Woo, how is it August already? You know what that means. Time to look at how my goals are moving through July.
1. Health Goals: I resolved to continue drinking an appropriate amount of water (around 4 glasses a day), eat 3 servings of fruits and veggies a day and keep my nutrition balanced, and walk at least 10,000 steps a day plus add in an aerobic activity every other day.
2. Personal Project Goals: I resolved to keep working on getting photos sorted as the first stop on a website rebuild; resolved to work on writing three days a week and submissions when I can; resolved to relearn ukulele songs I've forgotten and learn new ones, keep creating my regular webcomic and video content, and get some small voice acting gigs.
3. Reading Goals: I resolved to read at least twice a week.
4. Relationship and Communication Goals: I resolved to document daily life stuff more, keep up with e-mails and online communication, and make time for friends and family.
5. Other Goals: Get rid of some things in my garage, paint the pillar, keep the house clean, watch some backed up TV shows, and avoid biting my nails.
Progress Update:
HEALTH GOALS:
Summary: There's nothing new in this arena. I'm happy and healthy, drinking water how I should (though I have issues getting enough consistently if I'm out of the house for a significant amount of time), doing the dancing or exercise (but this month I had to bump the schedule one day forward because I walked so much at a convention), and watching the nutrition goals to try to get three fruits and veggies every day (one being a green vegetable). I am continuing to take vitamins (Vitamin D in the morning; biotin, red yeast rice, and Co-Q10 enzyme in the afternoon; multivitamin at night). Here is my Health calendar of progress:
(Click these calendars and they will expand so you can actually read them!)
PERSONAL PROJECT GOALS:
Summary:
EDITING: The book has completed its first whole edit, having lost 38,426 words from the original and sliding in just under 160,000 words. I'm now in a second edit, chopping words here and there while diagramming the chapters and scenes, hoping that will help me take a bird's-eye view at what each scene accomplishes and figure out what to cut.
SUBMISSIONS:
Still on an agent search to get my older work to a new representative and sending short stories to new markets. Many short stories have gone out to promising markets, but progress is slow. I've been approaching some agents too to see if my older work can find a place with a fiction agent again. I've sometimes been moving submissions to the next day from the one I "assigned" them to myself, but I'm still doing them consistently. I'd still like to jump back into my other in-progress novel later this year, but right now I'm focusing on editing the one I finished in April. And the introduction to an upcoming anthology of aromantic stories is now complete and submitted to the publisher.
Writing Progress:
PHOTO PROJECT: I made HUGE progress on the photo album project this month. I spent many days incorporating disorganized photo album pictures into more orderly piles by date, and they've been clogging up my living room strewn all over the floor for weeks. I have finally finished sorting them into years, and now I'm almost done (like, two days from being done) sorting those piles into a better sequence and entering them into photo albums. Dates from 1978 to 1983 have been put into an album, and I'll just have to finish putting the rest into albums before I figure out if I need to buy more albums. I did also scan a good deal more photos along the way.
UKULELE PRACTICE: Ukulele practice was a complete success; I learned every song I wanted to learn in plenty of time, made a cute song list, and took my ukulele to the convention for two days at the end of July. I did get to play my music for some folks but didn't really get any specific requests--that's usually how it is. But I'm really proud that I learned all the songs, even some really weird obscure ones!
VOICE ACTING: I got to go to a real open audition at the convention, but discovered quickly that it's not the kind of voice acting I want to do (it's anime dubbing stuff, and I still wanted to give it a try, but I really did not connect to any of the roles and wasn't enthusiastic about actually getting the opportunity). I went ahead with the audition, but I knew before trying that we really weren't what each other were looking for, and was NOT surprised to not receive a callback. I also won a new role in an audio production that's developing now . . . and it's my first villain role! Plus I'll get to do some musical work in it, which is gonna be fun. Here's the Projects Calendar:
READING GOALS:
Summary: Absolutely ate shit on this one. I have been so busy with my other projects, and this is the one that gets deprioritized, which I'm not sad about. I still hate looking at a calendar where I read ONE DAY. Ugh. But I get a vacation this coming month so maybe I'll have more time for it. (I'll definitely be less consumed with preparing for the convention and doing the photo project!)
Progress:
RELATIONSHIP AND COMMUNICATION GOALS:
Summary: It was a quiet month socially outside of Jeaux Day, Game Nights, going to the movies once, and the convention weekend. The documentation goals have STILL gone unaddressed.
Progress:
OTHER GOALS:
Summary: I still need to sand and paint the plaster pillar that is sitting outside and need to sell some garage items. I still have a TV show I want to watch. I need to catch up on photographing the updated Steven Universe collection. I hope I can dive into the documentation goals soon, but I'll be busy with family for the first couple weeks of the month, so we'll see.
