventually, though, the author introduced an incredibly tedious and annoying amnesia plot and I regretted unlocking the episodes. I read through to the eventual unsatisfying conclusion of that arc. I think Tapas ran a sale on the final episodes so I got them, but I still haven’t actually read them. I’m not sure where I stopped reading anymore; Tapas marked all the episodes as read when I bought them, because I had to click on each one to buy it. At some point I guess I should actually read it.

Social

I’ve been seeing Sophani, Kage and Envoy on most Fridays; I think three times in August, because I cancelled twice over not feeling well.

Goal Scorecard

• Provide care for parents: Done!
• Pay August bills: Done!
• Decide what I’m doing with those last three editing points on A Wolf-Shifter’s Pack: Done!
• Look at this list a few times during the month so that I actually do the next two: I actually did check it enough times to do the last two!
• Find out what I need to do to register car in new state: Done. I need to fill out and print two forms but I have all the information and other paperwork I need.
• Make podiatry appointment for Dad: Done! It was September 2.

Stretch Goals completed:

• Finalize whatever I'm gonna call the Untitled Polyam Lesbian Romantasy: Yeah I think I’m sticking with A Wolf-Shifter’s Pack at this point
• Start final read through on Untitled Polyam Lesbian Romantasy: Oh hey I thought this stretch goal was to finish it. I didn’t, but I started it, so I got this stretch goal
• Play more of romance soloRPG: I wrote out Day 3, which was fun! Then the Day 4 prompts bored me and I stopped writing it. Aw.
• Exercise 15+ times (organizing stuff/cleaning counts as exercise): Just barely!
• Track what I read: So I didn’t finish anything but technically I have tracked the nothing that I finished!
• Do some art: 4 pictures!
• Visit friends: oh hey I did this one too!

September Goals

• Provide care for parents
• Pay September bills
• Complete final read-through on A Wolf-Shifter’s Pack
• Do something about the next scene of A Dragon's Secrets (write it, or skip it, or phone it in, or whatever else gets me to writing a different scene)
• Look at this list a few times during the month so that I actually do the next two
• File 2024 taxes (I have an extension on filing until October but I don’t want to wait until the last minute. Again.)
• Complete and print forms to register car

September Stretch Goals

• Work on outline for some new project
• Play more of romance soloRPG
• Exercise 15+ times (organizing stuff/cleaning counts as exercise)
• Track what I read
• Keep up on my Dreamwidth feed
• Ask Bookbub for a Featured Deal and run another ad campaign for a book
• Get backmatter updated for whatever book I promote
• Pick an old picture to redraw
• Do some art
• Register car
• Visit friends

M texted around 8:45AM to let us know he'd arrive around 1PM. I was already awake and got up shortly after he texted, got breakfast, and let Dad know the expected arrival time. Around 10:30AM, I called Mom to ask her about lunch and if she wanted us to wait and bring M when he arrived. She'd had a rough morning and did not have any appetite, so was fine with waiting. 

I was feeling groggy, so went back to bed around 11AM to try to nap. I didn't really sleep; I read some and lay in bed with my eyes closed for a while instead. It was restful, though, and I felt better when I dragged myself out of bed at 12:50PM so I'd be dressed when M got in. As I dressed, I felt ridiculous for taking M's estimate as Exact Time Of Arrival because no one's gonna know the minute they'll arrive when they're driving 4+ hours.

Then at 1PM, as I emerged from the laundry room, I saw Rosie, M's dog. "Rosie! You must have brought M." After a minute or two, when M did not appear, I told Dad, "Look! We've mysteriously acquired a dog. This is great!"

M came into the living room (he'd been putting stuff down out of sight in in the guest bedroom) and said, "Your new dog has brought a dog walker with her."

"Ooh best dog accessory."

M remembered it was Father's Day and wished Dad a happy Father's Day, so I did that too. We are not big on holidays in my family anymore.

Lyric came downstairs to check on me and saw Rosie. 

Rosie: (OwO what's this?) *comes over to investigate*

Lyric: (OH HELL NO) *bristles up and hisses*

Rosie: (New fren? Fren? Sniff?) *attempts to sniff*

Lyric: *jumps at Rosie, landing claws on her face, then springs back, otherwise standing her ground* (you can't turn your back on a monster because then they'll CHASE YOU and that's worse)

Rosie: *starts back, puzzled*

Rosie: (but we're still gonna be frens right? new fren?)

M came over and verified that Rosie was unharmed (she was). I came over and sat down between them to reassure Lyric and to protect Rosie from further assaults. 

Lyric: (okay well this is craptastic I need to hide in the garage now)

I let Lyric into the garage, which is fortunately her happy place anyway. I brought her lunch and a bowl of water into it for her (it already has a litter box). 

When I went upstairs, Rosie tried to follow, but I told her "No" sternly, and she didn't attempt to come in the room. I closed the door on her, because I wanted to keep my room free of dog-scent for Lyric. I called Mom to ask about lunch again, and she asked for subs, so I ordered those. Dad, M and I left together; I drove because M had his rental car set up with a dog hammock in the backseat. 

At the nursing facility, we asked about bringing Rosie. Dog visitors are fine! They wanted proof she'd been vaccinated, but the receipt M had on his phone for her last vaccinations was sufficient. We figured we'd bring Rosie with us on Monday. 

We chatted during the visit, then headed home around 3:30PM. We drove through a rain squall on the way home. It'd stopped by the time we got there, but I drove over to the gym anyway because the clouds were still threatening and I don't like walking in rain. I asked M if he wanted to come with me, but he passed. I'd thought this was a weight day and was disappointed when I checked my phone and discovered I'd done weights on the 14th. Oops. I used the stair climber for 21 minutes. My pulse rate didn't get as high as usual on the 2 setting, so I moved up to 3 for most of it, yay: slightly less boring. Still listening to Tress, but only while at the gym instead of during the drive, since M and I talked during the drive.

At home, I convinced Lyric to come upstairs and get a snack, then sat at my computer for a bit. Lyric started growling from her perch on the back of the loveseat, and I turned to the door to see Rosie peering through the opening; I'd left it cracked so Lyric could go to the litter box downstairs if necessary.

Rosie: (I know I can't come in but I can LOOK right??)

Lyric: (OH HELL NO).

Me: "M! Please call your dog."

M got Rosie back downstairs. Lyric retreated behind the computer, where she stared distrustfully at the door. The next time I went downstairs, she wanted to return to hiding in the garage, so I let her.

It was garbage night, so I stuffed the last of the packing paper into the recycling bin, and then started on the cardboard boxes. The flattened boxes were too big to fit in the recycling bin, and folding them further did not work for cramming them in. So I spent some time tearing them into chunks small enough to fit. I strained my right wrist doing so; it still hurt the next day.

In the evening, I watched most of a "Poker Face" episode with Dad & M. I checked on Lyric a few times, but she was unwilling to emerge from the garage. Even hours after M went to bed and took Rosie with him, closing the bedroom door so Rosie would stay in, Lyric preferred the garage. She'd come inside, sniff at the laundry room floor for a minute, go "NOPE", and return to the garage.

I did a little drawing and editing as it got late. Started over on the hair for the Delphia portrait. It's coming out better this time. Mostly I caught up on journaling, though.

Monday, June 16

I woke around 6AM and went to the bathroom, then checked if I could coax Lyric inside. She was not enthusiastic, but came in and followed me upstairs after a bit. I opened the snack box for her, then went back to bed. Lyric came over to the bed, but took up a perch on the desk behind my head, where she could glare suspiciously at the door. When I came downstairs for breakfast around 9AM, Lyric returned to the garage. 

M had to take Rosie to a vet appointment at 2:30, so his plan was to bring Rosie to visit Mom, then drive from there to the vet. "So we can take two separate cars. Unless you want to go to the vet with us.

Me: *thinks about this*

Me: "If I go with you to the vet, I don't have to drive."

M: "Sure, we can take my car."

Me: "Sounds great." 

I don't hate driving, but it's so much nicer to ride than drive. 

When I called Mom about lunch, she didn't know what she wanted, so I suggested their favorite nearby Asian place. She was good with that. They had an online ordering page, but it wouldn't let me set up a pickup time before noon. So I got M's order, made sure Dad didn't want me to order something as leftovers for him (he was going to poker instead of visiting Mom), then called in the order a little after 11AM, for pickup in 20 minutes. 

I usually have my parents pay when we pick up food for Mom, but since I wasn't paying online, I paid in person with my own card. I could've brought Mom's card but eh, figured it wouldn't hurt to buy my own lunch for a change. 

When I remarked on this later to M, he said, "We can add you as an authorized user to their card if you want? I just use Dad's card when I'm buying something for them, but since you're here and buying things in person for them, might be more convenient."

Me: "Eh. I can use Mom's card when I have to. But it would be handy to have a card I could keep in my wallet. I guess if it's really easy to do--"

M: "Oh yes, you just ask for it online."

Me: "In that case, sure, let's do it."

M commented, "I also didn't want it to affect my credit -- you know, keeping everything separate. Not that it would have a big impact."

That made sense at first, and then I went, "Wait, does being an authorized user affect your credit? I thought it didn't because you're not responsible for the payments."

M thought that it could. I searched online on the subject that night, and the answer is "usually but not always." Most credit card companies report under the names of authorized users and not just the account holder, but not all of them. So it varies. I'm surprised it gets reported at all, or that credit scoring agencies incorporate it; it seems like "you know a person who will let you spend their money and that person pays their bills" would not be that meaningful in predicting if you will pay your bills. But there you go. Maybe knowing people who pay their bills is a predictor of individual behavior, idk. I am not concerned about it; I have excellent credit and so do my parents, and I barely use mine anyway.

We had a good visit with Mom, and she was really happy to eat something different -- she even ate more of lunch than usual -- so that worked well.

I had planned to go to the gym after the vet appointment. My wrist still hurt from tearing up boxes on Sunday night, so I thought it might be a good idea to let it rest and just do cardio. But by the time we neared home, I wanted a nap and decided to skip the gym entirely. 

While I napped, the social worker called and left a message asking me to call back about transport for Mom. It was after 6PM when I woke and got the message, so I just wrote down the number. I'll call tomorrow.

I watched some more "Poker Face" in the evening with M and Dad, though I went upstairs while M watched the episode with the pig-tailed demon child. I had seen most of that episode already, and the one bit I'd missed was a bit I really didn't want to watch. (It's a good episode but oof. M described it as "the darkest episode" of the show afterwards, which I thought was funny because most of the episodes are murder mysteries and no people get killed in this one. But I could see his point. I mean, it did have a bit that I did not want to watch because I considered it too painful.) I tried bringing Lyric upstairs, but she was having none of it while Rosie was loose, and even after Rosie was in M's room for the night, Lyric still wanted to go back to the garage the next time I went downstairs. 

Lyric is Not Enjoying this visit, poor kitty.

I had M give me the passwords for Dad's Amazon account, so I can order stuff for them through that and generate fewer confusing alerts for M. I also got the streaming passwords and the Tivo account password, so that hopefully if Dad's TV gets logged off, I can get it logged in again without calling M. We haven't had the issue with Dad's TV getting logged off in some months, though. They used to have internet access from one provider and phone service from another, and the second provider also had a wifi network that existed but didn't provide internet. We got rid of the second provider entirely and that may've made the TV less confused about how to connect and solved the issue.

I also discussed the Hoyer lift option with M; the nursing facility didn't volunteer to send her home with one, but we could get one and may need it. We decided to stick with not getting it for now. If it turns out we need it, I can always ask for it later.

I also finally remembered to take another look at the transfer-board-like object. It's not identical to the one the facility uses, though it's similar. I want to have them order a transfer board for me because while I don't know what else this might be, I don't think it's appropriate for the task -- it's got some reinforcing pieces of wood on one side that gives it an extra inch of height and that'd just make it more awkward to use for transfering.

I wanted to catch up on journaling tonight, and have done so, which is good. I haven't done anything creative today and it's now after midnight, though. Time to finish Time Princess dailies and go to bed.