Oh. Hello, there. Let’s start this post off with a quote, shall we?
“…so much of my 2022 timeline depends on getting as much done by April 1st as I possibly can.”
– B. Zelkovich, March 2022
*looks at date on watch*
Huh.
*sobs*
All right. Look. Obviously, this year has not gone according to plan. Which, let’s be real, it never does. And the past few years have been lawless ones, as far as goals are concerned. Meandering, dismal years of very little output.
Well, I’ve had output this year, but I’ll get into that later.
First, let’s look at what I wanted to accomplish all the way back in March.
- Write 7,000 words of Victoria
- Read 1 short story a day
- Tavi final revision + proofread
- Finalize Tavi Query Package
How'd I Do?
- Write 7,000 words of Victoria
- Look. You and I both know this didn’t happen. (insert actual word count if any)
- Read 1 short story a day
- If you’ll recall, I stated in the blog post that this never happens. It’s a challenge for a reason. But, this year I managed a whopping FOUR stories. Woof.
- Tavi final revision + proofread
- I have been avoiding this project because it terrifies me. More on that later.
- Finalize Tavi Query Package
- See above.
Total Word Count: 31,327
Hours Check
- Reading: 2 Hours
- This is not an accurate number, because I didn’t count time spent reading fanfiction. It is a substantially larger number.
- Willamette Writers Meetings: 10 Hours
- A little more than February, but there were ~5 weeks in March so…
- Website Management: 2 Hours
- I mean, seems about right, given the radio silence.
- Short Story Submissions: .5 Hours
- An even slower month for submissions! Dang!
- Writing fanfic: ~30 Hours
- Yeahhhhhh. See that word count up there? About 20k of it was over spring break. But, I didn’t track that time, because I basically forgot my planner even existed until about mid-April.
Total Hours: 42.5
Speaking of, let’s just talk about April, huh? Obviously, there were no set goals on this site, but I did set some goals in my planner.
April Goals
- Finish Tavi Revisions
- Finish Query Package
- Blog!
How'd I Do?
I’ll give you three guesses…
Total Word Count: 15,252
Hours Check
(Disclaimer: I did not resume hours tracking until the week of 4/18. I basically went rogue for two months thanks to my inability to manage my Horizon Forbidden West obsession.)
- Writing Fanfic: 2 Hours
- Again, this is not an accurate reflection of time spent writing fanfic. And I hit a wall with the story the week I started tracking time again. Coincidence? Definitely not.
- Reading: 7.5 Hours
- Also not accurate, because I did not count time spent reading fanfic. But, still an improvement from the prior month!
- Willamette Writers Meetings: 8 Hours
- Thank goodness for that SFF Critique Group keeping me accountable for something!
- Podcast: 6 Hours
- We recorded two episodes in April, since we were all busy in March.
- Short Story Submissions: 2 Hours
- Hey! A busy submission month, which means I received some rejections, but hey! Progress!
- The Finest Creation of an Artful God: 1.5 Hours
- This is a short story I’ve been working on this spring, and I squeezed in some good revision time this month.
- Working Out: 4.5 Hours
- Remember that post about finally starting treatment for my ADHD? Well, the working out has been consistent, anywhere from 30 min to an hour a day. And that is just… insane to me. Insane and lovely.
- Website Management: 1.5 Hours
- Speaking of that post, that means I spent time working on the website in April! YAY!
Total Hours: 32
So, obviously I did not get a whole heck of a lot done by April 1st. I’d argue I got very little done by April 1st. I didn’t even get much done by May 1st. I wish I could say that June 1st will be different, but…
Work responsibilities really ratchet up this time of year, and I was out for the count last week with some variation of the plague (of the non-COVID variety). I’ve spent the bulk of this week just getting back on track, playing catch-up instead of moving forward. I have a good stretch of free time next week, no major events or meetings after school, so hopefully I can get some work in then.
But the biggest hurdle lately has been the fact that my husband has committed to his business full time, and no longer has a day job.
Don’t get it twisted, I LOVE having him around more. He is much happier and so is our dog, haha. But it’s been a huge transition and change to my routine. And if you’ve been following me for long, you know that routines are everything to me. And any adjustments can take me a while to, well, adjust to.
I started writing again this week, which is very promising. Granted, it’s fanfic, but I’ll take words on the page over none any day. And I JUST signed, literally while drafting this post, the contract for The Lament of Kivu Lacus!
So things are looking pretty good at the moment, from where I sit.
Not really sure I should really make May goals at this point, but I did write some planner goals.
May Goals
- Finish Tavi Revision
- Finish Query Package
- Get The Finest Creation of an Artful God on Submission
And that’s the state of things. I haven’t made too much progress towards these goals yet, I’ll be honest. And there isn’t much time left to get them all done. But, I’m feeling more motivation, more niggling inklings of initiative.
Progress, even if it’s slow. That’s all I want.
So let’s get it done!
BZ
