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

Health and Fitness

I did well on exercise in September: 20 times. Most of that was an hour of swimming, though I did count "pacing in my room while on the phone" a few times.

Diet: unchanged.

Dailies

I was pretty good about tracking in September. Drawing was easily the winner on creative activities, at 20 times. Editing was 15 times, most of which was the final read-through. Writing was six times. Three were the last days of the month, as I finally dragged myself to the end of the scene I'd been so bleh about writing. 

Writing

I wrote all of 718 words, but hey, finished the unenthusiastic scene of A Dragon's Secret. I bet I will do something else with that scene before I send it to first readers, but eh, done for now.

The Business of Writing

I finished the final read-through of A Wolf-Shifter's Pack! I have a few small things left to do before layout, and then I can publish it.

Art

I completed three more fan art pieces of Olive: two that were pretty complicated, and one straightforward portrait. I started a second straightforward portrait and didn't finish it until October, because I went overboard on details for it.

This one was my favorite of the three: https://mastodon.art/@rowyn/115175044747789153

Reading

I finished reading "Status Window to the Soul", which took me a while because after the first third, it just wasn't that compelling. I started reading "The Dragon King's Bride", but didn't finish that until October. I guess I should put those in my Storygraph. I'm trying to be better about tracking manwha as "things I have read", at least when I finish one, but I am still not good about it.

Also, in August I beta-read the second Space Dragons novella and forgot to mention it in my August review post, whoops. It's not published yet, so I'm not logging it. I kind of want to log unpublished things but it also feels rude to the author to add their work to Storygraph before they publish it.

I started reading the web serial for "The Housekeeper of the Dungeon"; I've been unlocking a few episodes per day for free and reading them as I go. It's made me feel even more like "reading manwha and other graphic novels is still reading", because the web serial is one long book. Each episode of it is a few pages long, and most of them cover significantly less story than the corresponding webtoon episode. For a long time, the manwha and web serial were almost identical in terms of story events; I'd expected the manwha to cut a lot, but it hasn't so far. I did finally get to some material that had been cut, one scene that was changed, and what looks like a couple of episodes that the manwha added (although possibly things have been rearranged instead of cut/added, since I haven't finished yet.) The manwha has a better translation and the changes it's made improve it, in my opinion, so I still prefer the manwha. But the web serial is enjoyable and complete already, so I'll finish it. But thus far, I'm fine with unlocking as much as possible slowly for free before I buy the last section. I suspect this will continue to be true, since the kind of tense, nerve-wracking scenes that make most people want to read quickly to find out how it's resolved generally just make me put the story down these days. I guess they still worked with Murderbot? So I'm not immune. Maybe it depends on the story, or maybe it's my mood. Or a combination of both.

Anyway, the experience has made me realize that I won't necessarily get more out of reading a book than I do out of reading a graphic novel.

Social

Still visiting Sophrani, Kage, and Envoy pretty regularly! \o/

Goal Scorecard:

• Provide care for parents: Done!
• Pay September bills: Done!
• Complete final read-through on A Wolf-Shifter’s Pack: Done!
• 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): Finished the scene!
• Look at this list a few times during the month so that I actually do the next two: Oh yeah did this too.
• File 2024 taxes (I have an extension on filing until October but I don’t want to wait until the last minute. Again.): Done!
• Complete and print forms to register car: Done!

Stretch goals completed:

• Exercise 15+ times: got to 20, woo!
• Track what I read: okay so I had to go back through my September entries and log them in this entry to remember, but technically, that's tracking.
• Do some art: finished two things! Spent quite a bit of time drawing and painting, really.
• Visited friends: did that! \o/

October Goals

It's more than a third through October, so I feel a little silly setting goals now. But I have some things I would like to get done this month that I have not done, so I better put them down or they're not happening.

Register car

• Provide care for parents
• Pay October bills
• Publish A Wolf-Shifter’s Pack
• Get COVID vaccine before my siblings leave (and flu vaccine at the same time, but COVID is the one I can't wait on because I need to do it while someone is here to take care of Mom while I'm sick from COVID vaccine aftereffects).
• Take Dad for TDAP and shingles vaccine (or have someone else take him)

October Stretch Goals

• Work on outline for some new project
• Finish two or more scenes of A Dragon's Secret
• 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
• Visit friends

I exercised the first eight days of May: two times at the community center gym, while the rest were either unpacking-related or pacing while on the phone. Then on May 10, I came down with COVID (caught from my dad, who caught it from his poker buddies.) 

On May 11, Mom also came down with COVID, and at 2AM on May 12, she fell on her way to the bathroom and broke her leg.

Between all of that, I didn't do any more exercising for the rest of May. COVID was weird. I never felt very sick. I had a sore throat for a while. It was mostly gone after several days and I went back to drinking caffeine-free Diet Coke instead of strawberry-watermelon drink mix. Then a few days after that, I switched back to drink mix because my throat felt a little not-right. It wasn't exactly sore, but soda did not feel good going down. I am still having drink mix instead of soda, though I stopped warming it up a week or so ago. (Now I make it cold, with filtered water from the fridge and crushed ice.) My throat doesn't bother me at all but I feel like it would bother me if I drank soda, so I haven't. I like the strawberry-watermelon drink mix pretty well, and the nice dietitian Lut saw a year ago recommended flavored drink mixes over soda. I had a significant amount of fatigue that lingered along with a little congestion and a little cough and the barely-noticable sore throat. So I was like 90% recovered after four days and then stayed at 90% for a week and a half, and then upgraded to 95%. By the end of May, I'd reached 99%, with just the barely-noticable throat thing remaining.

Eating habits have been reasonable by my standards. Mom often wants a sub, and I get one whenever she does, so technically I'm eating a lot of restaurant food. But sub sandwiches are fine as restaurant food goes; I get a bit of veggies on them and they're not particularly fatty, nor large; I'll eat half of an 8" sub for lunch and have the other half for dinner (unless my father eats it for dinner first). No worse than the usual foods I eat. I also ate more frozen vegetables at home this month.

Dailies

I did well with these until I got sick, and then stopped using them again. May 11 through May 23 is just blank. Once again, with the new month, I've started using them again.

Writing

I basically did no new writing in May. Like two hundred words added to The Secret Dragon, up 39,604, I'm guessing. (I haven't done much writing so far in June, either, but I forgot to check where I was at the start of the month. Didn't work on the soloRPG at all.

The Business of Writing

I renamed Be That Way to The Kitty Coffee Pack (which also may not last as a title) and made progress on edits. I got it to 40% complete by the end of May. My goal for the month was 50%, so I missed it, but with everything else going on this month, 40% is pretty great.

Art 

I drew a few times in May, finishing one small (6"x6") marker picture of Koysko from The Secret Dragon, and starting a similarly small picture of Strikvi from the same story. Art ranked at the bottom of things to do this month, so it's amazing I did any of it.

Reading

More big chunks of unfinished manwha. I re-read some of my own books for comfort, but no books by other people.

Lyric update

Lyris has adjusted to her new home pretty well. She likes to hang out in the garage. At first, I thought garage was her Substitute Outside. But it has since struck me that the detached garage at my old house was a favorite hangout of hers, too. It was very common for her to emerge from it when I called for her to come in after a few hours. Perhaps even more common than hanging out on the porch. Maybe she just likes garages.

She got outside once, when Mom let her into the garage without realizing I'd accidentally left the outer door open. I came home when Mom let me know, and Lyric came running to me as soon as she heard me calling for her. Since then, she hasn't tried to get outside; she no longer mews at the door, or comes running when it opens, or runs in front of me when I approach a door, hoping to get out when I open it. I keep an eye on her when Dad and I leave the house, because there'd be plenty of time for a cat to get out, but she just watches us from the living room.

So while I still feel like it'd be nice to have a screened-in porch for her, I'm not sure she needs it. Also, I asked the HOA about a catio and the rep was like "NO CATIO. But MAYBE you can have a screened porch. First you need to read this 80 page document and figure out what in it is relevant and complete this form asking for approval from some number of neighbors and then we'll think about whether or not we'll allow it."

I don't even want to read the 80 page doc and I definitely do not want to wander the neighborhood stalking neighbors to get them to sign the form. Dad has a poker buddy who's involved with the HOA; I may ask him at some point if there's a way to make this process less onerous than it appears. But between the cost, the bureaucracy, and Lyric's increased tolerance of life as an indoor cat, I'm leaning towards letting the whole thing slide.

Goal Scorecard for May

• Provide care for parents: This has been A Lot. Dad is low-maintenance, thank goodness. The home health aide is mostly important for ensuring he gets showered; he's pretty self-sufficient on other daily tasks. Mom was in the hospital for nine days and is now in a skilled nursing facility. I've visited her every day but one (when I was too exhausted from COVID and poor sleep to feel safe driving). I've been bringing her food most days (she won't eat the institutional food), and doing what I can to make her more comfortable and promote her recovery. (Sometimes those goals do not go together.) She hasn't been able to walk since her leg broke; she's not allowed to put weight on it and she's not strong enough to support herself with her arms and one leg. So therapy is doing what they can to improve her mobility.
• Pay May bills: Done!
• Call Ting to cancel second phone line: the magic of goal list works again: this is done.
• Complete at least 50% of final edits: Not done, but honorable mention for making it to 40%
• Register with the HOA: Done
• Find out HOA approval process for catio: Done and bleh.
• Attempt to get DMV appointment: Done! On the second attempt, I even succeeded at getting an appointment!

Stretch Goals:

A bit surprisingly, I did none of these. I mean, yeah, it was a busy month. But usually I get some random stretch goal done anyway.

June Goals

• Provide care for parents
• Pay June bills
• Complete 70% of edits on The Kitty Coffee Pack
• Find out what I need to do to register car in new state
• Make podiatry appointment for Dad

• Write 10,000+ words on The Secret Dragon
• Finish edits on The Kitty Coffee Pack
• Publish The Kitty Coffee Pack
• 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
• Sell mom's car (I do not expect to do this until Mom is home and I don't really expect her to come home until July, at this point. But I want this to stay on the list so I don't forget about it entirely.)
• Register car

I finally had gallbladder surgery on March 3rd! This meant I felt much worse from March 3-8 or so, and then started to feel better. By the end of the month, I was more-or-less back to baseline.

I've sometimes wondered if my "takes a nap every day" thing was a sign of excessive fatigue, and I'd had a little hope that I would have more energy after recovering from surgery than I'd had before the first gallbladder attack. That does not seem to have panned out. I'm not entirely sure I have more energy now than I had on February 26 and 27, before surgery, when it had taken me a while to load 9+ boxes of books into the car for two trips to donate books. I'd needed to rest a few times, but I had loaded them. I'd been feeling pretty good. 

On the other hand, from February 28-March 2, I mustered basically zero energy for activities related to purging stuff, so...yeah, I'm probably doing better now than before surgery. When your main symptom is fatigue, it's hard to tell how bad the fatigue is.

I did laundry on March 2, including all the bedding, and counted that as exercise, then counted pacing on the phone as exercise on March 8. But I didn't make a real effort to get back to exercise until March 10, when I had the post-surgery follow-up. From the 10th through the 31st, I exercised 17 times, so 19 for the month. Which is pretty good for a month where I had surgery!

My diet has mostly gone back to pre-gallbladder-attacks foods, which means I am once more eating lots of cheese and high-fat snack foods, and almost no vegetables. The one exception is breakfast: I used to make cream of wheat with nutella for breakfast every morning, and now I have yogurt with granola. This is more because I don't have to cook it than out of a belief it is significantly healthier. It's probably a bit healthier, though: no palm oil.

Writing

The Secret Dragon is up 36,526 words: 13,200 words for the month. More than I've written in any other month this year! Progress still feels sluggish but

*waves arms at everything else*

yeah that.

I started a romance soloRPG, "Reincarnated as The Unlovable Villainess." That journal is at 3,328 words, with another 1000 words of notes for it. It's fun but not enough more fun than writing The Secret Dragon, so I've mostly been working on that when I'm in the mood to write fiction.

The Business of Writing

I did a bit more editing on A Game to You early in the month. Then, while recovering from surgery, I read through The Jewel-Strewn Night and decided to edit that instead. I've remained focused on The Jewel-Strewn Night for editing, and it's now in the final proofreading pass before I share it with first readers.

Except most of my first readers haven't finished with Be That Way yet. So I'm likely to finish The Jewel-Strewn Night in April but not share it with first readers until May? Idk. We'll see.

Art

I checked the "draw" box 23 times in March. Most of that time was spent on the cover illustration for Be That Way, which I finished on March 18. I'll probably tweak it a bit when I do the cover layout, but that can wait until I'm done with final edits and know the exact dimmensions of the paper book. (And therefore the exact size for the wrap cover). I worked on three other character portraits for Be That Way in March and finished two; the last one is still in progress.

Reading 

I finished one Time Princess spin-off story (the spin-offs are short and have no meaningful choices), "Timeless Love". I got halfway through Feathers of Dawn and then stalled. I haven't quite decided to DNF it yet, tho. Mostly I've been reading big chunks of unfinished manwha and a new unfinished Time Princess story. I checked the habit box for reading on 30 days; probably half for Feathers of Dawn and the rest reading manwha (I don't count reading a single update, but if I read a big batch of episodes, I count that) or Time Princess stories.

Moving Preparations

I did very little in the way of physical preperation, but I made arrangements for a bunch of things. I have movers scheduled for both my stuff and my car, plane tickets for myself and my cat, and a new cat carrier. I also took Lyric to the vet to get her shots updated and also cleared for travel (this last turned out to be unnecessary, because the airline I'm flying on doesn't require a certificate of health from pets on domestic flights. But I had to take her in for shots anyway, so no issue.) And got the vet's recommendation to give her gabapentin before the flight. 

This felt like so much while I was doing it, I gotta say. I have my sister-in-law to thank for me getting it done at all, because she went through and called bunch of movers in my area to find the best ones for me, and contacted the transport company I'm using for my car. 

On the last day of the month, I also called a nearby thrift shop about what kind of donations they take (basically everything I have to donate), and filled two 25-gallon bags with the clothes from Lut's bureau.

Things I have to do in April:

• Take care of payment for movers
• Talk to realtor about selling the house
• Shut off the utilities to the house, unless the realtor advocates leaving them on for a while? I actually might need to leave them on because the gas furnace has an electric start, so if I want the furnace to run to keep the pipes from freezing, I need both (freezing is unlikely in mid-April but still). Oh, and the sump pump is electric and the backup sump pump is water-based so...yeah. I don't want to turn off water/gas/electric until the house sells. I'll unplug everything instead. Still need to turn off the fiber, though. Also need to find out if Google Fiber will want their equipment returned to them.
• Talk to my mom about anything else I might not be thinking of.

My parents have bought, moved, and sold so many houses just in my lifetime. I think they've owned four different houses in the time I've lived in this one, and four more between when I was born and when I bought this house. I've never sold a house before and I haven't moved in 22 years. I hired movers the last time I moved, too, but that time was local so it was simpler. Though I'm actually moving much less this time, since I'm not moving Lut's things or most of the furniture. The reclining loveseat, the painting desk, the desk chair, and one bookcase are the only big awkward pieces that I'm bringing with me. Everything  else is either small or folding. Anyway, my mom is an expert on moving and selling houses so I should consult her.

I have some other prep things that I'd like to -- mostly donate or throw away more stuff -- but if that doesn't get done, oh well. House is selling as-is. It will be worth less because of this but meh. My house was always a place to live and not an investment.

Goal Scorecard

• Have gallbladder removed: done! Rest in peace, gallbladder.
• Recover from gallbladder surgery: done!
• Call parents a few times: done! I talked to them four times in March, even. 
• Pay March Bills: I forgot to put this on the goal list but did NOT forget to do it. So victory!

March Stretch Goals Completed

• Talk to vet about traveling with Lyric and see what they recommend: done!
• Contact moving compan(ies). Figure out date for moving: done!
• Get plane tickets for move (including whatever ticket Lyric needs): done!
• Track what I read: I didn't finish anything in March but technically I'm still tracking it!
• Exercise: 19 times, pretty good for a surgery month (even if my bar for what consitutes "exercise" was very low)
• Write some of The Secret Dragon: 13,200 words!
• Edit: Made good progress on The Jewel-Strewn Night and got a little done on A Game to You
• Play a romance soloRPG: Done! Though I haven't played very much of it.
• Work on cover art or book illustrations: I did both! Cover and one book illo is done and the other two book illos are mostly done.
• Keep up on my Dreamwidth feed: Pretty sure I missed some days, but I covered the 5th through the 31st, at least. Good enough.

April Goals

• Move to provide care for my parents
• Cancel Google Fiber & return equipment if necessary
• Contact realtor about selling house
• Pay April bills

I know I'm gonna do more than those four, but those four are the big ones that I must do in April, and moving is super-stressful even when you can afford to pay for all the things to make it easier. 

April Stretch Goals:

• Call Ting to cancel second cellphone line
• Finish initial edits on The Jewel-Strewn Night
• Write some of The Secret Dragon
• Play more of romance soloRPG
• Finish illustrations for Be That Way
• Exercise 15+ times
• Track what I read
• Make progress clearing out stuff I no longer want
• 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

As the "when gallbladders attack" part of the header on the last entry might suggest, it was not a good month for health or fitness. Except in the "well I didn't overeat because I had no interest in eating" sense. I don't feel like that really counts.

I did pretty well on exercise for the first half of the month, and gave myself credit for the effort of decluttering two times after gallbladder attack. For a total of 14 times in January. Which I guess is pretty good for a month where I was too ill to exercise for 11 days.

I am probably not actually 100% yet, but I felt well enough to drive out to the trail for a walk on February 1 & 2, and pretty sure the queasiness during it on the 1st was more from my period than residual gallbladder stuff (though it's hard to tell.) The walk on the 2nd was fine and I even got bubble-less tea afterwards. (The bubble tea place was out of boba. I chatted with the proprietor to get a not-high-in-fat version of my usual Thai milk tea, too.) So doing all right.

Writing

Continued to write The Secret Dragon, albeit slowly because of gallbladder attack. It's up to 14,765 words: 7528 new words in January. I also added a bit more to the Apothecaria journal before illustrating and posting the final entries.

The Business of Writing

I made the editing list for Be That Way. It is unprecedentedly short at just nine items, five of them so easy that I already finished them. The other four are trickier, but I should be able to finish edits this month.

I also experimented with Bookbub ads towards the end of January: discounting Demon's Lure to 99 cents and running ads for it. This was a money-losing venture, as I assumed it would be going in, but it was fun to try something different in the marketing arena. I made a long thread on Fediverse where I live-posted about the experience over the course of six days. . Before my next adventure in paid advertising, I'll submit for a featured deal, which is unlikely to be a money-losing venture but also I won't get one. I submitted one in January after I'd already started the experiment and they turned it down, of course. 

Also, I should get the backmatter updated on whatever book I advertise next, because I have never bothered to update any of them. o_o;;;;

Art

I finished posting my Apothecaria journal in January. It feels like this was an age ago already, as if I finished it last year instead of this.

My art output cratered after I completed the last entry. (The last entry was ridiculously intricate, granted.)  I finished one drawing of Caliper (the goblin from Be That Way) and mostly-finished one of Caliper with Taeyna (the wolf-shifter). 

It's been nice not posting images daily to Fediverse. 

Reading

Mostly been first-reading Tuftears' Timecrossed Engineer: Back to School. I started The Spell Shop at some point, maybe during the last plane trip in December? I'll probably go back to that after I finish Timecrossed Engineer.

I started and finished a manwha, The Return of the 8th-Class Mage. It's the first action fantasy manwha I've finished, and was remarkably similar to the romance fantasy manwha I've been reading. The main distinction is that the romance plotline was less prominent and the action plotline more prominent. I read one comment on it, made near the end, where the reader complained that the main character had never been in any real danger and that the audience always knew he outclassed his opposition and would defeat them in due course. And my thought was: Yes, exactly, that's what I enjoyed about it. A lifetime of stories of rising stakes and increasing tension has left me rather delighted to read a low-tension story where hardly anything goes wrong for the MC and almost every conflict is soon resolved in his favor. 

Social

Eliyahu returned to Canada in mid-January. They have to stay in Canada until June at least. I can't imagine it will be feasible to invite them to stay with me for a month when I'm living with my parents, but maybe we'll work something out.

Another long-distance friend had mentioned visiting in January, but I didn't contact them immediately after Eliyahu left and then I was horribly sick for the rest of the month. I should get in touch with him. I am tentatively planning to go to a convention on the other side of the state in three weeks, and I'll probably see him there if not sooner, at least.

I did not make plans to visit my parents, because Gallbladder Attack. I don't intend to make plans for air travel until I talk to a specialist about the gallbladder thing.

Gaming

I didn't start playing a romance soloRPG, but I downloaded one that looked promising. I read partway through the rules but didn't finish. Part of me wants to play another soloRPG and another part is like "wow that was so much work for something that's not really mine." Playing Apothecaria was fun in a way that writing without prompts is not, but still. So much work.

Tuftears is running a game with two friends using a soloRPG as the base, and I admit this is something I'd like to try, too. GMing an Apothecaria game would pretty fun, for instance.

Goal Scorecard

• Write some of The Secret Dragon: done!
• Read through Be That Way: done!
• Make an editing list for Be That Way: done!
• Finish illustrating and posting my Apothecaria journal: done!
• Make plans for next trip to parents: nope, putting this off until I know what's going with my health issues
• Call parents a few times: three times, good enough

January Stretch Goals:

• Keep up on my Dreamwidth feed: I actually did this for a change!
• Track what I read: I didn't start using Storygraph but hey, I updated the "reading" section of this entry, good enough.
• Pay for car insurance, pay quarterly taxes, and file and pay for business license & annual tax return: these weren't on the list but they really should've been regular goals, because they're not optional. Also, they're done now, woo.
• Make progress on clearing out stuff I no longer want: I've been nibbling away at this. I'm making a point of filling my trash cart completely on each trash day. The city does free pickup for one full trash cart, which holds around 4 full trash bags. When it's just me, I don't even generate half a full trash bag from ordinary use. So the rest can be filled with things I don't want and doubt I could donate. I have so much more to go through, but I'm making progress. I really need to contact places about donations, though.

February Goals

• Finish initial edits for Be That Way
• Contact primary care physician if I haven't heard from specialist by 2/7
• Contact at least one (1) place about donations. Of anything.
• Finish reading Timecrossed Engineer
• Call parents a few times

February Stretch Goals

• Write some of The Secret Dragon
• Play a romance soloRPG
• Work on cover art or book illustrations
• Exercise 20+ times
• Track consumption
• Track what I read (maybe try Storygraph finally?)
• Make progress on clearing out stuff I no longer want
• 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

I did well on exercise in November up until I finished listening to System Collapse, the last Murderbot story. Then I started Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and: meh. I have not been motivated to go out and exercise. Or exercise indoors. I've done it several times anyway, but I'm down to closer to 1-2 times per week instead of 6-7 times per week. It doesn't help that the weather has gotten colder. Yesterday it snowed. The roads are slushy today. I'm not sure they ever plowed, but there was some melt-off from direct sunlight. Eliyahu is here so maybe we will be motivated to walk despite cold and snow (today's high is right around freezing) but: meh.

Lyric was eating last night, but she's relapsed this morning and is back to putting her face in food and making the occassional eating motion without actually eating anything. :( So probably taking her back to the vet Monday or Tuesday. I will call tomorrow with an update and see what they recommend. "Eating but not well" is better than "not eating" and might be an indication that she's recovering slowly and just needs more time instead of more being-prodded-at.

She's eaten more dry cat food over the course of the day, but not a lot. I gave her a gabapentin this evening in anticipation of taking her to the vet tomorrow. She went outside for a bit afterwards, then came back in, climbed on top of me, and zonked out in my lap. This is not wholly unlike her; sometimes she does like to sprawl for an hour or so on top of me. But she's rarely this level of zonked out. Gabapentin makes her more mellow but doesn't knock her out, and she's pretty out of it now.

Writing

Oh yeah I did a lot of this. It was November.

I started and finished the first draft of Be That Way, which is 57,330 words.

I finished writing my Apothecaria journal, adding another 17,591 words.  The whole saga weighs in at 264,000.

After finishing Be That Way, I worked on notes and the outline for The Secret Dragon (new working title in place of Koysko and the Witch. I'm debating using The Dragon Duke as the title instead. or The Dragon's Secrets. Idk. Names are hard.) The outline is coming together but outline-progress feels so slow and frustrating compared to writing progress. Meh. 

I dictated 5000 words of a soloRPG-ish story, as a combination of play/notes/actual story. I started writing it out as an actual story and got 800 words in. I don't know if I'll finish the whole planned thing; it'd probably be novelette or novella-length.

Apart from fiction, I wrote seventeen blog posts: most of them just diary-style entries about my life, but a few about specific topics.

I used dictation to catch up on the "250k words in 44 days" goal. The "dictation word salad" file is up to 28,500 words and is mostly stuff I'm not gonna post or use anywhere. There is some "me talking through plot problems" in it that was relevant to The Secret Dragon or my Apothecaria journal.

On the "250k in 44 days" quest, I was at 194,071 at the end of November. 18,232 of those were from October, so 175,839 were November. About 75,000 were fiction, 28,500 were dictation spam, and the rest were notes, blog posts, deleted words, and other miscellanea. 

The Business of Writing

November was for writing, not business.

Art

While November was also for writing and not art, I only had illustrated Apothecaria entries going through Nov 15. So I illustrated 16 more entries during November, to take me through to Dec 1. 

Reading

I finished three audiobooks in November, all Murderbot: Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, and System Collapse. I started Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, which has gone so slowly that it auto-returned while I wrote this entry. I'm 70% through, so I guess I'll check it out again to finish it? It's not that it's bad. It's fine. It has many good qualities, even. It's just not that engaging to me at this time.

I also finished a manwha, Observing Elena Evoy. It's not great at the romance part and did some things that annoyed me. But it also had aspects that I absolutely adored and that are incredibly rare in manwha. The female protagonist is clearly neurodiverse and an absolute delight. She has a cold, flat affect early in the story, but gradually warms and becomes more skilled and confident at socializing by the end of the story. Another aspect: the male protagonist is the main (but not only) viewpoint character -- the only manwha I've seen that made this choice. At one point, he's reflecting on the change in Elena and I was like "yeah, she really has changed, oh no, it's all because of the male protagonist UGH".  But no, the male protagonist's take is: she has worked so hard at this. Not "I helped her" or "she wanted to change because of me" or anything else, just: this was dificult for her and she decided she wanted to do it and she has done it AW YEAH SHE ROCKS. It was so endearing. 

One manwha I've mentioned before, The Flower That Swallowed the Sun, recently completed. I haven't finished it yet because I've got a big chunk of I Fell into a Reverse Harem Game entries to read and I've been putting off buying large numbers of episodes in a new story if I still have a bunch that I've already bought from another.

Goal Scorecard:

• Complete Outline for Be That Way: I thought I did this on October 31, but regardless, it's done.
• Write 50k of Be That Way: Done!
• Pay November bills: Done!
• Talk to parents occasionally: Only called twice and both times around Thanksgiving, but that's better than zero?

November Stretch Goals:

• Finished writing Be That Way
• Illustrated Apothecaria journal through end of November
• Finished writing Apothecaria journal
• On track to complete 250k goal by Dec 10 (I am a tiny bit ahead at this point and need ~5600 words per day instead of 5682.)

December Goals

Oh right I need some goals for this month too. Sigh.

• Finish an outline. (Probably The Secret Dragon but I'm not picky; it can be something else.)
• Pay December bills
• Call parents at least once before December trip
• Visit parents

December Stretch Goals 

• Play a romance soloRPG
• Start editing something
• Start writing something
• Work on cover art or book illustrations
• Illustrate Apothecaria through end of December
• Finish illustrating Apothecaria

Health & Fitness

I visited my parents and friends in the area for several days in September, and I basically didn't exercise during that trip. But otherwise I was good about daily exercise. Eliyahu was visiting for most of September and we went for an hour-long walk on almost every day. Even when they were gone for a few days at end of September, I

No improvement in eating habits, though. Arguably slightly worse, since we usually drive to the trail to walk and then get a bubble tea afterwards. On the other hand, it's common for me to have a Coke float if I don't go out, so changing to a different treat drink doesn't make much difference overall.

Writing

I finished one dramatic arcs I had planned for Apothecaria, so that was nice. Still feel like I'm winding down now, but don't know how many more entries before I declare it complete. I've been building up the buffer on entries after running it to zero during the trip to my parents. Right now, I'm at 12 illustrated entries, plus most of an entry written but not illustrated. So that's 37.5 entries written.

I played a bit of a new soloRPG, Lo/oper. I'll post what I've done of that at some point, though I haven't decided if I want to play it all the way through.

The Business of Writing

I finished illustrating the cover for A Dragonling's Family!

And that was about it for business-y stuff.  I read through part of A Game to You again for fun, because I love this extremely messy draft. But I can't claim I did any serious work or even thinking about edits for it.

Art

37 Apothecaria entries illustrated, woo. And the cover for A Dragonling's Family.

Social

Way more social in September! Visited my parents for three days, and Jared, Nicole and Paul for two during the September trip.  Eliyahu visited me for most of the rest of the month. Corwyn stopped by my house at one point to drop off my ice-dyed curtains, and we hung out for a few hours. This included going over to see his new house, which is dinky but, more importantly, affordable. He plans to build a gigantic garage on the property to house his business and let him get rid of at least one storage unit.

Reading

I read two novellas! One was All Downhill From Here, an alt-universe novella by Erin Ptah, about Leif & Thorne trapped by an avalanche. The other was Martha Wells' All Systems Red, the first of the Murderbot Diaries. I enjoyed both! There's a bunch more Murderbot stories, and I own the next three novellas thanks to a giveaway by Tor a while back. So maybe I'll get around to reading those. As usual, I read on the plane, which means my October trip will perhaps see another book or two read.

I also finished a completed "boy's love" manwha, Don't Touch Me. It ended abruptly and without much resolution on the non-romance plot. But the romantic resolution was satisfying and that's all I really want out of a romance.

Several days ago, I bought the rest of the completed fantasy romance manwha Contractual Marriage to a Surly Duke, but in token of how disappointing the last third or so of the story has been, I haven't actually finished reading it. The first two-thirds or so had the romance plot intertwined with a mystery plot and I enjoyed that part. Then they resolved the mystery plot and I thought "ah, the rest will be a leisurely denouement to resolve the romance plot."

...no.

The rest has been wandering around with a new plot that neither I nor the characters have any investment in, while the female protagonist makes various inexplicable choices for no reason other than "the author doesn't want to resolve the romance yet and can't think of any remotely intelligible way to keep it going." Like, I was going to try to explain what's happening but I can't, it just makes no sense whatsoever. I mean, "romance protags making bad choices instead of having a normal conversation" is a staple of the genre, but this goes an order of magnitude beyond "why don't you just talk to each other" into "this doesn't make sense from literally any possible perspective and your own actions contradict each other on, like, the same page, what is even happening, I can't tell."

I already paid for it and there's not much left, so I guess I'll finish it and see if there's anything fun left, but UGH.

Oh! And I finished another fantasy romance manwha, How Did I Become the Princess? This also featured some "what is happening" moments that made no sense. It was fine overall, but I can't enthusiastically recommend it.

I'm down to just two manwha that I'm reading daily installments of. There are several incomplete ones that I'm current on and enjoying, but I have to wait for weekly updates (or for the hiatus to end, sigh.) I picked up a few new ones but put them down again. I'm slowing down on consuming them; there's one that I could finish but haven't bought the rest of yet because I was waiting until I finished all the other episodes I'd purchased.

Goal Scorecard

• Pay bills: Done! In September, even.
• Finish illustration for A Dragonling's Family: Also done!
• Buy plane tickets for next trip to parents: and done!

Stretch Goals:

• Continued posting Apothecaria!
• Started a new soloRPG for the SoloRPGBookClub

October Planning

I am so fed up with NaNoWriMo-the-organization that I no longer want to even use the hashtag. Congrats, on thoroughly poisoned your brand there, folks. I'm not gonna rehash the problems with the org because there are Way Too Many. See here for write up: https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1ae33g5/writing_discords_forums_and_a_decades_worth_of/ . Note: it's part one of two. Way Too Many Problems.

But the org doesn't have a trademark on "writing lots in November". 4thewords.com, the writing website I've used since 2016, is still having a big November event (also no longer affiliated with NaNo). It's actually overflowing November to run for 44 days, starting at the end of October and going until December 11. (Because 4thewords loves the number 4.) 

I expect the social media zeitgeist will still be focused on November, and I expect I will focus on that month, too. But I am moderately excited at the prospect of Writing Month post-retirement and with no other commitments. Maybe I could write 100k in a month finally! Probably not; I expect emotional concerns will continue to weigh upon me. But I'd like to set myself up for a month Focused On Just Writing as well as possible.

That means some things I want to complete in October:

Publish A Dragonling's Family: should be quite doable; all that's left out is layout and final read-through.

Get Apothecaria buffer to 30 by the end of October (or finish the story): I have Apothecaria entries through the 13th. So I need another 18 entries for October and then 30 for November. That's 48. So 48 illustrations and around 24000 words. This is pretty ambitious. I had been completing two entries per day for ten-ish days, but then fell out of the habit and even failed to do one entry on  a day. Anyway, not sure I can manage it, but I'd like to. November 2023 I just did illustrations every day while completing NaNoWriMo, and also counted Apothecaria for some of my 50k words.

Get one (or possibly two) outlines in shape for writing: I have one more-or-less complete outline, for "Be That Way", but I want to add more romance to it. I have another outline in progress for "Koysko and the Witch"  that's more like 60% done. "Outline two books" was one of my goals for 2024 so it'd be nice to do that. But I am formally giving myself a pass on completing 2024 goals. 2024 was a disaster of grief and medical crisis for me.  Some stuff is not happening. But I'd like to write in November and this will be more fun if I have good outlines to write to. This is more a "towards the end of month" goal. I probably want to work on these during the Halloween 4thewords event, running from Oct 25-31.

So I want to do all three of these things, but breaking it down to be more realistic and also to add the two little things that I will forget to do if they're not on the list:

October Goals:

• Publish A Dragonling's Family
• Pay October bills
• Buy tickets for next trip to see parents

October Stretch Goals:

• Write & illustrate 48 Apothecaria entries (or finish the story, if it doesn't take 48).
• Get one or two outlines in shape to begin writing