March 2021 in Review

Health & Fitness

I didn’t make it to exercising 20 times in March: 17. Even so, total effort over the course of the month was pretty similar. Not particularly making progress on improving overall fitness, but I’m not losing ground, either, so that’s good.

Back in January, Lut and I signed up for the county and city vaccine wait lists. In early March, Lut finally got an email telling him he could make an appointment, which he did within minutes of it being sent, at like 4AM because he happened to be up then. He got the first dose of the Moderna vaccine on March 10, and is scheduled for the second on April 7.

On the 31st, my state made my category (bankers) eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. I promptly went to our usual hospital’s COVID-19 vaccine sign-up site, which directed me to sign up for the state’s vaccine wait list, which I dutifully did. On the same day, the local library system sent out an email with a “COVID-19 Vaccine FAQ” link. I was not optimistic that they’d have any new sources for me to try, but I checked it out. They noted that Wal-Mart and CVS were offering shots. I’d had no luck with either when I tried them at the beginning of March, but it had been a few weeks. Wal-Mart hadn’t updated their eligibility criteria yet and the last time I tried their site, it didn’t tell you whether any given store was actually offering shots: it was just “click on store, see that they have no available appointments, click on another store, same, repeat for half-dozen stores before concluding that maybe they’re not offering shots in this state yet at all.”

CVS’s site, however, showed me a store that had appointment slots available early in the form-completion process. There was a lot of form to complete, but I got through it and made an appointment for the next day.

As of 4/1, I have received one dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Aw yisss. CVS was lovely about the whole thing, had plenty of staff on hand to make sure it went smoothly, and it was much less crowded than the process at the pop-up clinic where Lut got his shot. (This is just a matter of scale -- the pop-up had like 10 stations to administer vaccines vs CVS’s one booth; both processed patients quickly and administered vaccines within like 10 minutes of arrival.) Lut had no side effects beyond a little arm-soreness and maybe some extra fatigue. My arm is slightly sore but it’s only been a few hours. I had insomnia last night so I’m not gonna be able to tell if it makes me tired.

Writing

I dug out the incomplete outline for You Thought You Wanted to Be Level 99, But Really You Wanted to Be a Better Person, finished it up, made some additional notes about the MMO and characters involved, and started writing it. Draft is up to 19,600 words.

The Business of Writing

I poked at the cover art for The Lord, His Monster, and Their Lady, did the layout for it, and sent that to Alinsa. At this point, the book is just waiting on the print layout.

I also read through Demon’s Alliance and Angel’s Grace, and made editing lists for both of them.

Reading

Still chewing through India After Gandhi at the same glacial pace. I did not get brave enough to try reading more fiction, although I’ve thought about it a few times.

I broke my “read a little every day in 2021” streak by missing a day. Oh well. “Almost every day” is fine.

Art

Once I had a complete outline for a book I wanted to write, I dumped art in favor of writing. Before that happened, I did finish a picture I’d started of Frost and Thistle back in 2019. And I did some sketches of ears for Ear Week. I like how this one came out.

Gaming

Instead of blowing my “learn a new game each month” goal forever, I learned Draftosaurus. It’s simple and not really a “play every week” sort of game, but still fun.

March Goal Scorecard

• Assist Lut you betcha
• Look at goal list occasionally very occasionally but technically complete

Stretch goals

• Exercise 20 times this month Nope. 17. Honorable mention for trying.
• Consumption tracking Yup.
• Make an art Technically, in the “completed something that I mostly-finished years ago” sense.
• Do a simpler cover for Lord Nope. Decided to stick it out with the original concept.
• Practice artTechnically! Did a few sketches of ears.
• Dig up some of the other old outlines and see if I want to write any of them instead Success!
• Write some fiction Also success!
• Re-read Demon’s Alliance so I can figure out what I want to change in edits Yep, did this
• Re-read Angel’s Sigil so I can figure out what I want to change in edits Did this one too
• Make editing list for Demon’s Alliance Done
• Make editing list for Angel’s Sigil Done
• Maintain bullet journal Done
• Watch stuff with Lut We picked up a Disney+ subscription and watched WandaVision and The Mandalorian. I enjoyed The Mandalorian quite a bit, which was a pleasant surprise. I’d assumed it would be a grimdark, morally-ambiguous story, but it was fairly upbeat and the protagonists were likeable and generally trying to do their best.
• Play games I maybe played too many games, my right hand is sore from resting on the trackball.
• Read Technically!

March Goals:

March was much better than April -- having an outline to write from makes a huge difference in my mood.

April is CampNano, and while I’m not gonna use the CampNano site, my beloved writing incentive game 4thewords always does special events for CampNano. So I’m gonna participate in that (just as soon as I finish One Last Quest).

But I’m still not feeling ambitious enough to commit to a writing target. So goals are still minimal:

• Assist Lut
• Look at goal list occasionally
• Participate in CampNano on #4thewords

Stretch goals

• Finish writing Level 99 (this is not as ambitious as it sounds; I expect Level 99 to be a short book and according to my outline, I’m already almost a third done with it. So finishing it is probably 40,000-50,000 words. If I write a lot for CampNano, this may well happen.)
• Start revisions on Demon’s Alliance
• Start revisions on Angel’s Sigil
• Work on notes/outlines for a new book (eg, Alien Peacelord or The Twin Souled-Empress or whatever else sounds fun. This is actually kind of important because I don’t want my mood to crash when I don’t have something new to work on after finishing Level 99.)
• Exercise 20 times this month
• Consumption tracking
• Make an art
• Work on cover art for Demon’s Alliance and/or Angel’s Grace and/or Level 99
• Practice art
• Post a few blog entries, apart from my usual month-in-review.
• Maintain bullet journal
• Learn a new game
• Finish reading a book I haven’t read before

This is definitely way more stretch goals than I will finish in April. That’s fine, it’s why they’re stretch goals. n_n