Weekly Goals

With so many of my regular goals being physically impossible for me this week, due to the aftermath of dental surgery, my goals were a lot more writing focused than usual. That led into quite a writing spree. I'd say that is making the best of a pretty crappy situation.

For once, I should probably have done the update during Friday, because the weekend was fully booked with Christmas stuff and seeing friends. I should've figured I wouldn't get anything done after that. Looking at how my goals went, though, I definitely can't be unhappy.

Core Goals

Write, edit, or outline every day: At least, I wrote every weekday (which is the goal, really), the weekend, as mentioned, was packed. Generally, weekends as we get near Christmas will be less productive than usual.

Get exercise: I started out very slowly, with what could barely be called exercise. But at the end of the week, I was doing all right. I didn't go out running or lift weights, but I did some moderate exercise without, I hope, having affected the healing scar after the dental surgery. So, yeah, this one went pretty well.

Do a WYRM review: I got a bit lucky that there was a very short item up for review which was the natural thing for me to reivew. Still, I got a review done and that is what counts.


Stretch Goals

Finish first draft Danish SF story: All right, I have to give myself double marks for this one, even though I technically just acheived the goal. However, I only had a very vague idea of how much of the story was left when I set this goal up for myself, and it turned out I really underestimated it. I ended up with a 4.700 word first draft, 3.200 of which I wrote this week. That's on top of the writing exercises I did. This really is quite a writing sprint for me.

Do writing exercises : I did a reading/analysis exercise where I re-read some of Joe Aberchrombie's Heroes and noted how he made his characters so gritty and dark. Later during the week, I also manage to do the same exercise with Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, analyzing how he makes readers root for his jerk of an MC. It has been a long while since I've had the sort of time needed to do one of these analysis exercises, so I'm really happy I got to not just one, but two.

Read short stories:
- I read a flash fiction piece in Flash Point SF. First time I read that magazine, I think.
- I also listened to a story in Uncanny, one I really enjoyed.
- I listened to a story in the Clarkesworld Podcast
- And I read a short story published in Flash Fiction Online.

Read “new” magazines: The Flash Point SF story checks of this goal, and while I do listen to the Uncanny podcast semi-regularly, it also checks of this goal.

Read/listen to non-fiction: This goal ended taking me down rabit holes and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but that's fine. I don't mind learning about war economics and politics; that does seem like something that could prove useful knowledge for a novel or two down the line.
- Listened to a Danish military analyst talking about Trump's "peace plan" for Ukraine, why it's horrible, won't work, and contains lots of phrasings that are odd in English but makes perfect sense if they have been translated from Russian... sigh.
- Listened to an hour-long QA session with the same military analyst talking about the state of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in general.
- I read the rest of my book on Korean myths and legends.
- Listened to my favorite youtuber (a military economist) talk about the state of the Russian offensive in Ukraines. For once, though, it wasn't a particularly interesting video.
- I also started listening to another episode of 99% Invisible, but, alas, I hit a bad episode for once. Or rather, one that just didn't interest me.

N/A Submit short stories: I didn't have any new stories ready or get any rejections this week.

Do Fantasticon work: I participated in our monthly planning meeting where I had quite a few inputs, and I have followed on the assignments I received right after the meeting.