Update Day: Warning. This Is a Big One.

Hey everyone! Yesterday was the last Friday of the month, which means it was time for another Update Day. Sadly for me, I was forced to miss updating in time because the Internet went down.

For those of you wondering what on Earth I'm talking about, a few of us writers are taking part in a bloghop hosted by me and Jen Garrett, where we set crazy or just seriously important goals, and then post updates on the last Friday of the month.

A lot of stuff has happened though, which has solidified my priorities, so bewarned, this is going to be a long post as I set out and explain my major goals for the next few weeks and months ahead. Ready?

Okay strap in.

So How Did I Do? 

It was a bit of a mixed bag for me, with a lot of fails mixed in with my success. 

The big thing is: 

I finished drafting Book 3! *sparkly confetti*

Everything else... Meh. 

Book 3 got done with about 20k words left to spare, and once I did that, I just couldn't keep the momentum going on another project. Used to be that I could easily switch between projects, but I'm out of practice because Book 3 has basically been taking up all my creative mind space for the past two years. 

So this Camp NaNo, despite me doing awesome for as long as I was writing, is going to be a lose for me. Oh well. 

And as for my social media... I tried to update my blog once a week on Fridays, which I mostly succeeded at, but I skipped last week because I was drained from finishing Book 3. (I did the last chapters in an eight-thousand-word marathon.)

Because of this and a whole lot of other stuff I'll get into in a bit, I also didn't get around to vlogging. I have recorded a video, but didn't edit it because I thought it would be better if my first update in a while was for this post... And then I got busy with this other thing and didn't record the video. 

*Sigh.*

I was active on twitter and I estimate I've gained close to 200 followers between my two accounts, so that's a win. 

Then, I also did two mammoth editing jobs for clients and am now working on a third, AND I've been working on the covers for The War of Six Crowns, the series. And man. The updated cover for The Vanished Knight is gorgeous. I think it might be my best yet, and the concept for the series of covers really has me excited, because it's a major challenges. 

Then I've also managed to do some reading. 

AND! Once I've wrapped up Book 3, I've started kicking my unhealthy lifestyle to the curb. 

Wow. Now that I'm listing everything I've achieved... I've actually had an epic month. 

What Would I Like to Do in the Next Few Months? 

Writing 

Because Book 3 needs to rest, I'm going to work on something else. And some of you guys, who've beta'ed for me in the past, will possibly be glad to know I've decided to do some work on Eden's Son, my Historical Romance. 

I just really need a change of pace from Book 3, and I though it could be nice if I managed to wrap up ES1 and publish it this year, since it's the second oldest story I've written and the oldest of my story concepts. (I've been working on various iterations of this story basically forever. In fact, the first novel I ever started to write is a book in this series, before I realized that there was a lot of story before that book that needed to be told first.) 

Also, at the risk of sounding really cynical, it would be nice if I have a romance out to help stabilize my writing income. But I freaking love this story, so it's going to be a pleasure to get it done after sixteen odd years.

Publishing and Marketing Stuff

There is soooooooooooo much I need to do that I haven't gotten around to before. I just couldn't focus on all this when I had Book 3 staring at me like a baleful child. But now it's done, So I can at least to do the following: 

1) Regular blog and vlog posts.
I at least want to get back to my Monday/Friday schedule, with Friday featuring a vlog post of some sort. For that, I'm probably going to start filming a whole lot of videos on writing topics that I can edit as needed so I have a bit more of a buffer for when I'm busy, and then I'm going to do my more personal vlog updates on the fly when I have the opportunity. I want my Monday blog posts to relate to my Friday posts in some way, so that's also going to help me get some content done in time. Although I love being all nice and personal, I also realize that adding value is something I haven't been able to do for years, so I need to fix that. 

2) Continue with my graphic design self-study. 
Believe it or not, I've gone from designing my own covers because it's cheaper to designing my own covers because I love them more than I do when someone else designs for me. So to save myself the pain and tears of having to learn things the hard way, I'm doing a graphic design course so I can get a better concept of what's going on and how to achieve what I want to achieve with my covers. 

I'm a terrible boss to myself. My whole feeling is that if I'm going to self publish, all aspects of the production of my book needs to be better than what anyone else would have done for me. That means I'm learning some mad skills. Helps that my freelancing activities are basically paying me to learn stuff. 

3) Update my website. 
This is another thing where my graphic design is going to come in handy. My old author website is so out of date that I don't even point people at it anymore. So that needs to be fixed. Before that can happen, though: 

4) Update the cover to The Heir's Choice. 
I need to implement the ideas I have brewing for that cover and as a bonus, do a few fixes on the cover to Endless while I'm at it. Once those are done, I can get into building the new site. (Which is another skill I'm having to learn. Insane, but makes sense given my other job... More on this later.) 

5) Set-up a newsletter (or three) with a signup page on my website. 
I've resisted the newsletter thing for a while because I didn't believe I had enough people interested in reading a newsletter. Thanks to Wattpad, this has now changed. The Vanished Knight now has close to 250k reads and a whole lot of people who keep contacting me for updates on Book 3. 

6) Update the front and back-matter of my books to point to the website and newsletter. 
And while I'm at it, I'm just going to reformat the whole shebang. I've learned a boatload of new stuff since self-publishing the first time. So I'm taking the books up to the next level. 

CEO Duties

You didn't read that wrong. For the first time since I've finished my degree and started working for the family business, my mom's let me be the boss. 

I think I mentioned that we were working on another business thing where we had some investors interested in the project... Well... that concept underlying the business was my idea, so my mom and I agreed that I need to be in charge of it, although she's the MD, which means she's going to be the one to do the actual day-to-day running of the business once it's up. 

But basically, where we are requires a prototype of a site to be built for coders and also potential investors. And since this is a monster project and I hate people telling me "can't do it," we're going to build the first prototype ourselves to help outsiders see what we're envisaging. 

Which is, again, where learning some site-building skills will come in. Fun fact, the site has so many working parts that I'm probably going to be able to build a seriously ambitious author site...as practice. 

Freelancing

Depending on how much time I'm going to spend on the monster site, this is probably going to be the thing that gets a down-grade on my priority list. I'm going to try and not down-scale my freelancing in favor of my site because I still want to be a full-time writer (and the owner of a monster site.) 

But. It it's going to come down to a choice between my writing/publishing, the site, and the freelancing, I think you can see why the freelancing will be the first to give. 

Hopefully, though, I'll be able to get everything done. And the amazing amount of stuff I pulled off in July without feeling on the verge of collapse gives me hope. 

My Health 

Here's something I haven't really brought up in a while. Mostly because it's embarrassing, how bad I am at taking care of myself. 

Why? Because I know how bad certain foods are to me. I know how important it is, especially to me, not to just sit on my butt day-in and day-out. I know that eating healthily and exercising actually give me the energy I need to tackle major projects without getting drained. I know that sixteen-hour work days invariably come back to bite me in the butt at some point. In some really ugly ways. Especially when I'm not eating healthily or exercising.

But did that have any impact at all on my refined sugar intake, exercise habits, water consumption or work hours? 

Not.

One.

Jot. 

But when I finished up Book 3, I felt like I could rule the world, and then just kinda thought I could start by not screwing myself in the long run. I'd like to actually have a functional body when I'm old, so this is actually a bit of a priority.

1) Diet

No, I don't mean this in the "starve-myself and get trim" kind of way. I'm talking about changing my diet permanently. Which means no refined carbs and sugars. I know a lot of people have a fit every time I mention not consuming carbs as a major part of my diet. But you know what? The only time I really feel normal, when I'm not feeling like I'm going to crash, or get a massive headache any moment now, or just feel like I don't have the strength to do something, or even, for that matter, that I'm constantly hungry, even when I'm getting up from the table, is when I'm on a high-fat, low-carb diet. So that's what I'm doing. 

I'm not completely giving up carbs. I'm just getting mine in by consuming vegetables, fruit and honey instead of starch. 

2) Weight

Yeah yeah, I'm beautiful as I am. Really I am. This isn't a self-confidence thing as I was blessed with an ability to tie my confidence to issues other than my body. 

But. 

Being at the heaviest weight I've ever been at the age of 28 is not good for my back, which is something I have injured in the past. (More on this in a bit.) Also, my family has a history of heart disease and diabetes, both of which are tied to unhealthy diets and obesity. And yes. I'm blessed with a body that evenly distributes fat when I gain weight, but I am, in fact obese. 

So to save myself a lot of heartache and pain now, I'm going to get the weight down and keep it down. And so you know, I had just short of 40 kg (88 lb) to lose when I started on Sunday. So far this week, I'm 2.5 kg (5 lb 8 oz) down. 

3) Water

People always get told that they need 2 liters (half a gallon) of water a day, but did you know your requirement is actually determined by your weight? The heavier you are, the more water you require. 

So when I decided to track my weight and fix my diet, I also got myself an app to track my intake and remind myself to drink water. This might seem extreme, but I tend to forget to drink water when I write. So now I don't. 

And just so you know, the goal for my current weight is 3.5 liters (7.4 liquid pints) per day. And if you think that's impossible to do. It's not.

4) Exercise

As I mentioned before, I have injured my back in the past, so being overweight really doesn't help. And the whole reason I got injured in the first place was because my core was weak. And all I've done in the years since is let my core weaken further. 

No more. 

I've signed up for an app called 30 Day Challenge. It has a variety of exercise challenges based on what you want to focus on and how fit you are. The exercises are really intensive, mostly body-weight-resistance exercises, which means that the five-minute sessions I'm currently on are really making a huge difference to my body. 

One wouldn't think that five minutes would help, but my core has gone from being able to support me for at most five seconds of plank to thirty seconds of plank in a week. And if you don't think that's impressive, I don't think you've done the plank before.

The exercises never give me that "no-pain-no-gain" feeling, because they seem to be designed to be *just* enough to challenge the participant without demoralizing them. But every single day is just a little bit more challenging than the day before. And I assume that eventually, almost without noticing, I'll be in a place where I'll be able to do hours of exercise if I want without actually finding it to be daunting or impossible. (Which I do now.) 

This is mostly weight training, though, so I've started dancing again to get some cardio in. This week, I went to my first ever line dancing class, but I have a huge hankering for ballroom again too, so I might take that as well. 

5) My lifestyle in general. 
Other than the eating, water drinking and exercise, I also really need to sort out a few other things. Firstly, my sleeping patterns. Because of my insane (and I don't mean this as a self-compliment) work-ethic, I often work until 3 a.m. in the morning and start my day between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. I take almost no breaks from my computer once I sit down. 

So. I have to institute a stricter work-hour rule, where I don't pass a certain time, and where I then have to at least do something to rest in the evening. This can be reading or even some sort of craft. Or the dancing classes. 

Point is, I know I'm going to burn out if I continue keeping the hours I'm keeping, so I'm going to adapt now before I'm forced to by my own exhaustion. 

Balance is the thing I'm going for here, so I'm going to literally schedule in time to rest because otherwise I'm just going to forget. (Same way I forget to drink water.) 

Whoa that's a lot, so I'm going to stop here for now. But how did you do? Anyone feel like joining me on the 30 Day Challenge? 

Camp NaNoWriMo Progress Update: Nooooooooo!

Still ahead of schedule... Just.

I know that second weeks of NaNoWriMo months are harsh. They're kinda notorious for being as difficult to get through as swimming through molasses. That's why all of the encouragement we get from the organizers in week two features some version of "Hey it's okay to struggle. You're far from the only one, so just keep chipping away and things will get easier." 

To be honest, though, I thought I'd skip the difficult second week. Not because week one was epic (and it was), but because I'm in the final sixth of my book. These are the final chapters leading up to the climactic point and the last ones to finish the book off. 

They write themselves. 

They always have. 

Usually when I hit the last quarter of a book, I can easily write up to 6k words in a day. (My record is 10k in a single push.) 

But what I didn't count on was that, when I threw a huge curve ball at my characters, they would retaliate with a massive one in return. 

You'd think, after having about six iterations of this same event in my draft novels without much of a dent, nothing would change when I let the same thing happen now. 

Boy, was I wrong. 

Because I hadn't taken into account one major thing: Every time before, the thing happened early in the story. This time, it happened near the end. 

And because of everything that had happened before the event, the characters were now armed with a set of information that pointed to something I hadn't even looked at. 

Et voila. 

Devastation. 

I've been struggling to write even 1000 words a day since Tuesday. The moment I get to scenes around this event, my unwilling fingers slow down to a drag and I want to burst into tears. 

But hey! Drama's good. So I can't complain too much. 

I just have to get over this. 

And hopefully my poor readers will cry just as hard when they hit this scene. I'm not going to say what it was, but... I think you'll know when you see it. 

How are you doing? Have you ever had a character spring a whole new world of pain on you? How did you recover?

CampNaNo Progress Update: Ugh I'm So Annoyed with Myself

Hey everyone!

I've had a bit of a whirlwind week since last Friday, which is why I've been so quiet. The truth is that I had a few minutes in which to whip up a post for the blog, but I felt bad to update when I know for a fact that I won't have the time to visit bloggers.

That said, I've made some epic progress this week.

It started on Saturday. See, I've been working on some huge editing projects, and the big one was waiting for me this week. 120 thousand words is nothing to sneeze at and the client was waiting. So I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get everything done and still write.

The solution, spend my off time on the weekend to write enough to make up for par on Friday. That way, anything I wrote in the week would basically be a nice extra instead of a cause for alarm because I wasn't making the daily word count goal.

I didn't quite make it, but I did write 8,000 words in two days. And then I wrote 4,000 more on Monday.

As of yesterday, I was at just under 17k words in total.

Which is... a bit insane, really.

Especially when you think I was writing that much while editing someone else's book.

But then yesterday went wrong.

I'm not going to go into it in detail, but my first writing block in the morning got knocked out without me being able to write. So I decided to sit down and push to finish the editing project.

The thought is that if I do that, I basically have today and the weekend to write.

Good thinking.

But I ignored the niggling head-achy feeling forming behind my eyeballs.

The result: I had to go sleep at 8 p.m. (which knocked out my second writing session for the day). With the mother of a headache. People who've had one of these will get it: burning eyes, burning neck and shoulders, nausea and please God just let me die in my sleep because it's night and I'm on a farm but the moonlight is too bright and it hurts. 

Luckily for me, the good Lord knows when I'm not completely serious.

Unluckily for me, I'm doing my best to type this without looking at my screen too much because after almost fourteen hours of sleep and three pain meds, I'm still feeling like it's there.

So.

I'm a bit angry at myself.

I've been on this ride before. I know the signs. There were things I should have done. For one thing, when I noticed the head-achy feeling starting to throb in my temples, I should have taken something. For another, I should have enlarged the text I was editing so it wouldn't stress my eyes so much. I should have dimmed my screen while I was at it. When I felt my shoulders, neck and jaw clenching, I should bloody well have stopped.

But I was just twenty pages out from being finished, so what harm would it do?

Some days, I'm a bloody fool.

Sigh.

How are you doing? Are you doing Camp NaNo? How's it going?