Weekly Goals

Aside from the below, I also want to give myself a huge amount of imaginary bonus points for all the adulting I did this week. I made sure the none-regular bills were paid (on time); I got all the activities related to our oldest starting in elementary school added into our calender; I met with some friends and planned our summer vacation together, even though I was completely drained of energy that day; and finally I did everything I could to handle the kids' tantrums in a calm and adult manner. I'm actually quite proud of myself.


Core Goals

Write, edit, or outline every day (including the weekend): I am very proud that I managed this goal once again. I had a very busy weekend with next to no time at home. Still, I managed to get some writing done every day, and I manage to finish another flash fiction piece for the Codex competition during the weekend.

Get exercise: Once again, working from home a couple of days a week definitely helped with this goal, but still, I did manage to make the most of the extra time that provided me. I did two 8K runs (despite the snow) and a couple of proper training sessions. I am very happy with that, and I can feel the extra energy gives me during the week.

Eat healthier: I fell through during the weekend, but I did really well on this goal during the weekdays. I managed to stay clear of snack even when work, the kids, and lack of sleep really ramped up my sugar cravings.

Read with intention: I do still struggle with this, but I think manage fairly well this week. If nothing else, I started noticing when I was failing and made corrections accordingly.

Focus while writing: As mentioned below, the time pressure of the Codex competition really helped me focus more while writing. Though, this is definitely still something I need to work at improving.

Do Codex reviews: I got the reviews done. It was, once again, quite a massive task to squeeze in between everything else. Especially because work is flooding me at the moment. Still, I haven't regretted signing up for the Codex competition yet. It really pushes me to read critically and spend what little writing time I have better.


Stretch Goals

Do voice exercises: I really got started on these again.

Do a WYRM review: Sigh… No. This is getting embarrassing. I only got one WYRM review done in all of January (should have been four).

Do writing exercises : I did another character exercise this week, though not one that worked all that well for me.

Read short stories:
- I listened to a story over at Podcastle. It was okay, managed to weave the speculative element in with some pretty heavy family drama, which made a solid enough read. However, the speculative element and the core conflict felt like something I had read a 1.000 times before, so even if the story was well written, it still fell a bit short. Also, the ending felt too vague for my liking.
- I listened to a story in The New Yorker fiction podcast which really wasn't my cup of tea. It was supposed to be extremely well written and with strong character relationships. But while the prose was solid (but not exactly great), the characters and their relationships came across as pretty bland
- I read a story in the Sunday Morning Transport which was absolutely amazing. It was both a unique retelling of the Persephony-Demeter myth and a very realistic family drama.

Read “new” magazines: The New Yorker and Sunday Morning Transport stories mentioned above qualifies for this goal.

Read/listen to non-fiction:
- I listened to three episodes of the Danish podcast "The Lawless" which is sort of storytelling as it dramatizes real events, but I still think it belong to the non-fiction category of my reading/listening. These episodes also sparked ideas for a future story, which the whole point of this goal.
- I watched a video with a military economist going through what to expect from the Russian invasion of Ukraine this year.

/ Do year-end/start posts: I got most of a draft ready for the blog post, but it still need those last 10% and then a readthrough before I hit publish.

Submit short stories: I got two rejections for short stories during the week and got the stories send off again right away. I didn't get around to resending any poems.

Do Fantasticon work: I didn't get around to doing the SoMe post; work simply kept me too busy for that. I did do some of the reading and the GoH contact work I had been postponing, so I'll consider that a success for now.