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Goals Q1 2019 (And January’s Specifics)

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If you were here on Wednesday for my IWSG post you’ll have seen that I don’t do resolutions.
They don’t work for me, I can’t set a hard and fast plan at the beginning of the year and stick to it. That’s just not how my brain is wired. And I’m 100% okay with it.
But I do like goals. I just like them on a smaller scale.
Things that can be tweaked and adjusted without any real “shame”.
Therefore, I am here to tell you my soft goals for the quarter, and my hard goals for the month.
In the first three months of this year, I’d like to get the following out of the way:

Writing: 220,000-words
Reading: 15 books
Editing: 3 books, plus some extra bits
Blogging: Back on a regular routine

Not going to lie. That 220k scares me a little, even though I wrote almost 100k more than that in the first quarter of 2013. My first quarter average for the last 6 years has only been about 171k.
I was recently accused of having too many books. A notion at which I scoffed and then ignored. But I do have too many boo…
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IWSG: January 2019

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It’s a New Year and I'm sure you’ve heard it a hundred times. “New Year, New Me!”

Pretty sure this is going to be another “New Year, Same Me” situation. And I’m okay with that. Do I hope to get more done this year than last? Yes. I always hope to improve, but I also am just happy to do as well as I did last go around. Because sometimes, that’s all you can really ask of yourself. Sometimes you can’t even ask that, and I’m willing to admit that I’ve had those years recently. And that’s okay.

I don’t make resolutions. They aren’t beneficial to me, personally, and I don’t have time to do things that fall into that category. For those of you who do find them beneficial, that’s awesome. Kudos. I wish I could say the same. Truly, I do.

I try to make bite-size goals on a monthly basis. Usually no more than three “big” things.

What about you? Do resolutions work for you? Do they fizzle out by March? How do you feel about goals in general?


Join the insecure posting.

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December 2018 Wrap-Up

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Words Written: 29,896 -words in 21 days
(AVG 1,424-words/day)
3 projects + Admin (26%)


December is the one month of the year where I expect nothing of myself. Which is honestly pretty hard. Being productive and busy were pretty much the requirement while growing up. Down-time wasn’t approved of. So it’s really hard to disconnect.

And when I say I don’t expect anything from myself, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a specific set of goals (nor does it mean that I’ll manage to not beat myself up over not doing a ridiculous amount of work), it just means that I try VERY hard to let things go when I reach the point at which they are no longer achievable, and not beat myself up over that.

By the time Christmas rolled around (with all of its distractions) my December goal had turned into “Let’s hit one final year-related benchmark” which was less than 10K away. So, I was pretty sure I’d manage to hit it.

And I did. At the bar, at about 11:30, on my phone.

I probably could have made it to 30k f…
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IWSG: December

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Happy Holidays fellow IWSG-ers.

Whatever you celebrate: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, or anything else I’m forgetting (sorry!), I’m happy we’ve gotten to the point. Not because I’m confident I’ll wrap up everything I’ve got left on my list before we ring in the new year. It’s definitely not because EVERY store is going to be a hellscape for the rest of the month. It’s only partially because I get to hum Christmas tunes all month and my husband can’t roll his eyes at me.

I’m happy we’re here because it means we survived another year, and we’ve made it through writing slumps and breakthroughs, through the joy of perfect sentences and the frustration of edits where whole chapter have to be thrown out.

We made it. And now, as everything else goes crazy in this season, we can take a much needed break. (assuming any of us are constitutionally capable of it.)

What I’d love to hear is something you’ve accomplished this year, something you’re proud of. Tell me your joys so that I can re…
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November Wrap-Up

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Words Written: 50,287-words in 23 days
(AVG 2,186-words/day*)
7 projects + Admin (9%)


November is all SUPER FOCUSED, and then suddenly, that last week, everything went to hell.
My general daily goals weren't really met.... but I hit the 50k, thanks to that messy week.

* the image is wrong because I hadn't remembered to change the day's written before I took the screenshot.


It's a short update this month because I have SO. MUCH. TO. DO!
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No Nano

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NaNoWriMo is an awesome challenge and great way to push yourself to get something started, or get something finished… or just get focused. It’s an amazing community and it’s a great way to kick yourself in the pants.
As someone who’s done NaNo several times, I am a big proponent of participation. I needed it for focus because… whoa, my brain gets especially flustered around this time of year.

But this time, I had to make the hard choice to not participate. As a self-competitive person, and a completionist, stepping back and removing myself from that particular trackable goal was tough. But my first priority goal this month is an edit and editing does not for a NaNo word count make.


I probably will still hit the 50k mark (Even my worst month since I started actively tracking my word counts in 2013 was over 50k… barely). But those words will be pulled from all over the place within my to-do list and so, I can’t in good conscience count them toward a NaNo “novel.”

That’s why I’m over her…
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October Wrap-Up

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Words Written: 113,815-words in 26 days
(AVG 4,378-words/day)
5 projects + Admin (6%)


This month feels like it was three years long. Maybe that’s because I got in as many words as I did? Maybe it’s because I spent it watching horror movies (some of which take a few days off my life every time I watch them)? Maybe it’s because the year is winding down and the weather’s finally getting cold and my bones are aching? Maybe it’s because I need my dosage upped and the time nonsense associated with my TLE has started to mess with me. Who knows.



The word count is as high as it is because I threw 70,000 of those words into a fast draft (it had OH SO MANY NOTES) in 9 days that is completely horrendous. I’ll be setting it aside while I work on other things next month so that I can come back to it in December and see how many of those words I’m actually going to keep, and then get a real draft around the 90k mark. (note: I’m not going to be able to do that draft in 9 days, history has proven thi…
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Why Iron Heinrich is my Favorite

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When people ask me what my favorite fairytale is, I usually tell them my second favorite. Mostly because it’s easier to simply say “Sleeping Beauty” than to explain the Iron Heinrich part of The Frog Prince.

In the version that includes Heinrich (so many leave him out), Heinrich is so distraught over his prince’s enchantment that he binds his chest with three iron bands to keep his heart from breaking. When the prince returns, his heart swells so much it is the bands that break.

The thing that has always fascinated me about the fairytale that leaves him out is that it made little to no sense to me as a child. Why would the prince want a princess who was so selfish and violent? Then again, why would the princess kiss a frog? I get that moral of the story is that promises need to be kept and that the rewards therein can be great, but what do you really owe an amphibian?

After my first time reading Iron Heinrich, some things fell into place for me. When it comes right down to it, I felt …
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Release: Roar of Sky

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Changing Hands | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indie Bound | iTunes


The books that came before:

Breath of Earth
Changing Hands | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indie Bound | iTunes

Call of Fire
Changing Hands | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indie Bound | iTunes


For more information, visit their site.




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Some Thoughts on The Last Jedi

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By the end of our second viewing of The Last Jedi, I realized why it had taken so long for me to get back in the padded chair before the big screen. Despite everything that was amazing and wonderful about the film… it leaves me overwhelmingly sad. The beginning is sad, the middle is sad, even the moment of renewed hope is sad....

That general gloom makes the jokes harder to hear, leaves a bitter taste after they’re gone.
There are so many things I wanted from the movie plot wise that didn't happen and I waited this long to write up my thoughts on it so that I could shove most of those aside and work with what we were given, instead of the rewrites I would needlessly suggest (though at least one made it into the text below.

But I can like things that make me sad, so it’s still toward the top in my rankings.

And now, an itemized list of the things I like and dislike in no particular order*….
(Except the best, that's definitely first)

Vice Admiral Holdo
I always joke that I’d joi…
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