winter checklist

1. I got out of bed. I’m honestly proud of that. The way I felt when I woke up, I really, really, REALLY wanted to pull up the covers, burrow under the pillows, and hide in bed all day. Instead, I got up and did some things. Slowly. Stiffly. Painfully. In a haze.

But I got up. Yay.

2. I made more words in Ghost Town. Not as many as I would’ve liked, but lots more than I expected given how slow my brain and body were moving.

3. Got my revision ideas for Sharp Edge all organized & answered some emails.

5. Went to a library meeting and didn’t feel entirely useless. Mostly, but not entirely.

6. Organized a bunch of DVDs (Part of the larger ‘putting DVD into binders’ project) I’m so comfortable with the breakdown structure of alphabetizing it’s now a soothing, meditative activity. Reminded me of the best workdays at Borders.

7. Did searches on dyspraxia, ADHD, epoxy resin chemistry, eagles of Asia, and sage propagation. Because internet.

8. Reworked yet another page of the brain-bending present-tense short story. Only a few pages left now.

9. Did some reading and jotted notes for reviews. I love the idea floating on Twitter right now of doing 30 reviews in a month, but I don’t read that fast, and don’t have a backlog of already-read-books I want to review.  I keep forgetting to mention it anywhere, but I do post a fair number of reviews. I dunno why putting “I REVIEWED THIS” on social media feels like bragging, but it does. I mean, I say I liked things here on the blog and so forth, but I don’t specifically mention that I also said I liked the thing on its selling site.  ANYway. Enough about that.

10. And I wrote down my doings here. It’s always meta fun to put the list as an item on the list.

1. Put some pondering time into a tagline for Rough Passages. Current front-runner: “Super-powered grandmothers, elemental Marines, and extraordinary teens.”

2. Added loads of 2019 commitments to the Master Calendar so I don’t forget them.

3. Sent in days-off requests for my  recovery days for my confirmed conventions. (Concoction, WisCon, GenCon & Dragon Con)

4. Finished a scene in Ghost Town WIP. Yes. I wrote.  How many words? MANY.

5. added accountability tasks to my Habitica dashboard for Sharp Edge revisions. because I’ll be starting that soon <cue flailing>

6. Did NOT take ibuprofen in the middle of the day. First time in a week. That counts as an accomplishment. With any luck I will be able to stop consciously thinking about chewing every time I eat by next Monday.

7. Did research on cheap, quiet treadmills. Because I am a dreamer and hope to have both a bit of floor available in the basement and the $$$ to cough up for equipment.

8. Reworked another page of the short story. Bending verb tenses makes my brain hurt.

9. Decanted some movies from their cases & organized them. A very zen way to spend evening time after my brain turned to mush after work.

All that, and a walk, but I also feel like it was NOT ENOUGH. Bah.

Today I’m featuring things I did yesterday, because sitting back down to the ‘puter after supper was one of the things I did not do. That’s a thing on my habits to-form list, one that’s a struggle to achieve on nights I work.

Anyway.

1. Commissioned a new cover for my holiday-ish novella Joining In the Round (THANK YOU RACHEL BOSTWICK) It’s going to be so much prettier and match Turning the Work much better.

1.5 (because it’s also an authoring thing)  Applied for an online ad in case I want to do a holiday promo for Rough Passages.

2. Remembered to water the plants.

2.5 Realized I now regularly sit in a chair I never used to use. A chair I recently moved it next to the plant stand. A chair near the grow lights. Evidently I am a plant.

3. Worked on the present-tense revisions to my short story so I can submit it before year’s end. (the one that could expand into a novella someday if I’m not careful)

4. Sorted out the DVD collection so they can go into binders instead of taking up a wall of shelves. See, binders can go next to the TV so I can browse movies there instead of surfing channels. Then I can watch more things without commercials when I need a sensory distraction to help my creative focus.

5. Made microscopic progress on the section of the Ghost Town WIP (work in progress) that I have to finish before I ‘m allowed to dive into revisions on Sharp Edge.