*le sigh*
You know it’s been a stellar productivity month when my update blog-posts begin like that!
I won’t beat around the bush, this month has been, well, sluggish in getting back on track. My excuses (ooooh, so many EXCUSES!!!): finding a place to live, moving into said place to live, unpacking (some) in said place of living, super hot weather, some weekend travel, putting up shades (accomplished!), getting into the work-swing again, spending time with Andy before his classes start, going to the beach (which is only 10 minutes away, Yay!), being lazy, hanging out with old friends, having basic cable again, having Netflix again, Nero Wolfe TV series, etc., etc., etc., etc..
In other words: life got in the way. It has a nasty way of doing that _all the time_, but this month has been particularly tough. Add to that some complications arising from two stuck projects that I need to spend some serious editing time on in order to work out their kinks, and you’ve got a recipe for procrastination. But you know? Sometimes that just happens. And I won’t be moving again this year, so starting tomorrow–August now! Yikes!–I’m jumping all back in.
As we stand now:
ANNUAL GOALS:
[ ] Finish the rough draft of the “Hope City” novel (which is my current novel project) *Did start re-reading what I’ve got so far in the hopes of straightening myself out before I dig myself in too deep. Might need to re-summary draft it, but the stuff I’ve got so far isn’t too bad, if a little misguided. It’s a learning process…
[ ] Summary draft/Begin a prose draft of new novel project
[ 3 / 60 ] Make 60 submissions attempts (submit 60 times) (PROGRESS! Not much, but some. Thank goodness….)
MONTHLY GOALS:
[ 1 / 12 ] Finish “The Thief Dilemma” with 1 chapter posted per month. (Done, sort of–June’s got pushed back, and that made July’s get pushed back, so I’m just going to keep plugging along one month behind and just see how that goes.)
[ 0 / 12 ] Read 1 “old” book (pre-2009) in genre (ex: Rendezvous with Rama) *Ok–I’m revising my “catch-up” process–clearly I’ve been a terrible reader the past two months, so I’m going to finish this month’s reading (New: The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar; Old: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick), and THEN I’m going to read LAST month’s (New: The Quantum Thief; Old: The Day of the Triffids), and THEN I’m going to pick August’s books, though by the time I get to reading them, it’ll probably be September. >.O But I’m going to FINISH something. That’s the goal now.
[ 0 / 12 ] Read 1 “new” book (post-2009) in genre (ex: Zoo City) *See above.
DAILY GOALS:
[ 17/ 30 ] Write 500 words /OR/ edit for 30 minutes + 15 minutes of practice writing *Exactly as many as last month! Well, at least I don’t feel like I slacked off MORE this month. OH the SHAME!
[ 19/30 ] Read 1 short story per day *A little better than last month, but I really gotta step it up, AND I need to get back in the habit of reading the short story during breakfast so I don’t just try to find the shortest story I can to read at eleven o’clock at night prior to writing and then going to bed.
So as you can see, not great this last month. I can push all that off on travel and moving, but that’s the last of my good excuses. Things coming up in August? Weddings, engagement parties, guests visiting, work, and other craziness. What? It looks no less nuts than July? Psh. It’ll be fine, I’m sure. @_@
Maggie Slater 