January Goals Round-Up 2019

January was busy. Here in Australia this is summer school holidays, so I had both the kids at home all but literally the last three days of the month. On top of that I helped T-J fix some of our sagging ceilings in the house (he did the nastiest part of the work, the climbing in the roof during searing Australian summer days!), and also installed a new car stereo, which ended up being a much more complicated process than I’d at first anticipated (whatever happened to plug n’ play?).

There was good stuff too. Xander’s birthday is early in the month, and we took him to Paradise Country where they currently have all sorts of cool Shaun the Sheep stuff including a stage show, statues, meet and greet ect . You can probably guess we bought him quite a bit of stuff at the gift shop there too.

But you’re probably here to see how the writing is going(and whether or not I’m working on the story you want to read ;p ).

I set three goals at the start of the month and here’s how I went with them.

• edit and resubmit several of my ‘in circulation’ short stories: I got two more back out there, but have several more I need to hurry up and get around to
• compile beta feedback on Nothing Charming and complete edits using the Deep Edits lecture packet from Margie Lawson: It’s a longer path than expected combining four peoples’ feedback, your own new ideas, AND the advice from a course all at once. Also, school holidays >.< I’m just a little over half way done page count-wise, but previous experience tells me the ending often requires the most work, so time-wise I’m probably not really halfway done, but it’s hard to accurately guage.
• compile beta feedback on Lovely/Lonely and commence edits:. I don’t like to be editing two things at once, too much risk of mucking up, so I haven’t even touched this.

So one completed, one half way done (approximately) and the other untouched. Not too bad considering I knew I was setting the bar high. It might come as a surprise, but I really didn’t waste much time at all on Ragnarok:Eternal Love. I did have a bit of fun, and can see myself logging in every now and again, but I’m not addicted like I was to the original. I don’t know if it’s me, the platform, or the game.

My February goals are going to be pretty skinny. I’m on holidays so almost entirely AFK for two weeks, plus don’t forget the sort of planning and fall out such a big family trip has. And most of the first week of February I’m working lots of extra shifts at my day job while various bosses take their accrued days in lieu from the Christmas period. I’ll be lucky to get one productive week out of February, and I’ll probably spend most of that doing my feedback for the next writers group meeting >.<

So my February goals are:

• Proceed with edits on Nothing Charming with an aim to ideally complete them(but the knowledge I probably won’t)
• Percolate some flash fiction ideas while driving on the holiday(there will be much driving ;p )

I’ll shoot for the stars again come March ;p

I plan to share some views on some anime I’m really enjoying in the next few days, and I might share some stuff from my big trip too, so hopefully more blog posts between now and my next goals round-up (which was totally my modus operandi last year ;p )

And for those curious, here are the books I read in January:

• The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy – A cool book about a Victorian era(ish) young woman who intends to be a doctor. Also yay for Ace representation
• Write Every Day – A good book about busting through mindset issues and analysing and structuring your day to get more writing done
• The Dip – An interesting short read from Seth Godin about how quitting can be beneficial and how to gauge when to quit and when to stick. I actually read it twice ;p
• Drawing on the Power of Resonance In Writing – A good short read on how resonance can be used as a draw in stories
• The Wicked King – The sequel to last years first five star read for me, unsurprisingly my first five star this year ;p
• The Successful Author Mindset – When am I not listening to Joanna Penn ;p
• Using Myth To Power Your Story – A lecture on using the Campbellian monomyth in writing
• The Hate U Give – a powerful story, definitely worth the read
• The Lovely Bones – ferocious olives is the most hilarious metaphor for dilating pupils ever
• The Good Girl – not so good a book sadly IMO
• Children of Blood and Bone – a fascinating African based fantasy
• Enna Burning – the follow-up book to The Goose Girl which I read and loved back in 2017
• River Secrets – The third book in the Books of Bayern series(The sequels to The Goose Girl)
• Forest Born – a good way to round up the Books of Bayern series
• My Lady Jane – an alternate history of Lady Jane Grey complete with added shifters and modern humour.
• My Plain Jane – Jane Eyre rewritten to include modern humour and a ghost catching society. Much lolz.

Just a few books ;p

Did you read anything good last month? What about your goals for February?