November 2022 in Review

Health/Fitness

I did some exercising in November! Towards the end of the month I even did more exercise than usual (like I exercised twice last Sunday and also exercised on both Monday and Tuesday morning before work, for a little longer than usual). But I didn't track anything but NaNoWriMo during November so I have no stats for it. I apparently managed food-tracking for the first 10 days and then gave up on the concept.

But it's not NaNoWriMo anymore, so I'll get back to that this month.

Writing

Yes! This is what I did in November. I wrote 57,150 words this month. As usual, I front-loaded my NaNoWriMo and won early, on November 25. By November 8, I was over 25,000 words. In fact, on November 8, I was on pace for double-NaNoWriMo: I wrote 3334 words per day on average for the first eight days of NaNoWriMo.

But I had the first six days of NaNoWriMo off from work (and didn't work on the 8th either -- I usually work Tuesdays and have Wednesdays off, but work had a virtual event on the 9th so I took the 8th off and worked the 9th).

I think if I didn't have a day job, I could manage 100,000 words for NaNoWriMo. Maybe one of these years, I'll give that a try. If I wrote 100,000 words during NaNoWriMo I might actually both start and finish a novel during the month (a thing I have never done.)

I continue to largely ignore the NaNoWriMo website. I like the November "everyone's working on their book" vibe, but I don't find the website helpful or motivational. I did enter my book and that I'd won, for posterity.

The website had two skeevy sponsors this year (Writer's Beware had existing alerts on both: NDP aka Manuscripts and Inkitt). I was wondering if it was time for me to not just stop using the website but also to stop using the name. But the website has backed away from those sponsors, removing them from the "winner's goodies" page if not from the sponsors page.(EDIT: they have since been removed from the sponsors page as well.) So perhaps there's hope for them.

The Business of Writing

It was NaNoWriMo. I did none of this. I think I might have mentioned once or twice that I had a new book out, but probably not.

Art

Astonishingly, I did do some of this. I worked on the cover for Angel's Grace some more; it's maybe 80% done now? I mostly worked on it while listening to twitch streams from Vicorva and SkylarkRogers, and a bit during a Craft & Chat, I think. I also did two dragon illustrations (a goofy one based on a cat and a serious one based on a dog, after a tweet pointing out how common the converse was). And I completed three CuratorPrompts sets: 100, 101, and 106. Curator has been posting prompts daily, but I haven't been doing them because I faceplanted into writing instead. I am honestly surprised at how much art I managed to do in November anyway.

Social

I did get out a bit to visit friends during November, including going to a Friendsgiving dinner on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was lovely to have a full homemade Thanksgiving dinner without having to cook. :9

November Goal Scorecard

Goals:

• NANOWRIMO BAYBEEEEE: I won NaNoWriMo! For the 7th consecutive year!

December Goals

So I guess I need to have goals again, huh?

• Help Lut.
• Update my website to reflect that Demon’s Alliance is published and Angel’s Grace is coming soon.
• Finish the cover for Angel's Grace and get it to Alinsa for layout
• Finalize the blurb for Angel's Grace
• Get final edits to Angel's Grace at least 75% complete

Stretch goals:

• Complete edits on Angel's Grace
• Publish Angel's Grace
• Write more of A Dragonling's Family
• Write an outline for a new book
• Track food & exercise
• Maintain bullet journal

I know I usually have a whole long list of stretch goals because there's a lot of things it would be nice to have done. But I'm keeping it short this month because I want to focus on the items that remain on my annual goal list: outline one more book, finish drafting one more book, and publish one more book. I don’t think I can get all of these done this month -- I am not convinced I will get any of them done this month, which is why they're all under stretch goals -- but I’ll give it a shot.