Friday, October 26, 2018

Update Day: It's Spooky How Fast the Year Is Going...

It's the last Friday of the month, which means it's time for another Update Day. For those of you who don't know, a bunch of us set big/crazy/important goals, and then share monthly updates on our progress toward that goal. If you would like to join us, please click here for more information.



So how my goals are progressing... Well. Depends on which goals we're talking about. The move went well, but I haven't finished unpacking. Health goals got derailed by the move, but I'm getting back into it. My exercise goals took a hit this week thanks to a heat wave.

Overall, my life has quieted down a lot since moving house, but within days of arriving here, one of my cats got gallstones. This ended up making it really hard for me to get anything done, because each of the several times I had to take him to the vet or fetch him back took two hours both ways out of my day.

That said, I had another record work month. At the rate I'm going, I'm going to hit the goal I mentioned missing last month and then some. This goal is the last milestone I had left before the final one. Which means that the next time I say I hit goal, I will actually have hit the big one at the top of my blog. Yes. That is huge.

So where will I go after that? 


That will take some explaining. When I set up that goal, I made it a bit less daunting by double counting. So in a month, I count future income, income I earn the same month I generated it, and then income that I generated before once it comes in.

So let's say I make $5 in royalties in May. I'll count it as future income in May, and then I count it again in July when I actually get that $5 in my bank account.

Why did I do this? Basically I was approaching this as a goal, and my brain loves the feeling of adding amounts to my tracking sheet. So if I do it twice, my brain is happy. If my brain is happy, I get more done. And I knew from the beginning that half the goal in actual income is a hella comfortable living for me.

Basically, once I hit the goal, I have two options: 


  1. I can change my approach and aim for $7,500 a month in real income. As in the number I have coming into my bank account each month. 
  2. I can change my focus and start working on the percentage of my real income that comes from royalties. 
I'm thinking I'm going to do both for continuity sake, but I'm leaning toward prioritizing point 2. The whole point of this exercise had been a full-time writer (achieved) of my own fiction (not achieved.) So focusing on upping the percentage income from book sales should help me focus on what I actually want. 

That said, I really enjoy what I do for most of my money, so I don't think I'll want to stop working on that. But my life is sorting itself out, which means there's really no excuse for me to not write my stories. And once I can finally get into the place of regularly publishing, I'm going to be really happy if/when the passive income from my published books start coming in. 

Speaking of Writing More...

I joined NaNoWriMo. No idea if I'll be able to win, but I recon any progress will be good. 

Are you guys doing NaNo? Let me know your name so we can buddy up. 

How are your goals doing? What are you hoping to squeeze into the last two months of the year?

9 comments:

  1. Sorry about your cat.
    Not officially doing NaNo but I will take off part of November to write.

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  2. Sorry about your cat. I'm not sure about doing NaNo, but I do plan to write a lot in November.

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  3. I would like the last two months of the year to be better at work. That's a goal that is mostly out of my control, but I'd like it to happen.

    Love,
    Janie

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  4. Glad to hear the move went well! So sorry about your cat, though. Know too well how scary and stressful it can be when a pet experiences health issues like that. Hope your cat has been recovering... <3

    And that's exciting about NaNoWriMo. Best of luck with that come November!

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  5. Hey, I'm NaNo-ing, too! I have no idea if I'll be able to manage a win, either, but it'll be fun anyway. I think my user name is just M.J. Fifield (because I'm super clever like that...)

    Glad your move went well. I admit I moved three years ago, and there are still a few boxes I have yet to unpack.

    Hope your cat's recovery is going well!

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  6. I hope your cat is doing better. Good to see your goals are getting checked off.

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  7. I'm sorry about your cat, but I hope that he feels better and makes a full recovery. Good for you for doing Nano. I've always wanted to try it, but November is an especially busy month for me during the school year, unfortunately. I like the idea of all these writers out there, plugging away on their manuscripts.

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  8. I'm back blogging. Sorry about your cat and that heat wave. Congrats on your financial goals going well. I'm working on getting my own fiction out there as well. Freelancing for others is working better. You're doing Nano too? Great! My nano name is queendsheena.

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  9. I hope things have settle more since you move, and I hope the cat is doing well.

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