NaNo Report 2019

If you were watching the word meter at all, you'll see I only wrote about 4.9k words for NaNoWriMo. November seriously never seems to go as planned!

I actually spent a good week of the month doing one final editing pass through Thorns Entwine the Blade (Trinity Torn, 2). And then... release week... I got sick. Which meant all of my release plans were slow to roll out and pretty delayed. That darn NaNo Crud, it never fails to fell me.

After being sick through the Thorns release, I was looking forward to a nice quiet weekend with Hubbie, kids at grandma's. Unfortunately, the kid-free weekend started with us hitting a deer on the way to dinner. =/ Dealing with that, of course, tumbled into the next week. We likely won't even get our car back until mid to late December.

Needless to say, stress and sickness and what not found me up against a mental wall and I also felt completely scattered. I decided I needed a break from writing - drafting and revising - until 2020. So, progress on Downward Spiral and NaNoWriMo 2019 came to an end for me about mid-month.

I still have plenty of writing tasks that I need to clear off my to do list, so I haven't been completely idle. You'd think the bulk of the work would be drafting and revising, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it! I'm looking forward to planning 2020, though. That should help with my scattered feeling. Though with my current thoughts Spiral and its sequels may be put off for a few more months just so I can complete a couple other projects instead of worrying about them not getting completed.

One of the things I worked on last week was formatting the paperback for Thorns Entwine the Blade! My cover artist also got me the paperback wrap rather quickly (so awesome - AMDesign Studios), and the proof arrived swiftly as well, so... it's now available to purchase on Amazon!

It feels great to have Thorns done now, and quite frankly, I think it's a better book than the first in the series, Mind Behind the Mind. But my opinion doesn't really count, does it? I hope anyone who reads it enjoys it!

Anyway, pushing on with December, not getting too upset about the NaNo flop, and next post will be looking back at my progress for 2019. Happy reading, all!

So Long, Yellow!

It's been a pretty rough month as far as writing goes. I was pretty sick for almost two weeks, and then after that I had to catch up on a beta reading job (which I also wasn't able to work on while sick). And once that was done, we were already in the middle of painting the living room and dining room!

Needless to say, my brain is melted and completely scattered. We're two days out from finishing the painting, but we still haven't completely put the two rooms back together. This is taking a while because I'm trying to make sure everything is cleaned and organized before it goes back. Unfortunately, that includes a bunch of toys that are rather a mess (I keep imagining the day when the kids are older and we have so much more room in the house because we won't have all the toys to deal with).

So, I figured it would be a good time to have a nice, simple blog post. Yeah, that painting I mentioned. Before and after pictures! I know I should have posted these on Instagram, but silly me didn't think of it until I already had the blog post planned. One of these days I'll get a handle on all of my social media (maybe).

Anyway... so long, yellow! Hello, green.

Living room first. Hubbie had to do a lot of patching in both rooms -- I mean, they likely hadn't been painted since the 1960s, long before we ever owned the house.

Window/front wall. Ignore the messy porch, please.

Wall where we usually have the TV.

And leading to the hallway/front door.

Since I took the after pictures when it was a bit dark out, the lamps are making it look yellower than it is. I can't get away from the yellow -- it's trying to soak through! Lol.

OK. Dining room next. This one needed even more patching, but Hubbie did an awesome job (he did an awesome job with all the painting).

Looking in to the living room. You can see the green better in these after shots because of the lighting.

Another big picture window.

Wall shared with the kitchen.

And there we have it -- from yellow to green. =) I'm so happy we finally painted these rooms. Computer room and front hall will be next! Hopefully this year still, as long as Hubbie doesn't revolt -- lol.

The Struggle Is Real

Yeah, I know there's a bunch of scary stuff going on in the world nowadays. It all makes me sad, so I tend to avoid it because becoming more sad is a bad idea for me right now. Heck, I've taken to ignoring Facebook for the most part because it has a tendency to effect my mood too much.

Speaking of mood, I guess that's kind of what this post is about. I figured it would be nice to be frank as well as get my current struggles out there -- hopefully it'll be a little therapeutic, too.

Writing isn't as easy as some people may think (and those of you who know writing can be tough are nodding your heads right now, I'm sure). But lately for me, it's been a major struggle. I haven't kept up a consistent writing schedule since the beginning of November. I was rolling with NaNoWriMo, making great progress, and then I got sick. That sick turned into bronchitis on Thanksgiving. While I'm mostly over the sick, aside from a cold or two here and there, the stuff back in November and December pretty much stalled my progress.

I know it's not the interruption alone that has my flailing, though. I've always had some issues keeping it together during the winter, and I'm sure I've mentioned before that I likely get SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Heck, I even tried one of those little blue lights one year and it gave me a headache, so I had to stop using it. Last winter was a pretty mild one, so I was able to keep up my momentum decently well. This winter, though, it's been way too cold, and Jack Frost doesn't want to release his icy grip. Mother Nature thought it would be hilarious to give us two snow storms, one on April 15 and one just yesterday, April 18. I think we got more snow in those two days than we have the rest of the winter.

Guess what, Mother Nature? I'm not laughing.

I was counting on April, the hope of spring, and Camp NaNoWriMo getting me back in the game and revising more. No dice with this weather. Unfortunately, I think I'm also still struggling with the shift in work time. I used to write mid-morning when Youngest napped, but since she started preschool, I have her nap in the afternoons. If it wasn't clear before, it is now, that I'm more productive, awake, and alert between 10am and Noon. Which sucks because unless I can convince Youngest to have a couple hours of quiet time in the mid-mornings (fat chance -- she is loud and has already asked me what half a dozen animals eat since I've started writing this post), I'm stuck with this writing schedule for at least another year and a half. Oh, and the days she's in preschool in the mornings, I'm useless since I'm still exhausted from all the walking (next fall she'll be in 4K in the afternoons, and hopefully at a closer school -- I really hope that helps).

Also, when I'm this moody, I sink myself into games and TV, and then nothing else gets done, so the house is a bit of a disaster as well. It could be worse, I know, but the disorganization in the house as well as all the junk we have (I have the pack rat gene from my grandpa, and my kids have inherited it -- not tripping into hoarder territory, but my study has become a storage room... my grandparents had a two bedroom apartment just so my grandpa could store stuff in one room, so I am reminded of that -- yikes), has been getting on my nerves, and every time I start somewhere, it feels like I'm treading water.

It just seems that my mind is in the middle of this never-ending battle, and not writing enough only makes it worse since I'm falling behind schedule. Those nice One-Year and Five-Year plans I had drawn up in December? Out the window!

I am happy that I've made a little progress, at least. I haven't given up, and I've revised some of Thorns Entwine the Blade, even if it's no where near the amount I should be at with almost one third of the year gone. I just have to accept that my schedule will need to be shifted, and publications will need to be delayed. That's one of the nice things about indie publishing -- you're not working on a publisher's deadline, so if life happens you can move things later without getting into too much trouble, as long as you don't have a pre-order up already!

And I do know all of this won't last. Eventually Youngest will be in school most of the day, and I'll be able to write when I'm most productive. Winter doesn't last forever, and my mood will be lifted up with the warmth of spring and summer. I just may need to start factoring in my winter issues when I draw up my future One-Year and Five-Year plans.

I know this post was a bit long, but it felt good to get my recent struggles off of my chest. And maybe if some of you are also struggling through the winter and other life bumps, you'll see you're not alone.

The most important thing is to never give up. Keep moving forward one step at a time, even if you only take a single step some days.

1001 7 Reasons Not to Write

What, you were expecting 1001 Reasons Not to Clean? I really hope I can't find 1001 reasons not to write. But lately, as you can see by the delayed blog post, a lot has been getting in the way of my writing. So, here's a mini list. I hope someone can get a chuckle out of the aggravation below (or others can completely relate).

7 Reasons Not to Write

1. The flu. Not just you with the flu, but your eldest child and your husband. Of course, the youngest child escapes the wretched sickness unscathed, so not only are you dealing with feeling miserable, but you have to contend with a preschooler's high energy level. Even if you had the energy to write, or the brain space, your joints hurt too much to type.

2. One of your cats has a UTI. And the first round of meds didn't work properly. So you're trying to keep an eye on his litter habits and also conferring with the vet. Then you need to take him in another time because the second round of meds still aren't doing it. Finally you need to stress over buying him new, expensive food (that you feel is filled with crap)... which all three cats in the house will need to eat because you'd waste too many hours keeping them separate. Exactly when am I finding time to write with all this going on?

3. One of the computers in the house decides to stop starting up properly. Since you're the one who built the computers in the house you not only need to fix it, but also troubleshoot what's wrong. This includes taking apart your other computer to test a part in the problem computer. After determining the failing part, you need to jump through hoops to request a replacement because it's still under warranty. Though you wonder why you just didn't buy a new one after paying an insane amount of shipping to send out the bad part. When the replacement part arrives and you sit down to install it, you realize they forgot one of the cords needed (oh, you think I don't need power to the CPU?), so then you need to stop in the middle and wait for them to send the missing cord. Once it arrives, you finally fix the computer, and breathe a sigh of relief when it turns on and stays on. Writing? Hell, yes, this whole debacle sucked up a lot of writing time.

4. Yup, caught the cat with the UTI peeing in a corner (unfortunate side effect of the poor kitty being sick). After dealing with the mess he made, you realize that the computer room hasn't had a good, full clean for years, and your paper clutter is turning into new, sentient beings. So you move everything out of the computer room and decide you're taking a week off of writing to get this room cleaned and then everything moved back in, excluding the paper clutter that needs to be gone through, then recycled, shredded, or filed. Surely this will only take you a week. Two weeks later with that paper clutter still filling the dining room and living room, you laugh. It's a sad, miserable laugh because you've spent a decent amount of time dealing with it all, but life still decided to get in the way of better progress.

5. It's fucking cold. All you want to do is hide upstairs under the covers and hibernate. Winter sucks and needs to go away. Typing at the desktop computer freezes your hands and feet. And of course since you have Scrivener 3 on the new Macbook, it will be a headache to convert files back and forth from Scrivener on your desktop (since 3 isn't out for Windows yet), and you don't want to deal with the slow as molasses HP laptop when you have a super speedy and shiny Macbook which is ten times better. Revisions? Hahahaha.

6. You have to walk in that fucking cold 2 days a week for 2 hours each of those days (the things us parents do for our kids). And no matter how much you try to resist falling asleep in the afternoon, it's a losing battle since you're so exhausted from the cold and the walking that you nod off instead of writing.

7. Because all the proverbial shit seems to be hitting the fan, your will to even try has been depleted. To the point that it's coming up empty. I mean, every time you try, you just get more shit flung back in your face, so what's the point? It's much easier to play a game on the iPad or watch some TV to drown out the screaming coming from the inside of your own head.

***NOTE: I understand some people have it a lot worse off than I do. The above are all a bunch of little, rather annoying things. But they're all my little, rather annoying things, and it feels like a lot when it's personal. Right now, I don't have enough spoons left to think past my own personal world, so please forgive me.***

Aw, Crud - NaNo Crud, That Is

It's inevitable. Every November when I plan to dive into NaNoWriMo and up my productivity, a monster rears its ugly head and bellows, "Nooooo!"

Most of the time that monster comes in the form of what I've dubbed NaNo Crud. And that's the very monster that loomed over me this month. Shortly after my last blog post, I got a cold, and right when I thought I was getting better, I got a worse cold (could have been bronchitis, it was that bad, but I didn't go in to the doctor to find out).

So, I missed blog posts and my writing progress froze because just moving off the couch was difficult. I was hopped up on Mucinex DM so I could breathe and sleep, and cold meds make me whoozy and loopy as all hell.

I'm starting to feel a bit better now, though I'm still hacking up a lung between typing sentences.

12,963. That's what I'm ending NaNoWriMo at this year. Progress is progress, and that's almost 13k words more than I had before the month started. It doesn't earn me a NaNo Winner banner, but that's OK.

This sick has also made me realize that I need to take a step back and reassess my writing output. I think I've been expecting too much of myself, especially since I want to get the editing business in a good place as well, and I still have a kid at home most of the time who needs my attention!

December, a low writing output month to begin with due to the holidays, will be planning and reassessing month. And organizing. Oh, and I'll likely be reformatting a few books since I ordered a Macbook and I'll be buying Vellum!

It's not like I'll be idle. I just think I need a month worth of no pressure for writing and revising and figuring things out. And some family and holiday time. I've been neglecting several other things while tackling writing tasks. I'll be back to revisions of Thorns Entwine the Blade in January, though!

And don't worry, I still have some fun blog posts planned for December. After all, I saw Thor: Ragnarok and watched the first half of the season of Star Trek: Discovery. I have many thoughts on both.

Never stopping, just slowing down a little so I can enjoy the scenery. Live in the moment, right?

1001 Reasons Not To Clean - #16 through #20

Welcome to 1001 Reasons Not to Clean! The main goal of this series is to see if I can actually reach 1001 reasons, 5 reasons at a time (the final post, if I get there, will be 6 reasons). I'm sure I can. It's not just my crazy brain being unrealistic, right? Links to previous posts are below. And feel free to share your excuses, and they might get added to my list (with credit, of course)!

#1 through #5 ~ #6 through #10 ~ #11 through #15

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16. It's winter. Yes, you'd think you'd have less excuses in winter because you spend more time in the house, but the truth is the cold and gray sap your motivation and you get less cleaning done than you do during the warmer months.

17. Winter doesn't want to let go. It's fending spring off with its icy fingers. And this depresses you too much to even think about cleaning.

18. The house is too cold, so you'd rather stay in bed under your warm covers.

19. Your kids are sick. Not just sick, but plague-ridden. If you clean anything, it's just going to be smeared in germs shortly after, so why bother?

20. Your kids got you sick. OK, yes, #9 is "You're sick." But this is a different kind of sick. This is the kind of sick where not only are you trying to keep yourself alive, but you're still dealing with sick kids at the same time. And then you keep passing the sick back and forth until you kind of think being dead might be a better option than being sick all the time. Cleaning is obviously the furthest thing from your mind at this point.

1001 Reasons Not To Clean - #6 through #10

Welcome to 1001 Reasons Not to Clean! The main goal of this series is to see if I can actually reach 1001 reasons, 5 reasons at a time (the final post, if I get there, will be 6 reasons). I'm sure I can. It's not just my crazy brain being unrealistic, right? Links to previous posts are below. And feel free to share your excuses, and they might get added to my list (with credit, of course)!

#1 through #5

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6. There's a cat in your lap. Curse unto those who disturb the cat.

7. You have too much work (writing) to do.

8. Your toddler tells you not to because she wants you to nap with her.

9. You're sick.

10. You'd rather play Everquest. (Hey, maybe I can just fill up all the reasons with different games -- that's a possibility!)

GSD vs. Sickness

This post will be brief. Can you imagine what it's about?

G(etting) S(tuff - or Shit, depending how much of a potty mouth you want to have) D(one). It's ever the perpetual thing we humans strive for. Whether it be writing, cleaning, work, craft projects, heck even trying to relax so you don't stress out trying to get the other things done.

You devise a plan, a lovely plan that makes sense and you think won't be too far out of reach to complete. You're going to GSD, and you have it all mapped out in front of you how.

And then it happens. You get sick.

Now, there are people who can power through the sick and continue to GSD, even though I'd contest the quality of the work depending just how sick a person is.

Fevers knock me on my ass. And of course, that's what I woke up to Tuesday morning (after a long night of chills and me wondering why I was so damned cold). All I wanted to do was stay in bed, but I unfortunately had to at least minimally GSD. Get the eldest to school, make sure the youngest had food and clean diapers, pick up the eldest from school, fetch a naughty kitten from the basement, deal with toddler temper tantrums.

All the shit I listed above got done, but that lovely monthly plan for making progress on my writing tasks laughed in my face. And things had started off so well on Monday.

I'm still sick, unfortunately. Even if I don't have a fever, I have a headache that doesn't want to be touched by pills, horrible abdominal cramps, and the sweats. TMI? Sorry.

And clearly this wasn't what I intended to blog about this week. I was going to start the Adventures of Karriya the Wizard. That will now be delayed until the end of the month since the next two weeks are posts that shouldn't be pushed back.

Now, I have to admit, I also decided to post this because of an idea I have for a book. I hope to slowly write up some short essays on GSD vs. Various Things. I hope they will be humorous, even if they don't help overcome those obstacles to GSD, so a little humorous creative non-fiction. I'll be writing these up in between all of my other writing projects (funny, right? If I don't get sick). Of course I'll have a chapter on GSD vs. Sickness, though it won't exactly be this post!

What obstacles stop you from GSD? What would you like to see me write about in the book?

NaNoing with a Newborn - Part 2: Mastitis Interruptus

It seems life wants me to slow down and stop trying to do more than I can currently handle.

I was healing fine from my daughter's birth, but then I got a pretty nasty cold, which was then followed by mastitis. Mastitis is a breast infection with flu-like symptoms that knocked me on my behind. I am still trying to recover, and running on little sleep between the newborn and cough keeping me awake. Breastfeeding has also been difficult and painful, so I have a lot on my plate with just that!

Needless to say, the only thing I've written this month is the birth story, which clocked in around 3000 words. I don't plan to write anymore this month. Not actually sure when I'll start writing again. It's definitely more difficult to adjust to a second child, and the health issues have made things even more difficult. I can hope I'll have adjusted by the end of the year, but I really can't predict. For now, I'm going to concentrate on keeping healthy and tending to the newborn, then I'll slowly add things back in.

I hope everyone else who attempted NaNoWriMo succeeded or at least made a decent amount of progress. I'll try to post another update in December. But if things don't shake out the way I'd like, I send my holiday wishes to everyone!

NaNo Update #2 - Scatterbrained

Life loves to get in the way of writing.

I got sick a little over a week ago, and then I started to get better right when the Thanksgiving prep time hit, and after Turkey Day, my husband and I needed to wind down. This means, I have no new words to add to my total.

My goal for before Friday is to at least finish the rough draft of the second Fate story. It's not a crazy goal, likely only around 5,000 words max, so it should be doable.

The holidays have my head spinning, and I have a lot of other things that need to be taken care of outside of writing, so we'll see when I find time to start making progress on the word count.

Who decided it would be a good idea to have NaNoWriMo in November? One of the worst months for it!

In any case, as you can see, this is a brief update. I'll have a monthly update on Saturday, and you'll find out what I plan to do for another blog series. =)

NEXT UP: Monthly Update

Dizzy

Seems I brought back an unwanted souvenir from New Orleans. I have a nasty cold and a fever (my husband didn't escape from the sickness this time either).

So, I will have to delay my intended post on what I actually did in New Orleans until next week. Apologies, but I fear if I attempted to put a post together in my feverish state, I'd just embarrass myself, and I do that quite enough normally. :p

NEXT UP: Really, honestly, seriously my post on my New Orleans trip. With pictures!

Sick and Tired

OK, sick and tired is one of those phrases that can sometimes be seen as hyperbole, one of those phrases people use to say they are just annoyed with a certain situation.

Unfortunately for me, it's a literal meaning. I have been pretty darn sick all week, so much so that I have been unable to sleep much all week. I was quite lucky to just type the previous sentences and have them make sense. Do they make sense? Maybe only to my sleep-deprived brain and illness-addled mind.

So, I am going to be skipping another week of a blog post with some type of content that doesn't include me whining about my life or making excuses.

This has also made me realize that I may need to step back and take a look at what I've been doing on my blog. Life is crazy, and I need to schedule things better and plan ahead. I'm not even sure if any of my posts have been interesting to the few readers that I have (no one comments - ha!). Also, over the next six months, I will have a heavy load of classes, which will strain my time even more.

What do all of these thoughts mean?

I'm going to take a few days to chew over things. My blog will NOT be disappearing, that is a given, but I might be posting less, at least for a while. I know that means I will be in danger of losing the few readers I do have, but I think I may have to take that risk or lose my sanity (I mean, it's hanging by a thread to begin with!).

There will be no blog posts about Once Upon A Time for now, since I am so behind on episodes and people usually like reviews shortly after the episodes air. Perhaps I will review another episode down the line, but no promises (same with Grimm).

My next post will be my yearly goals and a look back at 2011, and I hope to write that up next week, when I also decide on the direction and time commitment I will be taking with this blog. I am open to any comments and suggestions as well.

I hope everyone has a Happy New Year and manages to stay healthier than I have been! Happy writing. <3