September in Review
Oct. 3rd, 2017 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynHealth/Fitness
LUT IS HOME.
This fact continues to be a source of profound relief to both of us.
He is running out of home visits from health aides, so his speech therapist and occupational therapist has signed off. He is going to continue to get physical therapy, I think.
I'm back to biking to work most days, and biking afterwards. This is closer to three days a week of exercise than the six days I'd been doing before Lut was hospitalized. My weight is holding steady at around 180, so at least it's not going up.
I started buying steamer bags of frozen vegetables with sauce. I am finally conceding that I won't go to the trouble to do any food prep on veggies. So it's worth it to buy expensive but conveniently packaged ones that are gooped up to tastiness than to not eat veggies at all. I bring the steamer bags to work and eat the whole bag as a snack. 12 ounces of broccolli with cheese still has fewer calories than a 1.5 oz chocolate bar.
So far, I've had three, so it's kind of working? There's been a lot of free junk food at work recently, and I haven't been resisting it, so. I'll see how it goes when there's less temptation from free cake and donuts.
Writing
5500 words on Demon's Lure*, I think? And a few thousand words of new scenes for book 2 of the Scales duology and The Sun Etherium.
* This is a new WIP title for Demon Hunter. It's not that "Demon Hunter" was a bad title, per se, but there are like fifty urban fantasies/paranormal romances already under that name, and mine isn't even an urban fantasy. Demon's Lure is also the title of a paranormal romance, but only one, so that's an improvement. I might change this name again, though.
The Business of Writing
Silver Scales is done! And also officially titled Silver Scales. It is in Alinsa's hands for layout now. We're planning to release it by the end of the month. \o/
Book 2 is basically done. I finished my final editing pass on it, but I've decided on a couple of other minor edits to do. Since Alinsa is busy with Scales anyway, I am not in a huge rush to pronounce it officially done. I haven't settled on a title for it, but I am presently leaning towards Gold Coils.
I finished the last of my planned edits on The Sun Etherium and am doing a final read-through now. Then it'll go to first readers and there will be more edits. \o/ Who wants to be a first reader on the second Etherium novel? Note: the story is a standalone fantasy romance. You can read it even if you didn't read The Moon Etherium. (Although it comes after TME and accordingly has spoilers for it.)
I feel super productive, lemme tell you. Also, it was really nice to edit a book that only needed a few scenes expanded and a handful of tweaks instead of forty sweeping changes. Like maybe I'm finally getting the hang of this writing thing and it won't take me an entire year to get my next draft ready for release.
The new Surface helps a lot with editing, which I hadn't anticipated. This is because I can read on it in tablet mode in bed, and it's powerful enough to use Google docs normally. So I do proofreading in bed and make notes for any longer changes I want. (Virtual keyboard is still terrible for actual writing.)
Art/Other
I did some new incidental art for Scales & Book 2, for seven little silhouettes in total. I need to refine them a little more, but hey. New art!
I am not otherwise using the Surface much for drawing, alas. I should do more, if only to justify the $100 stylus for it. (I tried using a cheap pressure-sensitive stylus and ... nope. Just nope. It was unpleasant to hold and to use.)
Gaming
I fell back into Puzzle Pirates. Oops. On the bright side, I didn't feel like playing it this morning and wrote a post for Flight Rising instead, so there's some hope that it won't suck me in completely.
Also, a lot of the time I spend on PP now is time I used to spend on Twitter or webbrowsing. It's not really displacing editing or writing, it's just changing what I do to avoid those.
Happiness
I've been a little glum the last week or so, with the combined sense of "I am spending too much time goofing off" and "I am stressed out from not enough free time." Despite having a lot more free time because I don't have to commute twice daily to the hospital. I think I am subconciously expecting things to be "normal" and thus frustrated that I'm not getting as much done as I did when things actually were normal.
Goals for coming month
* Finish editing The Sun Etherium and send it to first readers.
* Finish editing Gold Coils
* Read some books. That somebody other than me wrote.
I'm also gonna try to do a few thousand words of Demon's Lure, but I feel like my reading has fallen off a cliff this year and that it is probably more important to me professionally to Do Some Reading than it is to crank out more words. And the only way this is happening is if I actually put it down as a more important goal than writing. For one month, anyway.
Especially since I will probably want to do Nanowrimo next month, so November will not be a great time for more reading. :)
LUT IS HOME.
This fact continues to be a source of profound relief to both of us.
He is running out of home visits from health aides, so his speech therapist and occupational therapist has signed off. He is going to continue to get physical therapy, I think.
I'm back to biking to work most days, and biking afterwards. This is closer to three days a week of exercise than the six days I'd been doing before Lut was hospitalized. My weight is holding steady at around 180, so at least it's not going up.
I started buying steamer bags of frozen vegetables with sauce. I am finally conceding that I won't go to the trouble to do any food prep on veggies. So it's worth it to buy expensive but conveniently packaged ones that are gooped up to tastiness than to not eat veggies at all. I bring the steamer bags to work and eat the whole bag as a snack. 12 ounces of broccolli with cheese still has fewer calories than a 1.5 oz chocolate bar.
So far, I've had three, so it's kind of working? There's been a lot of free junk food at work recently, and I haven't been resisting it, so. I'll see how it goes when there's less temptation from free cake and donuts.
Writing
5500 words on Demon's Lure*, I think? And a few thousand words of new scenes for book 2 of the Scales duology and The Sun Etherium.
* This is a new WIP title for Demon Hunter. It's not that "Demon Hunter" was a bad title, per se, but there are like fifty urban fantasies/paranormal romances already under that name, and mine isn't even an urban fantasy. Demon's Lure is also the title of a paranormal romance, but only one, so that's an improvement. I might change this name again, though.
The Business of Writing
Silver Scales is done! And also officially titled Silver Scales. It is in Alinsa's hands for layout now. We're planning to release it by the end of the month. \o/
Book 2 is basically done. I finished my final editing pass on it, but I've decided on a couple of other minor edits to do. Since Alinsa is busy with Scales anyway, I am not in a huge rush to pronounce it officially done. I haven't settled on a title for it, but I am presently leaning towards Gold Coils.
I finished the last of my planned edits on The Sun Etherium and am doing a final read-through now. Then it'll go to first readers and there will be more edits. \o/ Who wants to be a first reader on the second Etherium novel? Note: the story is a standalone fantasy romance. You can read it even if you didn't read The Moon Etherium. (Although it comes after TME and accordingly has spoilers for it.)
I feel super productive, lemme tell you. Also, it was really nice to edit a book that only needed a few scenes expanded and a handful of tweaks instead of forty sweeping changes. Like maybe I'm finally getting the hang of this writing thing and it won't take me an entire year to get my next draft ready for release.
The new Surface helps a lot with editing, which I hadn't anticipated. This is because I can read on it in tablet mode in bed, and it's powerful enough to use Google docs normally. So I do proofreading in bed and make notes for any longer changes I want. (Virtual keyboard is still terrible for actual writing.)
Art/Other
I did some new incidental art for Scales & Book 2, for seven little silhouettes in total. I need to refine them a little more, but hey. New art!
I am not otherwise using the Surface much for drawing, alas. I should do more, if only to justify the $100 stylus for it. (I tried using a cheap pressure-sensitive stylus and ... nope. Just nope. It was unpleasant to hold and to use.)
Gaming
I fell back into Puzzle Pirates. Oops. On the bright side, I didn't feel like playing it this morning and wrote a post for Flight Rising instead, so there's some hope that it won't suck me in completely.
Also, a lot of the time I spend on PP now is time I used to spend on Twitter or webbrowsing. It's not really displacing editing or writing, it's just changing what I do to avoid those.
Happiness
I've been a little glum the last week or so, with the combined sense of "I am spending too much time goofing off" and "I am stressed out from not enough free time." Despite having a lot more free time because I don't have to commute twice daily to the hospital. I think I am subconciously expecting things to be "normal" and thus frustrated that I'm not getting as much done as I did when things actually were normal.
Goals for coming month
* Finish editing The Sun Etherium and send it to first readers.
* Finish editing Gold Coils
* Read some books. That somebody other than me wrote.
I'm also gonna try to do a few thousand words of Demon's Lure, but I feel like my reading has fallen off a cliff this year and that it is probably more important to me professionally to Do Some Reading than it is to crank out more words. And the only way this is happening is if I actually put it down as a more important goal than writing. For one month, anyway.
Especially since I will probably want to do Nanowrimo next month, so November will not be a great time for more reading. :)
no subject
Date: 2017-10-03 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-03 06:37 pm (UTC)It's just one little book! How long could it take to write?
no subject
Date: 2017-10-03 09:57 pm (UTC)Hmmm, yikes, Nanowrimo IS coming up and I have a story to write. Well, I am no slave to the calendar, I can start writing it formally earlier if I want and take longer than a month to do it right, as I wish.
Demon's Lure, huh? Is that in any of your existing story universes?
no subject
Date: 2017-10-04 12:17 am (UTC)I really liked the new Leckie book, if that helps you think of something to read. Libraries might have it soon?
*cheers all the other useful stuff not specifically mentioned here*
no subject
Date: 2017-10-04 07:50 pm (UTC)As far as feeling stressed out about time management, I often find that when there is a protracted period of stressful busy-ness at work, the while after that will feel like I'm not getting anything done, in part because I'm not getting *as much* done as when I'm super-busy, and in part because I was burning the candle on both ends and need recharge time.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-05 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-08 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-09 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-06 09:11 am (UTC)Also, Sun Etherium! I'm so looking forward to it, can I sign up as a first reader? :-) I know I kind of fell of the first reader waggon there with Scales, but a) I'm no longer working! Lots more time! and b) Scales might not quite be for me- mythology too straight-forward Christian, in an otherwise otherworld-fantasy setting... just not quite my cup of tea, :-) I adore TME, though, characters and world-building and all, so here I am, volunteering! :-)
I hope things can now settle down again for you, routine-wise and emotionally, and that Lut's recovery goes smoothly!