Another week, another blog post. It’s been so long since I consecutively posted that this feels… strange? And yet, familiar? Even before the pandemic, I wasn’t always the most consistent poster and I don’t want to make you think I’m entirely reformed — I’m sure I’ll fall off this wagon eventually. But the pandemic just really through a wrench in all my routines, like it did for everyone. It’s just weird to feel like I’m recovering when the pandemic doesn’t seem to be.
I’ll not look a gift horse in the mouth — ADHDetour — That particular idiom comes from the practice of aging horses by their teeth. If someone gave you a horse and the first thing you did was check its teeth to figure out how old it was, that’d be hella rude. So we have a saying about not doing that — ADHDetour — For now I’m here, I’m setting, tracking, and meeting goals. I feel like myself, really like myself for the first time in years. And I think that’s worth celebrating.
Last Week
- Finish Tavi revision!
- Spend at least 2 hours with Victoria
- Read The Last Graduate
How'd I Do?
- Finish Tavi revision!
- As of this writing, I have just over 100 pages of edits left to enter into the computer. Then it’s down to formatting and sending it off to my favoritest humans: my beta readers! The bulk of my time today (Sunday) is gonna be spent making this happen. So, yes. This one is DONE!
- As of this writing, I have just over 100 pages of edits left to enter into the computer. Then it’s down to formatting and sending it off to my favoritest humans: my beta readers! The bulk of my time today (Sunday) is gonna be spent making this happen. So, yes. This one is DONE!
- Spend at least 2 hours with Victoria
- Not quite. I did write for an hour and wrote just over 1k words. So, improvement!
- Read The Last Graduate
- Nope. I started it, but didn’t get anywhere near finishing it. What I did do was read Seanan McGuire’s newest Wayward Children novella, Where the Drowned Girls Go, in a single sitting. I’m calling this a win, regardless. A book’s a book.
Weekly Word Count: 1,808
I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet, but I’m feeling really good today. The sun’s been out for the better part of two weeks, which is guaranteed to give me a mood boost. I can’t help it, as much as I love the PNW, I am a child of the desert. We went to Portland Saturday and tried a new brewery and then went to the Beyond Van Gogh Immersive Experience (it was cool but it went from beautiful, emotional, amazing immersive experience to here’s a shitty gift shop with about four different pieces of art splattered on any and everything — also, buy Van Gogh NFTs! — entirely too quickly).
One really big success from this week was on Monday night. Willamette Writers hosted a virtual reading, authors signed up first-come, first-served, and I was able to read one of my microficiton pieces. If you’ve been around the blog (pre-website launch) then you know that talking about/reading my writing to other people is a very big obstacle for me. My ADHD makes distraction during the reading and losing my place a very likely scenario, and my anxiety finds that possibility utterly mortifying. I don’t like talking about myself or my accomplishments with people. Like, it makes me nauseous, and I get cold sweats and my palms go sweaty and my heart does this awful thud thuddy thing (which I’m sure it always does but suddenly I am SO AWARE of it) and it’s just a real bad time.
But, if I’m going to make a career of writing, I have to get over this. When I met with my mentor, Wendy, she told me what I already knew: I have to practice. So, I read on Monday. I purposely chose a short piece (~300 words) and I didn’t watch the audience, I made the document take up my entire screen. But it went SO WELL. The story was well received and I felt great afterward, like I’d survived something and was now all too aware of how vitally alive I was.
So yeah, I still need to practice.
Other than various WilWrite meetings, I spent a lot of time this week on Tavi, and getting it DONE is an incredible feeling. This book has been a part of me since 2018, and though I know my work isn’t actually done, it’s done for now. I have done everything I can think of to make it the best book I can. Once I’ve sent it off and have decompressed a little, I’ll probably do a post about the revision process and how it went.
Victoria continues to continue. It’s still weird. It still takes up a different part of my brain than any other book or story I’ve written before, and I’m still struggling with that difference. But, I got a solid amount of work in on it this week, and it felt really good. Fingers crossed this week goes similarly.
We recorded the January episode of Top Shelf Librarians Friday night, so I have that to edit in the next couple nights, and you have that to look forward to! Hurray!
And that was the week. I done did good and I’m gonna bask in that for a little while.
What's Next?
- The Lament of Kivu Lacus line edits
- I received the edit letter from Laksa Media early last week. So I need to get this done and back to them so we can finalize the word count and sign the contract.
- Spend at least 2 hours with Victoria
- I really want to bump this up to three or four hours again, but with the line edits being my top priority this week, it doesn’t seem fair to ask more of myself on this project. Yet.
- Send Tavi to Beta readers
- Ideally this will be done before this post publishes, but better to include it here just in case.
- Read The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik
- I know once I get going this book will read fast. I just need to carve out time to get it done.
And that’s the week ahead. There’s other tasks that need to happen (edit/publish podcast episode, grocery shop, day job tasks, etc.,), but these are the big things I really want to get done. I’d argue I need to get them done. I’m doing pretty good on meeting my goals and keeping to my goal timeline, and I want that to continue. But, that’s a conversation for my Monthly Recap post coming some time this week. If you’re new to my blogging, the Monthly Recap is basically a Goals Summary post, but on a month-sized scale. I’ll look at January’s goals, successes/opportunities, and then I’ll goal-set for February.
I’ll be back soon, Bloggarts.
BZ
