Weekly Goals

This was a strange week. I was doing really well with basically all my goals, and then our oldest got sick. And when she got back to health, we were hit by a massive snowstorm that kept all of us at home. The results are a pretty mediocre week, which is kind of annoying considering the momentum I started out with. On the other hand, I'm pretty happy I got so much done early in the week.
Overall, I feel I did manage to work towards my long-term goals. Aside from the writing and physical health goals, I also managed to focus a lot on my mental health goal of having more energy for the kids. So, yeah, despite missing quite a few goals, it feels like one of my best weeks in a long while.

Write, edit, or outline every day (including the weekend): Huh. No. For once I missed this goal. I was so preoccupied with my exercise and Codex review goals that I forgot to do any writing Tuesday. That usually doesn't happen. While it doesn't save my streak, though, I did sort of make up for this by writing 1200+ words Wednesday (plus I had another 1K word day during the weekend).

Get exercise: I was doing pretty well on this goal, but then sick kids and the snow happened, which meant my progress sort of stopped. Still, I did manage to achieve the bare minimum and make the best of the bad days.

Eat healthier: Nope. Again, sick kids, and just really kids draining my mental energy meant I fell the sugar trap a couple of times. Still, it could have been worse. Honestly, half a year ago, it would have ended up way worse, so I'm still seeing some progress here.

Read with intention: As always, it was difficult to keep outside distractions at a distance, but I feel, especially with the Codex and WYRM reading, I managed quite well.

Focus while writing: Once again, I struggled with this goal. However, I am getting quite good at noticing when my attention is slipping and forcing myself to refocus or decide to take a break. So, it feels like I’m doing a lot better now with this goal than I did in the start.

Do Codex reviews: I got this goal done early in the week, leaving more time for other tasks.

Catch up at work: There were some sudden high-priority assignments that came my way, but if not for those, I would have managed all the work I set out to do this week. I still got pretty close.

Do a WYRM review: Ugh… No. Again. I did catch up on where I left off on the review I started (weeks ago) and do a bit more reading, but I still didn’t manage to complete the review. I really need to focus on this in the coming week.


Stretch Goals

Do voice exercises: Once again, being home with the kids meant I couldn't really do these exercises as much as I wanted. However, I did enough of them early in the week to satisfy the goal.

Do writing exercises : I did a small character study/exercise on a Joe Aberchrombie character, which did teach me a thing or two.

Read short stories:
- I listened to a story from Beneath Ceaseless Skies. It was okay. It had a pretty interesting fantasy element, but I never really cared that much about the characters or their struggles with the social hierachy of their society. Maybe it was just because it was a re-read, but I don't recall loving the story all that much the first time.
- I read (yes, once again, read not listened to) a story in Uncanny. This was by a fellow WYRM member and it was just excellent. It was well written, had emotional gut punch, and just did an all-round excellent job at showing the burdens of social inheritance.
- And I listened to three flash/very short short fiction stories over at Podcastle. All of them were solid stories, but none of them really hooked me.

Read “new” magazines: The Beneath Ceaseless Skies story and the Uncanny story both qualify for this goal.

Read/listen to non-fiction:
- I continued to listen to De Lovløse (The Lawless) podcast this week, getting around to listen to one episode.
- I also listened to another Danish podcast Kampen on Historien (The Battle for History) about the Brazilian military dictatorship and how it still, decades later, affect Brazilian politics.
- I listened to an episode of the BBC Documentary about ICE action in Minnesota, which was frankly just depressing if nothing else, then because of the similarities to the story of Brazilian military dictatorship mentioned above.
- And, of course, I listened to a video interview with a military analysts talking about how the war in Ukraine is developing.

Do year-end/start posts: Yes, I finally got around to finishing and publishing that blog post.

Submit short stories: I submitted a freshly written flash fiction piece and sent out another story that had been rejected.

Do Fantasticon work: Nope. I still haven’t started on the SoMe work want to get started on.