Books Read

I needed some Polgara in my life :3

New Things

• Purchased THINGS to help manage my ever growing todo list. I used THINGS in the past to much success, and I'm confident having the list so easily managed will help with crossing things off.
• I AM FINALLY GETTING MY HAIR CUT LATER TODAY I AM SO EXCITED YOU GUYS HAVE NO IDEA. NINE MONTHS OF ANXIETY OVER THIS STUPID HAIR CUT
• Purchased a George Foreman Grill last week. Holy cats this thing is amazing for grilling asparagus!!!

Happy Birthday Month!

And thus begins the month of putting myself back together again! April historically is a good month because I get so excited for my birthday it infuses the rest of the month with awesome energy and positive vibes :D. ANYTHING can be accomplished in April!

I actually started the month off asleep-- had pretty annoying insomnia the last few nights, so I crashed after work (7:30pm-1am) and I've been taking care of some business and housework ever since I woke up. And I'm pleased to report that after 2 months, I've fully paid off both the iMac & the new phone :3.

I had a hard 2014, and one of the reasons for it was a decided lack of planning, and then holding myself accountable to impossible things until I just gave up on everything. So instead of just focusing on monthly accountability at the end of the month, I'm also going to set goals for myself at the beginning :D.

Writing

I'm participating in GWYO again this year, aiming to write 200,000 words this year. This should average 548 words a day, or roughly 16,986 words a month; however I usually adjust my monthly production to account for November/Nanowrimo, which means for January my goal is 448 words a day, or 13,888 total words.

My planned projects include:

• ~2,000 words on RP projects (trying to get into RP character voices again!)
• ~5,000 words onSmart (short story)
• ~3,000 words on A Heart Doesn't Break Even (a sequence of fanfics, aka my Naruto fixit cycle)
• ~5,000 words on Ghosts of Annalise (novella)
• Finish Kingdom Hunger Games AU fics
• Finish Kingdom Naruto AU fic for Sage for the love of all that is holy

All and all I'm in pretty good shape having enough projects to work on this month, which was a big problem last year once I stopped being able to write for all of my RP characters and had no inspiration for another project.

Book Queue

TV Queue

Movie Queue

I'm blessed that the people in my life understand and work with my schedule; I just wish I could get my act together and figure how to work with what I need to do, have time for "play," and still get enough sleep. I miss being productive outside of work, but I'm not willing to sacrifice my sleep like I use to in order to accomplish it. The current system of trying to get work done while in bed, also trying to get brain to go to sleep is understandably not working. I'm either staying up too late working on stupid things... or I'm going to sleep early and flaking out on people. Well, effective change comes about by admitting you have a problem, and boy do I have one.

Things are not helped by my 4am shifts; in order to get the bare minimum of sleep to fend off exhaustion I have to be out by 7pm at the latest. This still gives me plenty of time to get things done, I just have to discipline myself and stop working in bed. I have to be honest about what I need to do during a particular day and get my brain to understand that "play" time has to come after I've gotten some work done. I love tumblr pic-spams, but they should be a treat, not an hourly engagement.

So I'm going to try something for the rest of the week and see if it helps. My writer-brain is completely shut down, so I'm going to try and fix that this week, too. I'm going to bring my laptop to work with me and spend a half hour to an hour at the tables, working to unlock the writer-brain from its web of doubt and shame-spiral. And when I get home, I'm limiting myself to 2 hours of internet time, and only while I'm at the desk. And I'm going to buy a temporary mouse, because trying to use the broken tablet is driving me insane, and you can't really focus on being productive when you are that frustrated by having to click 15-20 times for the damn text to be selected XD.

I think this is going to help a lot, since I've been feeling as if I have NO TIME and clinging to my "fun" internet time to get me through the inner turmoil I have. But in retrospect I have quite a lot of time at my disposal... I'm just not using it effectively. Thumbs up for perspective changes?