Tag: thoughts

Posted in recaps

November 2020 Recap

Posted on by AJ

There are thirty-two days remaining in the year. With November now finished and out of the way, it’s time to start looking at the very end of the year. It’s been an intense and unpredictable year, but there’s still a little time left.

For those who participated in NaNoWriMo, congratulations! Even if you didn’t reach fifty-thousand, you still took a chance and gave your story and work a chance. Hopefully you at least have a chunk of a story for a start.

This year I chose to focus on my incomplete projects. I hit fifty-thousand only a few days ago. In total I finished the rough drafts of a novel and two novellas. I’d been hoping to get more done, but overall I’m happy with where things are standing now—and I’ve finally moved those projects out of the continuously unfinished pile and into the much smaller pile of things that needs editing.

December starts tomorrow, and with it, the last stretch of the year. I’m planning on getting back into edits, starting with another fairy-tale novella. It’ll also be time to revisit my yearly goals and set new ones for next year.

I’d love to hear about your November. Let me know how it went in the comments!

Posted in blogging, recaps

September 2020 Recap

Posted on by AJ

When September started, it felt like the days were dragging by. Now at the end of the month, I admit I’m not sure what happened this month. I’m not even sure where the month went.

Initially I wanted to get through the draft of at least one project this month. Although I’ve been able to take a look at my projects and determined which ones need the most attention, I haven’t quite managed to work on anything productively. Part of that is because I’ve had a lot more work and home projects to handle. It all added up to a lot of busy-ness without getting a lot of personal work done.

With October rapidly approaching, I’m looking at ways to get a better balance in. While I’m not declaring one project or the other, I do want to finally get all of my projects organized and in one place. The goal is to at least sort through all of the notes I have for various settings, and as a stretch goal, get all of said notes typed up.

How was your September?

 

 

Posted in General, recaps

August Recap

Posted on by AJ

August has been a quiet month. After some of the insanity that’s been happening in the last few months, I’m happy for a little bit of peace. There’s still a lot left of the year, and that means plenty of time for things to change.

This month was the launch of my new serial Seventh which is in the same universe as Crimson and Gold, though following different characters. I’m expecting the serial to run through to October and will be continuing to update it on Fridays.

As for what’s in progress right now, I’ve been focusing on some of my older projects for most of this month, revamping and revising a few of them. It’s been enjoyable, but it’s also been eating up a lot of time.

For September, I’m hoping to get at least one of those older projects completely redone and ready to go for the next round of drafting and editing. Beyond that I realize I haven’t been great about keeping up on adding photos to my post and want to work on that a little.

How has your month been?

Posted in recaps

July Recap

Posted on by AJ

It’s been an incredibly busy month for me here, for several reasons. Not only am I getting Seventh prepped (and still so excited for it!) I’ve also had tons of good stuff coming in through my day job including a possible promotion, plus an award nomination from the lovely Obort over on The Sublime Ink (which I’m hoping I can get to soon).

Unfortunately, it hasn’t been all good news this month.

Meet Jasper.

This loveable jackass is my 17-year- old-cat. I’ve had him since I was twelve. He’s one of my two fur-babies and undisputed ruler of meal time.

About the middle of June we discovered he was having a hard time breathing. A trip to the vet reveal what’s called a pleural effusion: essentially liquid surrounding his lungs. That in itself is concerning, but the cause behind that fluid build up is even more concerning.

Heart disease. Specifically hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart muscles. It’s not uncommon for cats of his age and breed to develop a heart condition. It’s common enough at least, that treatment is relatively easy. Medication and low-stress are the two key requirements. It’s also impossible to predict whether it will affect his lifespan or not.

Moving forward brings challenges and a lot of changes I hadn’t expected. It’s hard to say for sure what those changes will mean and whether or not I’ll have to adjust the way I do things for his health.

At the moment I’m glad he’s happy and still a part of my life. I don’t know what next month holds, but I’m thankful for the good things this month.

Posted in blogging

Checking In on Goals

Posted on by AJ

With all the insanity that comes up when moving, I feel like my entire routine has been thrown out of the window. I haven’t managed to get much sorted out for June and realized when I made Monday’s post that I’d completely forgotten to prep any prompts for this month as well.

Since I need to get back into my routine I wanted to also take a moment to reassess my organization and where I am with my goals for the year. Admittedly, it’s not looking great, which is somewhat disappointing.

I started out the year with a self-set reading challenge of twenty-four new books. Unfortunately, I haven’t been doing so great on that score. Although I’ve read around ten or eleven books, all but three have been rereads. While I could still try and rush through and finish all twenty-four by the end of the year, I don’t think that would be wise, so I’m instead opting to cut back down to a mere twelve new books.

I also wanted to publish at least two stories published this year. Crimson and Gold came out in January, and I have another project I’m looking to possibly start discussing and showing in July. For my publication goals, I’m pretty pleased with where things stand.

Also! Crimson and Gold is available through Kindle Unlimited and will also be free on July 4th and 5th.

Although I’m not meeting all of the goals I set for myself, I’m still really pleased with where things stand for right now. There’s plenty of time to wrap things up. Although I’m missing the prompts for June it’s given me a good chance to reorganize and sort out some of my older posts and plan ahead.

How are you feeling about your goals?