Drawing from the Well
Still nothing. I’ve got to get more consistent and figure out how to carve out time for writing. Maybe today.
Filling the Well
Bloodwitch: 27%
The Raven Boys: 69%
No reading yesterday either. With all these meetings, my YouTube playlist has ballooned out of control so I’m chewing through that as best as I can and being a little more discriminate of which videos I watch in their entirety. Today should be a good day to get some listening in, though. Fridays are just better.
Polishing the Well
Yesterday was the last day of school for my kids. They were about this excited…especially when we went out for Dessert Dash. It was a pretty good night. Now summer vacation begins. The kids have a bunch of work to do today to prep for their church trip tomorrow so we’ll see how fun it is for them. 😛
Well Chat
Celebrate Your Success
This is far beyond my hundredth post (134 to be exact, 114 for 2019…whoa!), so the image above is inaccurate numerically, but today is still an important milestone for me. After I crossed 30 days straight without missing a day, I set my next milestone as posting every day in May.
We made it, folks.
I want to take a moment to thank all my readers. There aren’t a lot of you, but I appreciate you taking the time to read through my thoughts and feelings on writing and life. It feeds my author soul to know I’m not alone out there.
Now, why would I throw numbers around like this? How do I even know them? I’ve talked before about tracking your progress. Today is a great reason why. Tracking your progress helps with goal setting and attainment. Most importantly, though, it sets you up to celebrate your accomplishments. It allows you to ease off the stress and self-flagellation and actually take pride in your creation.
It doesn’t matter what the goals are as long as they are attainable. For me, I need short- and long-term goals. The short are so that I can “check the box” and feel good about my self to fill my sails to continue doing what I’m doing. The long are to give me something big to work on for an even greater payoff. Much of my goal-setting is goals within goals where I set short-term goals that are a smaller piece of my long-term goals. I get a bit grandiose with them some time, but that’s part of first principles so there you go.
For example, my biggest goal is pulling of a Stratasphere-wide novel event where the stories of all the various strata to that point converge, interweave, and overlap to form one grand story. To do that, I have to write individual stories in multiple strata. To do that, I have to start by writing multiple stories in ONE stratum. To do that I have to write one story; that’s the Tidestone Cycle at the moment. To write that, I have to write one book, so one Eighth, so one chapter, so one scene. Ya see, my brain sets up an infinite nest of matrushka-doll-like goals so that I’m always digging to something more.
Is this the best method? For me, yes. For you, maybe not. But there’s no doubt that setting achievable goals and then achieving them is good for your mind and soul. So get out there and achieve, my Stratanauts.
How do you set goals? What feels good to achieve to you? Sound off in the comments.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG