#ROW80 Final Check-in 3/20/19

Oh, wow, I was actually able to post on a Wednesday! Holy crap!

Just kidding. It’s Tuesday. I wanted to get a jump on it. Since I hardly updated this round, I wanted to at least do the final check-in.

As you probably know, I am recovering from my foot surgery. This Friday will be 3 weeks, halfway through. It’s been feeling like forever, and I can’t wait to walk again. The pain isn’t too bad, but today I had to take some motrin because it was a bit worse than the past few days. It fluctuates.

The surgery more or less killed the quarter/round for me, but I was able to get a fair amount done and I am very happy that I got anything done at all. I’ve been working, but I’ve also been very tired—more so than usual. So that effected things as well.

Here’s the rundown:

~Loosely plot Immortal I kind of abandoned the How to Think Sideways stuff for the time being. I pretty much know the set up and the main plot. But not much else which is not necessarily a bad thing as I like to have mystery.
~Book ads for Gain with Pain, Reaper Girl, and Fey Touched. Put together a tracking system. Up to April on ads. Been getting some sales from the ads and newsletter swaps. I think I’m up to 30 sales this month, whereas I’d be in a huge slump at this time of the year. So, win.
~Start manifestation journal (first entry: 1/5/19)
~Put together modified Kanban board for Q1 Abandoned the Kanban journal and will be repurposing it after I’m walking again. I’m not spending much time in my bedroom (except to sleep) so I haven’t updated it at all. Will be starting with a Kanban board as soon as I can use my office again.
~Purchase Energy Oracle deck. Started strong but petered out toward the end. They aren’t feeling the same as Tarot cards, which is not a bad thing, but it’s an adjustment.
~Progress on Oubliette or finish ~1,103 words. I’m calling that progress.
~Do All The Things related to TDP Anthology (to be released sometime in Q1) ~Yes! The anthology, Love Shines Through: A Fractured World Anthology, is out now! Grab a copy here. My story, Of Poison and Promises, is a f/f story about best friends who become something more while fighting for their lives.
~Begin rewrite of Survivor. Continue working on it on Sundays. ~Never happened, but I am very close to starting.
~Catch up up on ARCs:
Go Manifest Yourself
Cure for Chaos
The Ones Who Left ~Still reading
Hell’s Hinges
Queen Takes Camelot
Alpha Legacy 1-5
~My Fair Millennial books 1 & 2 ~Started #2
~Take Sundays off work when possible ~Tried really hard to do this. Mostly worked, though, or worked a half day.
~Start back on MyFitnessPal. Log food 5x a week minimum. ~Nope, didn’t log beyond the first few days. I did lose those 8 pounds though.
~Water 5x a week 

Accountability partner: This worked out very well for me. I’m big on accountability.  My partner is really nice and talking to her every week was fun. 🙂 I missed a few Fridays due to my surgery, but as of last week we are back at it. I vote we continue this for sure. 😀

So I think I did okay, all things considered. Will definitely be back for Round 2/Q2.

Final chocolate consumption report: Chocolate cupcakes, Andes Mints, Oreos, hot chocolate, chocolate “mug” cakes, chocolate chip cookies, mini Junior Mints, Regular-sized Junior Mints, Hersey’s minis…is that enough? 😉

#ROW80 Check-in 2/3/19

It’s been a busy few days. I’ve been trying to carve out time for writing, and I did manage a bit, but I want to write daily again, even if it’s 100 words.

Hubby and I saw Bohemian Rhapsody today! I’ve always been a fan of Queen and Freddie Mercury (and now Adam Lambert), so I really wanted to see it. And it was AMAZING. My mind is still racing from it all. I highly recommend it. (I might do a movie review at some point so I can properly talk about it and not just “it’s AMAZING” and  “the music rocked!” and “I love Freddie and Queen!”

Ahem.

Ankle report: Weaning process not working. Lots of pain. I find out on Tuesday what the next step will be.

I also have an idea for a romantic suspense novel (a first for me) so I am going to try to do some loose plotting on that as well.

~Loosely plot Immortal Faeborn ~Starting this week. Running it through Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways method.
~Book ads for Gain with Pain, Reaper Girl, and Fey Touched. Put together a tracking system. Finished booking February ads. I am also toying with the idea of newsletter swaps (mentions of books, NOT lists which is illegal)
~Start manifestation journal (first entry: 1/5/19)
~Put together modified Kanban board for Q1 ~Turned it into a journal instead; also added a section for Tarot readings. Been keeping it updated.
~Purchase Energy Oracle deck. Pulling but not journaling.
~Progress on Oubliette or finish ~1,103 words
~Do All The Things related to TDP Anthology (to be released sometime in Q1)~Turned in copyedited story to author on 2/1. My deadline to send mine for formatting is 2/15.
~Begin rewrite of Survivor. Continue working on it on Sundays.
~Catch up up on ARCs:
Go Manifest Yourself
Cure for Chaos
The Ones Who Left
Hell’s Hinges
Queen Takes Camelot ~Started
Alpha Legacy 1-5
~Take Sundays off work when possible ~Took today and most of Saturday off!
~Start back on MyFitnessPal. Log food 5x a week minimum. Nope, but I have lost 8 pounds so that’s a win.
~Water 5x a week 

Chocolate consumption report: Andes mints, Ho-Ho’s, S’mores hot chocolate.

So how’s it going with you?

#ROW80 Check-in 1/27/18

The past two weeks have been a bit crazy, but things are calming down, finally. I am able to finally take a Sunday off, whoohoo!

I haven’t mentioned this before, but I recently tore a ligament in my right ankle. I’m not even sure how or when this happened; I actually found out by accident while investigating Achilles tendonitis. I’ve been in a boot for just over a month now, which means I’ve been working upstairs instead of in my basement office. 😦 My pain level is considerably low when in the boot. I am supposed to be weaning myself off it and unfortunately, I’ve had pain each time I’ve tried to go without it. My doctor initially said  I may need surgery on both the ligament and my Achilles tendon. I am hoping that doesn’t happen. 😦 Anyway, this week was an extremely frustrating week with my ligament. I am hoping things get better.

Here’s the rundown:

~Loosely plot Immortal Faeborn ~Calling it Immortal to prevent confusion with my Fey Touched books
~Book ads for Gain with Pain, Reaper Girl, and Fey Touched. Put together a tracking system. ~Created a spreadsheet in Google Sheets. Booked January ads and 1 ad for February.
~Start manifestation journal (first entry: 1/5/19)
~Put together modified Kanban board for Q1 ~Turned it into a journal instead; also added a section for Tarot readings. Been keeping it updated.
~Purchase Energy Oracle deck. Start pulling cards daily and journaling.~Been pulling/journaling hit and miss.
~Progress on Oubliette or finish ~I plan on writing some today
~Do All The Things related to TDP Anthology (to be released sometime in Q1)~Finished revisions on my own story; need to copyedit another story by 2/1.
~Begin rewrite of Survivor. Continue working on it on Sundays.
~Catch up up on ARCs:
Go Manifest Yourself
Cure for Chaos
The Ones Who Left
Hell’s Hinges 50% in, due 2/28. I am going to be late, ugh
Alpha Legacy 1-5
~Take Sundays off work when possible ~I am taking today off!
~Start back on MyFitnessPal. Log food 5x a week minimum. Started; been logging hit and miss.
~Water 5x a week 

Chocolate consumption report: Dark chocolate Dove hearts (from hubby), Mini York peppermint patties, chocolate/peppermint cookies, s’mores hot chocolate, chocolate cupcakes….yeah, I haven’t exactly deprived myself, regardless of my decision to try to limit candy/chocolate/junk food.

2018 Year-in-Review and Q1 2019 Goals #ROW80

So here I am with my end-of-year review and a new goals post. I have switched to quarterly planning, which works so much better for me than yearly goals. Thank you, Sarra Cannon, for showing me the way!

This year was HUGE for my virtual assisting/freelance editing business. I landed several new clients in very quick succession which was absolutely awesome. My workload increased a lot, which required adjustments and better planning. However, I am ecstatic that I was able to make this happen. That was my biggest goal: increasing my client base and by extension bringing in more money.

I have also learned so much from my clients, stuff that I can apply to my own publishing efforts. So it’s a win-win.

Health wise…ugh, a lot of stuff went wrong this year. Not going to get into it, but suffice to say it was tough and stressful. However, I’ve survived it and I am looking forward to a new slate.

Since it’s my intention to jump back into ROW80 again, I figured I would put everything into one, handy-dandy simple post.

But first, let’s look at what I did (or didn’t do) this year:

~2nd round of edits/release secret project (early 2018) – DONE. Except it was delayed by unavoidable issues until 12/7. Very happy to have it finally out in the world! 
~Revise and release Fireborn – DONE. Released August 1st.
~Get serious about exercise and DO SOMETHING – Nope. I remain a couch potato. 😦 
~Take pictures regularly (once a month, 1 a day for x amount of days, etc) – Nope, and I really wish I could have.
~Get moving with dictation again – DONE. Not dictating currently, but I did purchase the latest version of Dragon Naturally Speaking and I also bought a digital recorder for transcription. Just need to actually start doing it.
~Progress on Covenant – DONE. I don’t have the exact figures handy, but I think I got it up to around 25k.
~Progress on When She Sleeps – This has been put on hold.
~Start Survivor Rewrite for reals this time – Nope, but one of my goals for Q1 is to JUST DO IT.
~Do something with Death Dancer/Pirouette – Nope. But as soon as I can, I’ll start working on this. I have Plans. 
~Get better with planning – My mom bought me a planner for Christmas last year, so I used that for deadlines/appointments/modified bullet journal. It worked great, so 
I asked for another one. And got it. Also, Sarra Cannon’s quarterly planning system worked wonderfully as well. I believe this planning system is the only reason why I was able to release the secret project this year. I was focused in a way I haven’t been in awhile. Being that I am a head planner (that is, I do all my planning in my head), this is a HUGE accomplishment.
~Start writing every day again, even if it’s 100 words – Nope. Time seems to get away from me sometimes.
~Figure out Reaper Girl #3, Faeborn – DONE. I have a premise. And apparently I’d forgotten that I’d called it Faeborn. Oops.

As for how many words I wrote this year: 75,000, which was my modest goal. I was hoping to write more, but given how busy I was and how awful my health was at times, I’ll take it. 🙂

Alrighty, so what’s on tap for Q1 and #ROW80? I’m glad you asked.

~Loosely plot Immortal Faeborn
~Book ads for Gain with Pain, Reaper Girl, and Fey Touched. Put together a tracking system.
~Start manifestation journal (first entry: 1/5/19)
~Put together modified Kanban board for Q1
~Purchase Energy Oracle deck. Start pulling cards daily and journaling.
~Progress on Oubliette or finish
~Do All The Things related to TDP Anthology (to be released sometime in Q1)
~Begin rewrite of Survivor. Continue working on it on Sundays.
~Catch up up on ARCs
~Take Sundays off work when possible
~Start back on MyFitnessPal. Log food 5x a week minimum.
~Water 5x a week

I think that’s it for now. 🙂

Links to the books:

Gain with Pain on Amazon
Fireborn on Amazon 

#ROW80 Round 4 Goals

Omg, how did we make it to Round 4 already??! I don’t even know where the year went!

I’m going to continue with fewer goals as not to overwhelm myself. Usually the last quarter of the year is tremendously and stressful, so I need room to breathe.

That said, here are my goals:

~Finish rewrite of Fireborn, revise it, edit it, and submit it for Dec. 1st deadline (the rewrite is almost done now).
~Transfer Survivor outline to notecards, for reals this time
~Participate in NanoWriMo with an amended goal of 30k (Survivor)
~Begin edit of Secret Project
~Decide on next project and start working on that (Covenant and When She Sleeps are the top contenders)
~Finish In Flames cover or hire someone to do it

Non-writing stuffs:

~Water 5x a week
~Read 1 book a week
~Chocolate consumption reports, of course!

In between all of this, I may have freelance jobs that pop up and change my schedule, so that’s a thing. Also, my mom is having surgery later this month and I will be helping her so that may change things a bit, too, until she’s doing better. I may adjust these goals to compensate.

And that’s it for me.

#ROW80 Final Check-in Round 4

I’ve decided to post my last check-in today because as of tomorrow, I will be too busy to post on the 22nd.

This has been a busy round for me, and not without problems (losing revisions, my computer being in service for 11 days, being severely sleep deprived due to eczema). I think I did pretty well despite my issues. There are things I needed to let go in order to get the things I needed to get done done, which sucks. I plan to do better in the new year.

So, here’s how I did (gulp):

~Finish the Ever Touched revision.  I can do this. <–DONE and on time.
~Stay on top of FYFB class. Taking a class through Monica Leonelle. It happens to be going on at the same time as my revision, but might as well go all in. It’s three months. Should be fun. <–NOT DONE. As things got busier (revision + 2 editing jobs), I had to drop this out of necessity. Once things calm down, I’ll be catching up and hopefully staying on track.
~Make a ruling on my next project and start prepping (contenders are Fireborn, which needs a revision, Survivor, which needs a rewrite, and Death Dancer, which needs some tweaking — and may be my next Turtleduck Press release.) <–DONE! Fireborn is the next project. The second half needs to be reworked. I hope to release it in 2017.
~Drink 1 glass of water 5x a week <–DONE!
~Exercise 2x a week – <–NOT DONE. Being chained to the desk sucks. I plan to get better with this in 2017.
~Do All the Things related to anthology release (TBD — release is Nov 15th) <–DONE, (even though I lost my revisions on 21 pages and had to work like a mad thing to catch back up) and the anthology released as planned. 🙂 
~Keep up on reviews (I’m on 4 ARC teams) <–DONE, for the most part. Still slightly behind, but I’m doing okay.
~Lose 5 pounds. <–DONE, and NOT DONE. Lost 5 pounds, gained 5 pounds, and lost 3. So a total loss of 3 pounds. Still better than nothing!
~Take more pictures: infrared and normal. <–NOT DONE. Had planned on it with hubby but got sick both times. Another thing I need to pick back up in 2017.
~Post-process infrared pics from camping trip <–NOT DONE. Wanted to, but got too busy!
~Chocolate consumption report, as always! <–DONE!

Final chocolate consumption report – This round, I got addicted to Snickerdoodles and Twizzlers, so my consumption went way down.I still love chocolate, no issue there, but I found other things as well. Will keep reporting on it in 2017. 😉

So that’s it for this round. I hope you all have a great, safe holiday season and I’ll see you for round 1 in 2017! Thank you all for your support and encouragement. 🙂

#ROW80 Check-in Nov. 20th

This is the cover for our anthology. 🙂

I’ve been really busy revising, and haven’t had time to post. My computer is working great, thankfully. 🙂 Time is FLYING. I can’t even believe we’re about a month away from Christmas. Holy smokes.

News on our anthology: To Rule the Stars: A Space Princess Anthology has been released! It is 99c only for a short time, after which the price will raise to $1.99. It contains three cool stories (including mine!) and a sneak peek of Ever Touched. Check it out here.

Here is the rundown:

Ever Touched – I’m on page 201 of 210, but that’s deceiving because I probably have at least 10k to write. But I am getting closer. Depends on how next week goes, with the holiday and helping my mom with the cooking and cleaning. I have the following week off work for vacation so there’s a bit of time if I really need it (which is why I set it up that way).

FYFB class – Still behind, but slowly catching up.

Water – 5x last week, and I think I missed 1 day this week, so 4.

Exercise – Nothing, except raking leaves yesterday for an hour. That counts!

Reviews – Keeping up. 🙂

Weight – Lost 5 pounds, gained 1/2 pound back. Story of my life. 😦

Chocolate consumption: Would you believe that I haven’t had much in the past two weeks? Some WW sundaes and ultimate chocolate ice cream sandwiches, and a hot chocolate yesterday but that’s it. But I’ve been going a bit nuts on Twizzlers.

 

#ROW80 Check-in Oct. 9th

Alrighty, I almost spaced on today’s post. Been so damn busy! And, I’ve been having some issues with my knee again. Don’t think it’s from the sprain. So I need to take it easy on the exercise.

So what have I done this week?

Short story – Second revision completed.

Ever Touched revision – 51 pages revised, 1,800 new words written

Water – Every day but one.

Exercise – Housewalked yesterday! I plan on a bit of actual walking today after dinner. The weather is beautiful right now!

FYFB class – Watched lessons 1-5 videos. Have completed worksheets for lessons 1 and 2. Started worksheets for lesson 3.

Reviews – Finished 1 book and posted a review. I’m due to post another review on 10/15.

Chocolate consumption – Not a whole lot? I have an obsession with snickerdoodles. My mom made pumpkin/chocolate chip muffins and they are divine. I’ve eaten a few WW sundaes and a few WW chocolate-caramel thingies, too.

How’s it going for you?

 

#ROW80 Round 4 2016 Goals

Happy Round 4 ROWers! Dang, what happened to the year? It’s almost over!

Here are my goals. I am trying to keep things simple and relaxed, as I have a revision due to my editor on 12/1 and I suspect I might end up wanting to take a break. But I would like to do something, so I may choose a project and go slow with it for the rest of the round.

I am still feeling exhausted, and I seem to be in another fibro flare, so I need to concentrate on taking care of myself. Meditation, trying not to stress, and earlier bed times will hopefully help. 🙂

Here are my goals:

~Finish the Ever Touched revision.  I can do this. 🙂
~Stay on top of FYFB class. Taking a class through Monica Leonelle. It happens to be going on at the same time as my revision, but might as well go all in. It’s three months. Should be fun. 🙂
~Make a ruling on my next project and start prepping (contenders are Fireborn, which needs a revision, Survivor, which needs a rewrite, and Death Dancer, which needs some tweaking — and may be my next Turtleduck Press release.)
~Drink 1 glass of water 5x a week
~Exercise 2x a week
~Do All the Things related to anthology release (TBD — release is Nov 15th)
~Keep up on reviews (I’m on 4 ARC teams)
~Lose 5 pounds.
~Take more pictures: infrared and normal.
~Post-process infrared pics from camping trip
~Chocolate consumption report, as always!

Annnd that’s it. Good luck everyone!

 

#ROW80 Round 3 2016 Final Check-in

And here we are at the end, sniff! I think I did pretty well, considering the challenges that sprang up. I’ve been fighting exhaustion, and I sprained my knee, which slowed down my exercise. But apart from that, I’m pretty happy with what I got done.

Here is the final rundown:

~Finish and submit TDP short story by July 15th deadline (I’m in the home stretch now on the rough draft, so I *should* be able to do this.) <–DONE! Actually, the deadline was extended several times, but we are on track now. Everything that could be done by now has been done.
~Do All the Things related to anthology release (TDB later) <–DONE, to the extent that I could do it.
~Restart Ever Touched and finish by end of round (32k left to go) <–NOT DONE, but so close! I’m at 22k of 32k today.
~Read-through of Fireborn <–DONE!
~Reinstate Covenant/8 minutes a day writing 2 days per week <–NOT DONE! I don’t think I have it in me to do this right now. Maybe next round.
~Drink one glass of water 5x per week <–DONE!
~Exercise 3x per week <–DONE, then knee sprain, then I never quite got back into the swing.
~Experiment more with digital infrared <–DONE!
~Take more pictures! <–DONE!
~Keep up with review books (I’m on 4 ARC review teams) <–KINDA SORTA. Not perfectly, but I’m managing.
~Complete 2 author interviews <–DONE!

Chocolate consumption: I think we all know how I did there. Lots of chocolate-y goodness the entire round.