Camp NaNoWriMo Goal Achieved!

It's been far too long since I provided a Camp NaNoWriMo update.  The last time I posted, I was still coming to terms with the fact that I was going to be extending this novel into July.

Tonight I finished my novel, Amnesia, at long last.  I've thought I was "close to finishing" for about a month and a half at this point.  I just kept realizing I needed more and more to finish it off properly.

But tonight I finally wrote all the way to the end!

I finished the novel just under my word count goal for July, which was 135,000 words.  After several rounds of lengthening my word count goal, it seems I was finally spot on with what I needed to finish the story.  (To be fair, some of the lengthening was because I knew I was cutting out a substantial chunk of backstory that I was rewriting or ditching.)

I'd already started working a little bit on the sequel, so I just moved directly into working on that, and therefore met my word count goal of 135,000 words the same night as I finished the novel!

At some point, I need to separate these two novels into their own files and figure out word counts for each.  I think the first novel, Amnesia, is around 107,000 words, give or take once I finish cutting some and adding some.  We'll see how long it is after revision.  The second novel I haven't give a title yet, and I have no idea yet how long it's going to be, although I'll aim for them to be about the same.

My plan at this point is to write the sequel now, then revise both novels together.  I want to be able to do a staggered release, with the first novel to be followed by the second a few months later.  When I release the second, I'll likely do a promo on the first one to help sell the second.  While I'm gearing up to publish Amnesia and sequel, I'll get back to work on Ruby Ransome.  (Although now I'm also thinking about reviving a book I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2013, a genderbent retelling of Phantom of the Opera.)

By the way, because I hadn't done an update in so long, I also hadn't posted about hitting my word count goal at the end of June.  It took a whopping day of writing the last day of June, but I did it!

Weekly Goals, Week 30: Getting Back on Track

My one goal last week was to work on minimizing distractions.  Honestly, I don't know how I did at that.  I feel like by the end of the week, I had completely forgotten about that goal.

One thing I tried to focus on last week though was the importance of things that inherently aren't productive.  My mom visited on Tuesday, and we went to lunch and spent the afternoon together.  On Wednesday I rode and then we went to a concert with Zac's mom and sister.  So both days were highly unproductive, but spending time with family is valuable in other ways.

Thursday I got a lot of writing done on my novel, making up for multiple days of not writing, but then the weekend was so busy I never got anything more done on it.  On Friday I volunteered at the museum, and on both Saturday and Sunday I had friends bring their kids to ride my horses.  It was an exhausting weekend, but rescheduling wasn't an option in either case, so I sucked it up and did it.

This week I want to remind myself of my major long term goals:

1. To keep working on my novels, publish, and develop my career as an author
2. To clean up my house and make the doll spaces more usable
3. To get back to working on dolls, both my own and my clients'

I have gotten off track from these long term goals quite a bit, so my goals for the week are pretty simple:

1. Work on minimizing distractions
2. Get back on track with my long term goals

Getting distracted is a pretty major problem for me and I'd like to find a way to combat it, whether it's by learning the will power to ignore things like Facebook, or by finding some tools to help me.  And I feel like I need to start working on getting back on track just in general.  I did make some headway last week with a few little tasks like responding to emails I'd been putting off for some time, but this week I need to get back to writing regularly and also start working on doll stuff again.

It should be a less hectic week, though, so hopefully things will settle down enough that I can get a handle on my goals again.

Amazon Prime Day Deals for Readers

It's Prime Day!  It's funny how Prime Day has become almost a holiday of sorts.  Other retailers are starting to have sales on Prime Day, too, I guess cashing in on the people waiting to spend money as soon as everything goes on sale.  I was checking Prime Day deals late last night, and have seen many already go back to regular price.

Please note that I do get a small commission for any purchases made via my links!

I was hoping for more writing tools to be on sale for Prime Day, but at the very least I'm happy to see the Kindles on sale.  The Kindle Scribe, which I have and love, is $259.99, 30% off.  Note that that's the version with the smallest amount of storage and the premium pen; the ones with upgraded storage are either not on sale, or already went back to normal price.  There is one 64GB Scribe bundle still on sale for Prime Day, though; the price of $324 is 38% off and includes the premium pen and a cover.  That's the Scribe I have and I highly recommend it!

There are also two smaller Kindles on sale:

• 2022 Kindle $84.99 (15% off)
• Kindle Paperwhite $134.99 (10% off)

There's also a Fire tablet on sale for $74.99, 46% off, but for me that's too much distraction when I want to read.

I was really glad to see the Kindles on sale.  My husband decided to upgrade his very old refurbished Kindle.  We both have the same kind, that we got during a sale a few years ago.  They've done us well, but compared to my Scribe they're slow and the screen lighting isn't as crisp.

I'll keep looking and see if I see any deals writers would benefit from, but so far the Kindle deals are the best deals I've seen for literary-minded folks.

Editing to add:  I found a TON of Prime Deals on Kindle, plus you get triple points today and tomorrow for all Kindle book purchases!  Click here for easy access to Prime Day Kindle book deals.

Weekly Goals, Weekly 29: Changes Are Hard

Last week was something of a mixed bag.  I had a super productive day on Monday, possibly because I was feeling energized by the book I was reading.  I got several small tasks done, some of which had been on my to-do list for quite some time, as well as some larger tasks.

Tuesday and Wednesday continued fairly productively.  I worked on stuff that mattered to me.  I got lots of writing done and kept up on some things that needed doing.

Thursday is where everything started to fall apart.  I picked up the dog we were dog sitting for the weekend, wrote a blog post, got a little writing done.

By Friday, I was fully in a slump.  I didn't get much of anything done.  Saturday we ran some errands and yesterday we visited a vintage store run by a doll friend on the way to help my mom with some things, so neither day was truly unproductive, but I haven't worked on writing since Thursday so I feel like it was unproductive.

On Friday, I was chalking it up somewhat to the difficulty of reframing my priorities.  In some ways, allowing myself to do what matters most to me allowed me to do nothing for a little bit.  You could probably argue that after house sitting and running the table at Fan Expo, my body was telling me that I needed to rest, and resting for the sake of resting is definitely something the author of Four Thousand Weeks talks about.

But I'm hoping to get back on track this week.

I've been thinking about my long term goals, and how my weekly goals don't necessarily always match up.  Part of that has been how busy we got, of course.  But part of it was also that I'd gotten out of the habit of working on certain projects.

I have three major, long term goals:

1. To keep working on my novels, publish, and develop my career as an author
2. To clean up my house and make the doll spaces more usable
3. To get back to working on dolls, both my own and my clients'

Truthfully, three major goals are a lot to juggle.  I need to be aware of the juggling that having multiple major goals will entail.

One thing I need to think about is an idea that Four Thousand Weeks proposes: that when you're working toward a major goal, it may be helpful to temporarily shelve everything else and focus just on that task or project.  I think I may need to do that with cleaning up the house and working on the doll room, but the question is, how much to shelve?  I don't necessarily want to put off writing every day, and of course there are a lot of necessary tasks that I can't put off.

What it comes down to is that I need to eliminate distractions such as social media, which tend to suck me in and keep me scrolling, wasting time that I could otherwise be using on either writing or working on the doll room.

So this week's goal is actually going to be something entirely different:

1. Work on minimizing distractions

Of course, I have secondary goals, things I want to work on in that time I'm taking back from my distractions: in this case, writing and working on the doll room.  But I want to keep minimizing distractions as my main goal, because I don't want to lose sight of that as I go throughout my week.

Four Thousand Weeks: A Review and a Reset

In my post about my goals for this week, I blogged about a book I was reading at the time, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.

Well, I finally finished the book, and I have lots of thoughts.

The book has had an immediate impact on how I view my time and my to-do list.  On Monday when I planned out my week, I took a bunch of unimportant tasks off my calendar, where they'd been languishing for weeks and sometimes months, rolled over from week to week as they remained unfinished.  It felt good to recognize that I probably would never get to them, and that that was okay, because they weren't all that important to do.

Perversely, I got a ton done on Monday, probably at least partly because I was feeling energized by this new way of looking at things.  There were also a lot of things I had to get done, after 10 days of house sitting and 4 days of Fan Expo.  Basically, I'd had two weeks' worth of stuff to put away and two weeks' worth of basic tasks to catch up on.

Today, I'm finding that my desire for productivity is shot, perhaps because Four Thousand Weeks has given me permission to focus on what matters to me.  Turns out that eliminates quite a few things from my task list, and all I want to do now is read, write, and do doll stuff.

I suppose the fact that writing makes the short list should tell me something, though.

As I mentioned in Monday's post, the message of Four Thousand Weeks is that we have a limited amount of time, and there is no possible way we can ever hope to accomplish everything.  Rather than how the productivity self-help industry has focused on finding ways for us to get progressively more and more done, Four Thousand Weeks coaches you to forget about trying to do everything, and instead focus on doing what matters most to us.

In other words, quit trying to fit it all in and feeling guilty when we can't.  Instead, give ourselves permission to not accomplish everything.

One of the things the book talks about is the idea of limiting yourself to only three to-do items at a time.  I've always thought that was ridiculous because who has only three items on their list?!  Of course, as someone who is self-employed, I have work items on my list, whereas someone with a traditional job probably wouldn't.  But still!

The way the book discusses it, though, I started thinking: how about only having three active projects on my list at a time?  I've definitely noticed that I do better if I keep my weekly goals to just three, when I write that post every week.  So maybe limiting my big projects to three would be helpful.

But then in the appendix, the author suggests keeping two to-do lists: one with active items that you limit to only ten, and another with all the things you hope to do, with the understanding that you will not get through all of those.  And every time you accomplish one of the ten things, you can cross that off and move something else over.

He also suggested keeping a third list, a "Done" list, which I like for the purpose of reminding myself that I have been doing things.  Too often I look at the things I didn't accomplish and feel like a failure, no matter how much I actually did accomplish.

A final note: One of the things the book addresses quite a bit is distractions that keep us from doing things we need to do, or rather, that enable us to procrastinate on things we should be doing.  Social media is, of course, at the top of that list.  While there's no way I can eliminate social media from my life entirely, as it does serve some very real purposes for me, I definitely should look at how to limit its ability to distract me when I'm doing something important.

After pondering Four Thousand Weeks and the meaning of life all week, I feel like I'm even more lost as ever, although maybe that's just my new hierarchy of priorities taking shape.  Or, perhaps, it's me trying to figure out what I actually need to do (clearing the clutter in the kitchen, for instance), and how to balance those with the things that matter to me (just reading, writing, and dolls, really).

In any case, I'll accept my current feeling of aimlessness as growing pangs and part of the process of resetting my priorities, if it will eventually lead to more satisfaction with what I do and less guilt over what I don't.

Weekly Goals, Week 28: Changing My Outlook

I'm currently reading a book called Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.  As the subtitle suggests, the book is about how limited our time is, and is a counter to the obsession with productivity.  It's making me rethink how I'm planning my goals every week.

I'll write a full review when I'm finished reading, but for now, suffice it to say that I'm reassessing how I manage my time.

Last week, of course, was absurdly busy, partly due to house sitting and partly because of Fan Expo Denver..  I posted my goals post for the week late, and also posted about our table for the Denver region of NaNoWriMo at Fan Expo.

While the con was busy, it was also a lot of fun.  We had two panels where we talked about NaNoWriMo and writing novels, and the rest of the time my husband and I traded off working the table with one of our other local organizers.  I'm super jazzed about working on my novel after all that, and looking forward to the weekly year-round write-in tomorrow, since we had a few people at the con who expressed interest in coming.

This week will be my first "regular" week in about three weeks, and maybe my first week without as many distractions in a long time: My husband started his new job today, and will be in the office four days a week for the first couple weeks (three days a week after that).  It'll be an adjustment and I do miss him being home, but I think I may find that not having him here will enable me to get more done.

I'm trying not to focus too much on rigid productivity, though, and instead consider the value of the things I'm trying to make time for.  One of the most important points of this book is that no matter how productive we are, we'll never have time for everything, so it's important to choose instead what we value most and make sure we do those things.

With that in mind, and noting that I'm not done with the book yet and haven't decide for sure how it will apply to my daily outlook, my goals for the week are as follows:

1. Work on my novel every day
2. Finish unpacking and cleaning up from the last two weeks
3. Reassess what's most important to me and rethink my goals

This morning, I went through a bunch of my tasks that I've been rolling over each week for weeks, sometimes for months.  The number of tasks was getting out of hand!  I deleted anything that wasn't super important to me or that had been there for far too long.  The important things that were left, I tried to make some time for, in both this week's schedule and next week's.  There are some tasks that I deleted that will probably get recreated at some point, but ideally when I have more time to do them, as they aren't things I'm likely to forget about.  Having so much tasks to roll over each week was stressing me out, as it made me focus on all the things I couldn't accomplish.

I'm trying to remember, as I go into this week, that my time is finite, and there's only so much I can do with it.  Nothing is served by me feeling guilty for not having accomplished things I think I should have; most of the time, I legitimately didn't have time for it, and I know that.  Things like deleting less important tasks and rolling over less every week will help me not feel so guilty about things beyond my control.

Celebrating NaNoWriMo at Fan Expo Denver

Hello from Fan Expo Denver!

As we do most years, the Denver region of NaNoWriMo has a community table at the expo, plus two panels about NaNoWriMo: one tomorrow about the Young Writers program, and an intro to NaNoWriMo on Sunday.

It's a great time to reach out to the community.  We get a lot of people walking by who are interested in writing or who have kids who are interested in writing, but have no idea what NaNoWriMo is.  We do also get people coming by who recognize the name or who have participated in NaNoWriMo before.  Occasionally we even see familiar faces, participants we know from our local events.

The table is a lot of sitting around though, because most people trolling the vendor hall are looking for things to buy.  Possibly my favorite (even though it's a little anxiety-inducing) is the panels, because we get to talk about our experiences doing NaNoWriMo.  We usually do a short intro and then just take questions from the audience.  It's fun and we joke around a lot, in between the more serious answers.

I hope if you're in Denver, you'll stop by our community table to say hi or come join us for our panels!

Weekly Goals, Week 27: Crazy Week #2

I said last week was going to be crazy, and I wasn't wrong.

As expected, we spent most of our time driving back and forth between the two houses and spending a few hours one place, and a few hours at the other.  I got largely nothing productive done at all, other than working on my novel.

I did make my word count goal for Camp Sandwich, which I'll write about more in a future post.

This week started out the same way, of course, which is the biggest reason why I'm finally writing this post on Thursday.  My husband's parents got home yesterday, so we spent last night in our own house, no more driving back and forth... just in time for Fan Expo to start today.

Fan Expo is the next four days, today through Sunday, and we're here until evening every day, so I don't expect much productivity this week either.  Hopefully I'll get some writing done at Fan Expo (where I'm blogging from now).

So my goal list for the remainder of this week is just:

1. Work on my novel every day.

Literally, that's the best I think I can manage to do right now.  But next week will be better!

Camp Sandwich Update and July Camp NaNoWriMo Plans

I posted yesterday about how my writing goal is going really well.  As of yesterday's screenshots, this is where I was at:

My daily word count is starting to look a little like a heartbeat.  I have good days and days where I don't write as much.  I'm happy with this as it's all steady progress, and the bigger word count days help to give me a little boost periodically.

The story is in a good place.  I know I'll be discarding about 30,000 words of what I've written; some of it I'm rewriting to better fit the direction the story has gone in, and some of it I'm just getting rid of.  If you read my post about catching up after a couple missed days of writing two weeks ago, you may notice I increased my official goal to 120,000 last week to reflect the new direction.  If I check the word count of just the sections I know I'll be keeping, it's more like 78,000, which feels like a good point for where I'm at in the events of the story.  I'm still aiming for a 90,000-word novel, all said and done.

But I don't think I'm going to be done in the next week, which is an issue, because it's going to ruin my plans to go back to work on Ruby in July.  And there's another reason why that may not happen: I've been thinking of writing a sequel to Amnesia, since I'm planning on ending the novel in a fairly... open-ended way.  It will be a sadistically perfect ending for the first novel, but at the same time, it will desperately need a sequel if there's going to be any closure!

I've decided I want to start working on the sequel right away, before revising the first novel.  Even if it means I end up rewriting and revising more later, I feel like right now, I'm motivated and invested in the characters, and since I want the story to roll right into the sequel, it will be a good idea to start writing it as soon as I'm done with the first book.

The other reason I want to start writing the sequel right away is because I do plan to publish these books, and I want to be able to release the sequel a few months after the first novel, and run a promo for the first novel in order to help sell the second.  There's a concept in indie author marketing that the best thing to sell your books is to keep writing more books, because that way when you capture a new reader, you're not just selling one book, you're potentially selling several or all of your books.

The trick will be getting back to work on Ruby right away once I'm done with these, so that I can get a bunch of those books written and start publishing that in quick succession soon, too.

So my July camp goal will officially be finishing Amnesia and starting on the sequel (title yet to be determined).  We'll see where I get by the end of the month, and if I decide to roll the word count goal for both novels into one.  If I'm still working on Amnesia, it might make sense to keep it all under the same project in the NaNoWriMo project and goal tracker, at least until the end of Camp.  Once Camp is over, I can create a new project and a new goal for the sequel, and split the Scrivener project into two at that time.

Weekly Goals, Week 26: Crazy Week #1

This week is going to be a cluster.  But before I get into that, I want to look at last week.

With the exception of Wednesday, I spent a fair bit of time writing last week.  The novel is coming along nicely, but it continues to surprise me, as new ideas keep coming.  This makes writing longer, but arguably makes the novel better.  I'm overall very pleased!

I also spent a fair bit of time over the weekend taking doll photos.  Taking Pride photos had been on my to-do list since the beginning of June, and ended up being a couple of massive photo shoots as our ideas for the photos kept growing.  The photos turned out great and I'm very pleased!

I didn't work on organizing in the doll room, though.  Just the photos.

I also got a major reprieve on my timeline for doing a sale.  My husband's unemployment finally came through (after he called and they discovered an issue that wasn't obvious in his online account).  And on Friday, he received a job offer, for a job that would start in two weeks.  It would be hybrid instead of fully remote, which we're less excited about.  He's been fully remote for over four years, and it'll be a tough transition to return to driving in to an office a few days a week.  Commuting is going to claim about two hours out of every day, I think, as the office is across town and he'll be fighting rush hour.  Maybe there will be a way he can stagger his drive so that the traffic isn't as bad.

That should mean that his next two weeks are free for whatever he wants to do, since he won't have to put so much energy into job searching anymore, but unfortunately it's not going to work out that way.  We're spending the next 10 days house sitting for his parents, and then we'll be spending the four days after that running a community table for NaNoWriMo at Fan Expo (formerly Denver Pop Culture Con, formerly Denver Comic Con).  House sitting is going to be especially busy and stressful because we'll have to drive back and forth between the two houses to take care of the cats, an especially demanding job now that one of them needs regular blood sugar tests and insulin shots.  But at the same time, we can't leave the dogs alone at his parents' house for too long, because there dog gets separation anxiety.

So it's going to be a busy, stressful week, and I don't expect to get much done.  I'm setting expectations low as a result.  I can write every day, no matter where I am, and I'm going to try to find time to work on the Ginger doll inventory when we're here, but with low expectations.

As it stands, these are my only goals:

1. Work on my novel every day until finished
2. Work on organizing the doll room

Hopefully we can figure out a routine and the week will go easier than I'm anticipating, but I'm mentally prepared for a rough week just in case.

Weekly Goals, Week 25: Setbacks and Recoveries

Last week was a week of wild swings.  On Tuesday my horse, Panama, didn't drink all day.  We discovered him dehydrated and uncomfortable at 10pm, and spent the next five hours coaxing mashes into him. I'm pretty sure that we narrowly avoided a recurrence of his near-death experience two years ago, but thankfully we did avoid it, even if it cost us an evening's plans and a good night's sleep.

Since I've been mostly working on my novel late in the day, I didn't work on my novel at all that night, breaking my daily writing streak.  And since the next day was mostly spent at a pair of morning doctor's appointments, mashing Panama again, napping to recover from the lack of sleep, visiting with Zac's family that was in town for the week, and mashing Panama again, I didn't end up working on my novel on Wednesday either.

Fortunately I got caught up on my Camp NaNo novel in a big way on Thursday, and have maintained the daily habit ever since.  But that was pretty much all I got done last week.  I never was able to make time to work on the doll room, let alone organize a sale.

It was a wild week, though, and pretty busy between our concerns about Panama's health and several days' worth of plans with Zac's extended family while they were in town.  All in all, I'm glad last week is over, even though this week likely isn't going to be much better.  Less family, but lots of catchup.

1. Work on my novel every day until finished
2. Work on organizing the doll room
3. Get organized and sell

You'll see that my goals are essentially the same as last week's and the week's before that, except for the wording of the sales goal.  I decided that putting all the pressure on a single sale may have been making me feel like it had to be this big, perfectly organized event.  Instead, I'm going to try to do some smaller listings throughout the week, and if I can get organized in time, a big sale on the weekend.  But at least if I can get some smaller listings up, I can start chipping away at the stuff I need to sell.

As for my novel, I made some decisions regarding the plot that mean I'm not as close to being done as I thought.  I will be rewriting much of the flashback material that I already wrote so that it fits into the story a little better, and adding a little to the story to flesh out the climax and ending.  I have a bad habit of taking shortcuts to the end, and I want this novel to be satisfying rather than just finished.  Hopefully I'll still finish by the end of June, though, so that I can get back to work on Ruby Ransome in July's Camp NaNoWriMo.

Hopefully this week is productive and goes well, as next week we'll be house sitting for Zac's parents and everything will be thrown for a loop yet again.

Camp Sandwich Catchup

I'm pleased to say that after my long post yesterday regarding my broken daily writing streak, I ended up getting a lot done on my novel.  I picked up where I'd left off, made significant headway, and stopped writing with a good sense of where I'll be going from here.

I think it made a big difference that I started writing earlier in the day.  I usually end of up waiting too long and then trying to squeeze a little writing time in at the very end of the day.  I used to choose this as my writing time as I would feel most energized at night, but lately I just want to read and wind down for the night.  So I need to start working on it earlier.  Even around or a little after dinner time would be fine.  I just am not doing much daily writing when I wait until I only have 20 or 30 minutes to write before I get ready for bed.

I also realized in all my writing yesterday that much of my earlier backstory, which I'd intended to use as flashback material, will need to be rewritten or thrown out.  That means I actually have a significant amount of writing still left to do, and I will not be done as early as I thought.  While I'd hoped to get back to work on Ruby Ransome during July Camp, I'm actually okay with continuing to work on Amnesia if I'm not done with it yet by then.  I want to get the first draft as right as possible, so I'm not having to fix a lot of holes with the second draft.

Currently I'm at 89,317 words, and my daily word count needed to reach my goal of 90,000 by the end of the month (the end of my goal) is an amusing 40 words.  I'll be writing more than that per day, obviously.  But I figure I'm actually at about 62,000 words if you don't count the backstory stuff I wrote earlier on.  That means I'm about two-thirds through the novel, which seems about right for where I'm at in the story.  (Maybe a little less than two-thirds, if it ends up longer than 90,000 words once finished, or if I tighten earlier in the story, where I feel like some of the stuff drags on a bit.)

I'm debating on whether to correct the inaccurate (if I discard a bunch) word count between my Camp Sandwich and July Camp projects, but then again, maybe that will make it more difficult to see my progress across multiple projects.  So maybe I'll just increase my goal in July to account for the 27,000 ish words I plan to discard or rewrite.

I guess that's all assuming I don't finish the novel in June, as I may very well still do.  If I think I'm going to finish in June, I could also increase the current goal to reflect that change.  If I increase it to 120,000, that makes my new daily goal 1,800 words, which is a lot to write every day... so yeah, the finishing of this novel may spill over into the July Camp.

Unless I keep having days like yesterday!

Daily Writing Streak Broken :(

After nearly two months of doing at least something on my novel every day, from about mid-April during Camp NaNoWriMo all the way to this past Monday, my streak finally broke.

To be fair, it wasn't my fault, and if it wasn't for the events of this week I don't think it would have happened at all.  Tuesday we had a very full day, and got to the barn at 10pm to grain my horses, only to find that one of them - Panama, the one who was very sick two years ago and needed a lot of care - had eaten free-feed hay all day without drinking on the hottest day of the year so far, and was very dehydrated and uncomfortable.

So we spent the next five hours walking him, coaxing mashes into him, and monitoring him for hydration, poop, and how he was feeling.  It took a while, but over time we got a total of almost 5 gallons of water into him, plus he pooped twice and peed once.  He was obviously feeling much better, too, so we felt pretty good at that point about leaving him.

I had been waiting until evening to work on my novel since we had so much going on during the day, so obviously didn't write that night.  It was after 4am before we got in bed, and I didn't sleep until nearly 5am, since I read for a while to calm myself down.

Yesterday was another busy day, this time on an extreme shortage of sleep, but we still made it over to the barn to mash Panama a couple times.  All the horses were obviously still quite full from the day before, and were eating their dinner very slowly; perhaps because of this, Panama didn't eat the entire mash we offered him around 4pm (they get fed dinner at 2pm).  He seemed very sleepy and was well hydrated, so I wasn't too worried, but we still went back later to mash him again, and that one he ate very well.

When we went out there to mash him early this afternoon, before dinner this time, he ate with gusto and actually hollered for his mash, something he hadn't been doing the last few days.  He's normally super vocal, so it was a good sign that he was back to that behavior today.

I felt so bad about not writing on Tuesday, but there was really nothing for it.  Last night I opened up the Scrivener project and refreshed my memory on where I was and what I intended to write next, but I was exhausted from Tuesday night and a lack of sleep, so I didn't work on it.

While logically I know it's okay that I wasn't able to write for a couple days, that sometimes other things have to take precedence, I still feel disappointed and slightly worried that I will have a hard time picking the habit back up.  For me, part of the daily writing habit is not making excuses or exceptions, because once I stop writing every day, it's far too easy to let the habit slip and eventually forget about it entirely.

So tonight I need to make sure that I work on my novel at some point, no matter what.  Even if it's just a little bit, to get back into the habit and refamiliarize myself with where I was in the story.

What Is Writers Block?

I started my current novel, Amnesia, at the very end of March, right before Camp NaNoWriMo.  Two and a half months later, I've almost reached my word count goal, and I'm figuring out the final scenes and the placement of flashbacks.  Not bad for a novel that started with just an idea for an opening scene, and no idea where it would go from there.

I don't often feel a true "writers block," which I interpret as not knowing what to write.  You know, the feeling that has you staring at the blank page or blinking cursor and having nothing to write.  Maybe it's thanks to NaNoWriMo or maybe it's just because of how I write, but I've always been able to write something.  Even if I later change it, it's words on the page.  I've always felt that way, even before I discovered the NaNoWriMo culture.

What I do sometimes struggle with is motivation, and this is in all areas of my life, not just writing.  Finding time to write when I'm not feeling motivated is difficult for me, especially when I have a lot else going on to fill my time.

Since the start of Camp NaNoWriMo in April, I've made it my goal to work on my novel at least a little every day, and for the most part this has gone very well.  Even if one day I don't feel motivated, I at least open up my Scrivener project and write a few words.  Sometimes that's been a very few words (a few bad days, it was actually one word), and sometimes I do something else, such as getting caught up on research I've been meaning to do.  Sometimes writing a few words leads to a few more and a few more, until I've written more than I had expected or hoped for.  Other times, just opening the project and looking at it helps to keep it more present in my mind every day.

But for the most part, I haven't experienced too much of this until last week.  Last week, there were a few days where I really, honestly struggled.

It wasn't that I didn't know what to write; it was that I'd decided where the end was going, and realized I was going to have to change my plan somewhat.  That was going to involve rearranging and even rewriting some of the scenes I'd already written while skipping around (which is not something I usually do, but I was inspired to write the material for the flashbacks before I knew how I was going to end the story).

In other words, it was going to be a lot harder than just sitting down and letting words flow.  And I was feeling a lack of motivation just in general during that time, so that didn't help.

One day I just opened the project up and went through the scenes, thinking about how to do what I wanted to do.

I didn't write that day, but thinking paid off, and the next day I rearranged some scenes and got it all ready.

Neither day produced words, but I gave myself credit for "writing" those days anyway, since it was still progress.

The third day I started working on writing the new scenes within the new framework, and rewriting what needed to be rewritten.  Each day I write a little more, and I have faith that I'll get past this rough patch and when I do, the story will be better for it.

It's been slow work, and admittedly, some days I haven't worked on it for very long.  But I don't see it as writer's block, just a rough patch that I need to keep pushing through to get to the other side.

What about you?  Do you get writer's block, and what form does it take for you?

Weekly Goals, Week 24: Plugging Along

Last week started off strong.  I got lots of work done the first few days on both my novel and in the doll room.  My "Tuesday bump" (what I'm calling the usual surge in word count that I get from our weekly write-in) wasn't quite as strong as in previous weeks, but it wasn't bad, either.  And I got a couple good afternoons' worth of work done inventorying the Ginger dolls.

I also did a photo shoot at the museum for a social media reel I'm planning, and that took two afternoons and about 6 hours of work, between the photography and videography and the video editing.

But after midweek, my momentum flagged, and I didn't get much else done, besides a token effort on my novel every day.

Part of it was that I hit a rough patch with the novel, which I'll write more about in my next post.  I hadn't really hit a rough patch yet, despite how far I've gotten in the novel, so I'm not entirely surprised, but the timing was unfortunate.

I think I also may have burned myself out a bit on the doll projects (both mine and the museum's) early on in the week.  Even when work is something I enjoy, it can become overwhelming to me and burn me out if I work too intensely for too long.  It's a wonderful zone to be in while I'm getting stuff done, but it can make it difficult to regain focus afterward.  I used to call the after effects a productivity hangover.

The one thing I didn't get to last week (again) was the sale.  We got a small reprieve and were able to push it back another week to allow me some more time to get organized.

I'm still trying the same approach that I discussed last week and focusing on fewer projects, so my list looks just like last week's:

1. Work on my novel every day until finished
2. Work on organizing the doll room
3. Prep and run a sale

It's probably going to look more or less the same for a while, as the doll room is bound to be a long term project, and writing every day will just be replaced with a different novel once this draft is finished.

NaNoWriMo Camp Sandwich: The Tuesday Bump

Earlier this year, we set up a standing write-in with one of our biggest supporters for the Denver region of NaNoWriMo.  Write-ins during NaNoWriMo in November are always so motivating and helpful for staying on track, that I figured I could stand to harness that momentum year-round.

We started the write-in along with the beginning of Camp NaNoWriMo in April, and so far it's been going really well.  In fact, while it helps me to stay on track the rest of the week, I usually write nearly as much (or a little more) on write-in days as I do the rest of the week combined.  I've been affectionately calling it the Tuesday bump, since you can see the dramatic increase in word count every Tuesday.

This screenshot of my graph is from before I worked on my novel yesterday, but you can clearly see when the past three write-ins were:

This one is the daily word count graph, but again, you can pick out the write-in days pretty easily.  (Plus, you can see Sunday's small "aha" moment, which I mentioned in my week 23 goals post.)

I don't know that the weekly write-in has been entirely responsible for keeping me going on this novel, but it has definitely helped.  Getting that massive word count bump every Tuesday helps me make more progress than I would be making otherwise, for one thing.  But the weekly standing write-in also helps me to keep the novel at the forefront of my mind, making it easier to stick to my goal of writing every day.  Without the weekly write-in, I'm pretty sure I would have taken "just one day" off by now, which would have turned into more, which would have turned into not working on the novel anymore.

Instead, I'm nearly finished with (and thoroughly enjoying) this novel.  When I took those screenshots yesterday, I had 78,601 words.  I wrote another 1,668 last night, hitting 80,000 (80,269).  And today is Tuesday, which means (you guessed it!) probably another considerable bump in word count is coming later this evening. 

So you could probably say that the Tuesday bump has saved this novel, and possibly Ruby as well, although the latter still remains to be seen.  I've always been a strong advocate for using NaNoWriMo to create lasting writing habits, but now I have to say, I recommend year-round motivators as well.  Whatever those might be for you, find them and utilize them!

Weekly Goals, Week 23: Rethinking My Goals

Last week I blogged about how I've felt like two major projects may be my max at one time.  This revelation may have implications for how I plan my weekly goals every week.

I'm not talking about small, one-off projects, like taking a quick photo or cleaning up the kitchen, although I'm also learning that I can't overload myself on those, either.  But for the purpose of my weekly goals posts, I'm talking about larger, long-term projects that require sustained focus and multiple sessions to get anything done.

In other words, I'm talking about the kind of projects that I list as weekly goals.

Last week was pretty productive.  I got lots of organizing done, working towards my goal of organizing and inventorying my entire Ginger collection, plus working on other doll spaces and storage in and around my doll room.  There is a lot to do there; I'm trying to resolve years' worth of neglect and turn it into a dream doll setup, and it's not going to be easy or fast.

I also got a lot done on my novel, though I think I forgot to track some of it, so it shows as only about three hours for the week.  Given that I wrote 3,700 words on Tuesday alone, and that I'm pretty sure I wrote more once I got home from the write-in that day even though Toggl doesn't reflect it, I'm fairly certain I forgot to track a bunch.

Currently I'm sitting pretty at 78,601 words.  My goal is 90,000 but I'm fairly certainly I'll overshoot that initially.  Even so, I don't have that much left to write, and I had another "aha!" moment last night for how the rest of the story is going to pull together.

With all of this in mind, here are my goals for this week:

1. Work on my novel every day until finished
2. Work on organizing the doll room
3. Prep and run a sale

You'll notice I've added the words "until finished" on the end of my usual writing goal.  I don't think I'll finish the novel this week, but I anticipate finishing it soon.  My tentative goal is by midway through the month, to give me time to shift gears and work on Ruby Ransome in July's session of Camp NaNoWriMo.

You'll also notice that the sale, which didn't happen last week, has been carried over to this week.  I made a conscious decision last week that I wanted a little more time to organize before holding the sale.  I really want to be sure to do it this weekend though, as both the income and the space are becoming more important as time goes on.

It'll be a busy week for sure, but if everything continues going the way the last few weeks have gone, it'll be a fairly successful week as well.

How Many Projects Are Too Many?

It hasn't escaped my notice that the last few weeks I've been better at achieving my goals.

There are a few possible reasons why.  One could be that I'm doing better lately with managing my time.  I could also be benefiting from instituting a daily routine with a strict goal of writing every day; it's not a stretch to think that discipline could be spilling over into other goals as well.

But I've also been thinking about the general advice of only having three items on your to-do list.  I've never given it any credence (I have way too much to do for that) but I find myself wondering if perhaps it's more applicable to larger and more involved projects.

Because while I've been making good progress on two of my projects, my novel and organizing in the doll room, I also have been tightly focused on both of those goals.  I have had a few other goals cluttering things up on occasion, but for the most part I've been focusing on just these two things.

What if, when I feel I'm not being productive enough, it's just because I'm overextending myself?  So rather than getting a lot done on a couple of things, I'm only able to get a little done on everything... and even that doesn't represent the maximum effort I have to give, because there is a limited amount of time and energy you can divvy up before you run out of spoons, so to speak.

It's food for thought, especially since my entire nature is to overextend myself.  I have so many things I want to do.  But it looks like may need to focus my efforts on what I most want to do, or else settle for accomplishing very little of all the things I want to do.

What would you do?

Weekly Goals, Week 22: Achieving Goals

This week I'm feeling pretty good about my progress on two of my major goals, getting organized and finishing my novel.

I wrote yesterday about my current progress on Amnesia, my NaNoWriMo Camp Sandwich project.  I wrote another 600ish words after that, so I'm still squarely on track.  Tonight is our weekly year-round write-in, so I'm sure I'll get a ton of words in tonight.  The last two Tuesdays I've written around 4,000 words each time.

Working on my novel every day was one of my goals for last week, and I definitely met that goal.  I also got a bunch of organization done in regards to the doll room and my doll collection.  I'm working on a project to inventory and organize all of my Ginger dolls, one of my larger collections.  It's taking time, but I'm making good progress on it.

I also did a bunch of collections work on Saturday, which took a lot of time out of my week, but I was glad to help the museum go through donations and make decisions on what will be accessioned into the collection.

While I made stellar progress on those two goals last week, I didn't get around to prepping and holding a sale.  Most of it was because the Ginger organization project exploded, and I didn't get to sorting through my American Girl stuff to locate duplicates for the sale.

So that goal will be carried over to this week, with the sale to be held this weekend, probably Saturday.

My goals for the week basically look just like last week's:

1. Work on my novel every day
2. Work on organizing the doll room every day
3. Prep and run a sale

With any luck, I can accomplish just as much on the first two goals this week, plus add in the third.  Without the work for the museum and with a substantial part of the Ginger project already finished, I think I should have time for all of this.

Camp Sandwich Progress: Memorial Day Bonus Post

Sometimes self-employed work-from-homers find it difficult to not work on weekends and holidays.  I'm no exception.  But today, I decided, I'm treating as a holiday.

Mostly.

I'll still do barn chores (I don't typically take off on holidays for that gig, as horses don't really have holidays), and I'll still work on my novel.  I'm also planning on working on the doll room today.  Honestly, I don't know how much of a holiday I'm still treating it as at this point.  Maybe just because I'm being more relaxed about getting stuff done today.

Or maybe it's more psychological, since I'm waiting until tomorrow to post my goals for the week.

In any case, I'm taking it a little easy today.

I've been pretty pleased with my progress on my novel since my last post about my NaNoWriMo Camp Sandwich progress.  

There was one day when my actual activity for the day was watching a movie (research!), so I wrote a single word for the day just to get credit for having worked on it.  And then there was last Tuesday, when I wrote 3,700 words in one day, thanks in part to our weekly write-in and thanks also to the fact that I reached a part I'd been wanting to write and got really into it.

Remember, ignore the super high word count for the first day.  That was just me loading the ending word count from April's session of Camp.

Last night I topped 70,000 words.  I'm getting really close to my stated goal of 90,000 words, and I'm pretty excited about it.  I don't know that I'll be done at 90,000, as I feel like I still have a lot of story to cover, but of course there will have to be some things cut and rewritten so that will help to trim it.  I think 90,000 will be an ideal length for this novel, so that will probably be my goal for the final draft, and it feels like I'm on track to meet that.  I won't worry too much if it's a little less or a little more, though.

I also feel like I'm on track to finish writing before the end of June, which is important.  Ideally I'd like to be done around mid-June at the latest, so that I have time to do a few quick revisions in the novel, mostly continuity things that have come up while I've been writing, since I didn't plot this and have mostly pantsed the whole thing.  Then the goal is to start refreshing my memory on where I was in Ruby Ransome before the next session of Camp starts in July, and let Amnesia sit for a while so I can go back to it later for a thorough, more objective revision.

I'll keep posting about progress, but so far, I'm pleased!

Weekly Goals, Week 21: Getting Organized

Last week turned out to be pretty busy.  I didn't get everything done I'd wanted to, but I did feel like it was a pretty productive week.  I worked daily on my novel, wrote the museum copy, and started the involved process of organizing my dolls and doll room to make it more usable.

Unfortunately, I did not run a sale or work on taxes.  I did work in the garden a little, but didn't get everything done that I had wanted to, so I'll need to work on that some more soon.

This week I'm expecting to be consumed primarily with organizing in the doll room, prepping, and holding a sale.  I've been putting this off for way too long, and I need to organize and clear out some of the extra stuff if I'm ever going to be able to enjoy my doll room.  Plus, I want the income from the sale to help provide a buffer during Zac's ongoing search for a new job.

I still plan on working on my novel every day; that's a standing goal that won't be going anywhere.

I'm going to drop the goal of working on taxes for this week, because right now the income is more important.

1. Work on my novel every day
2. Work on organizing the doll room every day
3. Prep and run a sale

Short and sweet.  As you can tell, I really want to focus on organizing the doll room this week.  The sale will be scheduled for the weekend, to give me time to go through things, organize the sale stuff, take photos, and price before I hold the sale.

Once the sale is over, I plan to update my writing portfolio with some of the clips I've written for the museum, update my resume, and start looking for some freelance work.  It's been a while since I freelanced, but I'm hoping to get a new client or two to help ease my way back into it.  Not too much, as I don't want to overbook myself and not be able to work on my novel or my doll business, but I am hoping to be able to do a little freelancing on the side again.

Camp NaNoWriMo Sandwich Update

Here's an update from Camp Sandwich!  As you may remember, I'm still working on my novel in between Camp NaNoWriMo sessions.  There are always two sessions of Camp NaNo, one in April and one in July, but I didn't want to stop writing during the two months in between.  So here we are at Camp Sandwich!

I love that NaNoWriMo allows you the ability to track a writing project at any time of the year now.  Even better, you can track multiple goals for the same writing project.  

I wish you could carry over the existing wordcount and just count the words written during the goal period, but so far that's not a thing.  However during Camp it's pretty easy just to set my word count goal higher and report the existing word count on the first day, even if it does make it look like I wrote a massive amount of words on day 1.

So far I have written every day this month, which is an improvement on April Camp, when I missed a couple days throughout the month.  There were admittedly a couple of days when I finished writing after midnight, so I reported the words as being for the previous day to get credit for writing that day.  It's not tomorrow until you sleep, right?

(I haven't worked on the novel yet today, so ignore the fact that the word count for this day is zero.)

It feels good to make sure I get a little writing in every day, and I feel like I'm making really good progress with the word count and the story.  I've had several aha moments that have been carrying me through the tougher periods, and I'm currently about two-thirds of the way to my goal word count of 90,000.  I don't know whether the book will really be finished at 90,000, but it's a good length for a novel so that was the goal I decided to shoot for.  I may have some things to cut and revise once I'm finished, though, so I'm actually hoping to get a little over that, all said and done.

I'm still hopeful that I'll get the book finished before July Camp, maybe even before that based on how much I'm writing per day versus the daily required word count to reach my goal (which keeps going down, incidentally).  Once I'm finished, I intend to do a quick revision of a few continuity issues that have come up while I've been writing (since I've been entirely pantsing this novel), and then I'll let it sit for a little while before I go back and do a major round of revisions.  I subscribe to the Steven King/On Writing way of doing revisions, which is to let it sit for a little while first so that it's not as fresh or familiar when you do your revisions.

And of course, I need to get back to working on my Ruby Ransome series soon, and since that series and this book are completely different, I don't particularly want to be working on both at the same time.  So that adds a little urgency to my goal of finishing this novel's first draft soon, maybe even before July Camp starts so that I have some separation between the two.  I'll have to be careful about how I shift back and forth while working on revisions, too.

Right now, though, I'm excited to be where I'm at: writing every day and working on making it a solid habit!

Weekly Goals, Week 20

Last week was a little bit crazy, or it felt like it anyway.  Between my mom visiting, last-minute babysitting, and some other things that came up, I felt like I didn't have a lot of time to get things done.

I did, however, work on my novel a lot, which I'm pleased about.  I also worked on museum projects, blogged, and did some other admin-y type things.

I did not, however, make any progress on organization, gardening, or taxes.

I do feel pretty good about what I did get done, though, and I'm trying to keep that in mind.

This week has similar goals (and will until I get that darned organizing done):

1. Keep working on my novel every day
2. Write museum copy
3. Work on organizing and gardening
4. Run a sale
5. Work on taxes every day, even if it's just a little

The top priority is my novel.  I feel like it's going really well, over halfway now, and I want to see it to completion.  I'm really pleased that I've been able to keep up a daily writing habit, and I'm hoping it means I'm well on my way to making it a real habit.

Taxes are a priority of course, but they're a longer term priority right now, so I've dropped it to the bottom of the list.  I really would like to start working on it a little every day, but right now making sure we have enough money until Zac finds another job is a bigger priority.

To that end, you'll probably have noticed that there's a new line item on my list.  It's not super high on the list, but that's partly because I need to organize the stuff before I sell it.

I also changed the museum line item slightly - there's one piece of copy left to write that's super important, and then the rest can be pushed to the back burner for now.

Sometimes I really like being at the start of the week and being able to see all the possibility stretched out in front of me.  I just get frustrated when it doesn't go to plan, and I get less done than I had envisioned.

April Camp NaNoWriMo Results and Camp Sandwich

I mentioned in my last blog post that I am doing what I'm calling a "Camp Sandwich," still writing every day and tracking my progress even though I'm between the April and July sessions of Camp NaNoWriMo.  That gives me two months of writing between the two sessions, basically.

I didn't reach my goal of 50,000 words in April, but I probably should have set that a little bit lower.  I did, however, write nearly every day, and got a substantial ways into my new novel.

Below is my daily word count in April.  As you can see, it's a little all over the map, but there were only a few days where I didn't write at all.  I'm pleased with that.

I'm pretty proud of my progress so far, and looking forward to working more on this novel.  If I can keep up writing daily during the Camp Sandwich, I think I can finish the first draft of the novel before July's session even starts.  That would free me up to work on Ruby Ransome in July, and then after July is over I can go back and revise the first draft of Amnesia.

So far the post-Camp writing is going well.  I've written every day since Camp ended, and actually have made major progress on the novel, even writing several thousand words on one of those days when I really hit my stride.  The following screenshot is from yesterday, but you can see that it's going well:

Because I'm continuing a project, I raised my word count goal to the length I'm targeting for the overall novel, and brought my Camp NaNoWriMo word count over once April was over.  That's why the graph looks weird.  But I thought it was the best way to track my word count, by continuing with what I already have.  (I really wish the NaNoWriMo site offered a way to enter the starting word count though, as it would make it much easier to track ongoing projects.)

In any case, I'm pretty pleased with my progress so far, and hoping to keep it up throughout the next couple months or until the novel is finished!

Weekly Goals, Week 19

I can't believe I'm only a week into May.  It feels surreal that the last time I posted my weekly goals, it was still April and still Camp NaNoWriMo.

Last week was reasonably productive.  I worked on my novel every day, got a fair amount of blogging done, and actually started browsing for freelance work.  I'm not sure yet where I want to go with that, but I am considering picking up some freelance work again.

I'm most pleased about having worked on my novel every day.  My goal is to keep up the habit between Camp NaNoWriMo sessions (my "Camp sandwich") and hopefully even finish the novel before the July session starts.  If I can do that, I'll get back to work on Ruby Ransome in July.

I also got some networking done for the museum projects, which means that my plans for the Fall Show in September are starting to shape up nicely.

I didn't, however, get anything done with gardening, organizing, or our taxes.  Things kept coming up all week that pushed it all back another day, and another.  I'm hoping to get some of the organizing done today.  The gardening will have to wait as it's incredibly windy today.

Here are my goals for week:

1. Keep working on my novel every day
2. Work on taxes every day, even if it's just a little
3. Keep working on museum projects
4. Work on organizing and gardening

The list looks very much like last week's, but not because I didn't do anything last week.  Some of these things are going to be revolving goals for a while to come.

Before I sign off, I have to remark on one other thing.  I don't know if it's Zac not working, or the longer days and nicer weather, or what, but I've noticed that my sleep schedule has shifted lately.  I'm waking up earlier and easier, even when I go to bed late, although on the whole I'm also going to bed earlier.  It's an interesting shift, and I'm not entirely sure why, but I'll take it!

Surface Pro 9 Review

Please note that the following post contains affiliate links.  If you click on the links, I may earn a small commission from your order at no cost to yourself.

I've been using the Surface Pro 9 for over a week now, although the type cover and pen combo I ordered only just came. After over a week, I feel like I have enough experience with the computer to write up a quick review.

I've used a Surface before, so a lot of it is familiar, and I am finding I like it better than the experience of working on the Lenovo.  It ranges from small things, such as liking the feel of the keyboard better, to preferring the smaller size of the screen (the Lenovo was a much bigger laptop than what I'm used to).  I did order a different kind of case than I used to have.  This case is clear to show the blue of the Surface, with a blue bumper around the edges.  (I feel very insecure about the safety of the Surface without a case, so I've gotten cases for all of my Surfaces.)

One of the things I've had to adjust to is using Windows 11, since I had never upgraded my Lenovo from 10.  I do have 11 on my Surface Go, but since I was using it much differently, I dealt with the differences in the operating systems much less.

One major difference is because I don't keep my writing business files on the Surface Go, so I wasn't familiar with the changes in the file directory.  The file directory in Windows 11 is designed to make you use OneDrive.  The OneDrive documents folder is readily available in Windows Explorer, and meanwhile you have to dig through the directory to find a documents folder that won't automatically sync to OneDrive.  Of course they're doing this to try to get you to go over the 5GB limit for the free OneDrive account, so that you'll buy more storage space in OneDrive.  I'm cheap though, so I did my digging and found the non-synced documents folder, and divvied my documents up between "important enough to store in the cloud" and "I don't use this often so I'll just back it up on flash drive and call it good."

I'm also still keeping my active writing projects in DropBox, with backups on OneDrive.  I like the redundancy of having files stored in two different clouds, just in case something fails.

As for the computer itself, here is a quick rundown:

What I love about the Surface Pro 9:

1) The type cover:

Okay, I'm a writer, so the keyboard will always be one of the top things I look at.  I love any computer that gives me a good, tactile typing experience.  I want clicky keys!  The Surface type cover is nice and clicky, despite the button design.  The Lenovo wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as the Surface type cover, in this respect.  I also really like the fact that with the type cover in the uppermost position has a comfortable slant to the keyboard and a little bit of a bounce when you type.

(Amusingly, I ordered the type pad online, so I did go into a local computer store over the weekend to type on it and make sure I was going to like it.  I assumed I would because I liked my old Surface's type pad, but it was nice to type on it and make sure.  I discovered the perfect way to test a keyboard is by using the browser to go to a typing speed test page.  Why have I never thought of that before?)

I also love that I can replace the keyboard individually if needed.  This is a big deal for me because as a writer, I tend to kill keyboards before any other part of the computer.  I have old computers and keyboards with significant wear to the keys, even to the point of creating holes.  So a keyboard that is completely separate from the computer and easily replaceable is a big advantage for me.

2) The screen:

The Surface really has a great screen.  While I don't love the reflection on a glossy screen, I love the colors and clarity of the Surface screen.  It way outpaces my Lenovo, which was matte to minimize reflection, but had a dim quality, especially when I tried to turn the screen down to conserve battery.  The Surface screen can get considerably lighter and darker than the Lenovo, which is great for working in a variety of lighting.

3) The price:

Did I mention I'm cheap?  I really like that the Surface Pro 9, being an older model, was super affordable.  I don't need the latest tech or the biggest available storage.  I just want something I can write on.  The price varies a little up and down, but seems to be right around $800, depending on the day.  Or, if you care more about speed than I do, there's another Surface Pro 9 for a couple hundred bucks more with a faster processor and twice the RAM.

4) The color:

I'm basically a sucker for anything blue, so of course I got the blue Surface Pro 9, the matching blue type cover and mouse, and a case with blue accents.

What I don't love about the Surface Pro 9:

1) Putting it on my lap

For most things, I love the easel design of the Surface and the 2-in-1 ability to take the keyboard on or off (or to replace it if you tend to destroy keyboards, like I do).  For putting it on your lap, though, the easel design kinda sucks.  Your lap has to be level or the top-heavy screen topples the computer over, and you have to have the easel on your legs.

I used to use a lap desk for this exact reason.  I no longer have that lap desk, as I got rid of it in a fit of Kondo-ing my condo, so I ordered a new one that should actually give me a little more depth than the old one did, perfect for those space-taking easel-and-type-pad combos.

2) The storage space

The Surface also has half the storage space of my old Lenovo, but that's partly because I got a slightly older model Surface to save money.  Granted, I could have gotten a terabyte of storage if I had gotten another Lenovo, so regular laptops probably still have better storage than even the newer Surfaces, but that actually wasn't the most important thing to me.  The only thing I'd need that much space for would be pictures, and I already have a terabyte of picture storage through iCloud.

The Big Picture

All in all, I'm really pleased with my decision to get a Surface this time around, instead of another traditional laptop.  There are things I don't love as much, but they're not dealbreaking things, and they are definitely outweighed by the things I do love.  When it comes down to it, I only got the Lenovo last time because I was in a pinch and needed a computer right away for NaNoWriMo (it was 2020 and we had to host all our write-ins online, and my old Surface was overheating when I tried to use Zoom).  If I'd had more time to choose a computer and more funds with which to buy it, I almost certainly would have gotten another Surface, as I remember looking at them and wishing I could get one.

So I'm happy with my purchase, and looking forward to using my new writing machine!

The Last Day of April's Camp NaNoWriMo

Today is the last day of April's session of Camp NaNoWriMo.  For Camp you set your own goal, and since I thought I could maintain the same pace as during November, I set my goal at 50,000 words.

I am dismally behind.

This image cracks me up.  It's the daily tracker part of the stats page on the NaNoWriMo site.  It does the math and tracks how much you need to write every day to achieve your goal, and shows you how much of that you've written.

And... well, yeah.  There's very little chance I could write that much in one day.  Even if I tried, I'd probably burn myself out and not touch my novel again for months, if ever.  Which is exactly the opposite of what I want to do.

So I'm not too sorry.  I've been writing every day and making good progress, and I like my story and intend to keep writing it.  I'll keep writing during May and June, and hopefully finish up the novel during July's session of Camp.

I'll update later with my final word count for the month of April.  It won't be 50,000, but maybe I can at least get close to 40,000.

Weekly Goals, Week 18: Complicated

When I was looking over my week, all I could think of was that this week looks complicated.

It's also going to have a lot of changes in it.

But first, a review: Last week was busy and productive, even if I didn't get to everything on my list of goals.  I got my new computer set up, which basically took me an entire day, from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed.  I was fairly productive the rest of the week, too, getting lots of writing done on my novel and even working on the garden a little (I'm determined not to let it get out of hand again this year, as it's been basically unusable for the past few years).  I babysat both Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons and volunteered at the museum on Thursday.

Friday was my birthday, so starting Thursday evening, I basically stopped trying to be productive and switched into celebration mode.  We had dinner with my mom Thursday night, dinner with friends Friday night, and dinner with my dad Saturday night.  We also saw three movies (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday).  It was a good birthday weekend.

This week will be busy, plus a lot is changing.  My husband is looking for a new job, so he's home, and we're planning on working on organization, home improvement, gardening, and doll things when he's not working on his job search.  I'm also juggling all my regular stuff too, mostly working on my novel and my various projects for the museum.  Camp NaNoWriMo technically ends tomorrow, but I intend to keep working on my novel even after it ends; I want to see this one through to completion.

Despite how complicated the week's schedule looks in my calendar, I'm keeping my goals for the week relatively the same:

1. Work on my novel every day (even after Camp NaNoWriMo ends)
2. Work on taxes every day, even if it's only a little
3. Work on museum projects
4. Work on organizing (and gardening!)

I'm looking forward to having some time during the week to work on stuff around the house with my husband, but I still need to make sure I get my other stuff done, too.  In some ways, him not working will give me more work, trying to get both done at once, but I want to make sure I take advantage of the time while he has it!  (And hopefully it won't be for too long.)

Oh, and also complicating things is the fact that my husband's birthday is on Saturday (coolest geek birthday ever, May the 4th be with you!).  So I'm sure we'll have celebrations planned around then too.

Oh well.  All I can do is all I can do.  Hopefully next week will get a little calmer.

Weekly Goals, Week 17: Laptop Woes

I blogged earlier about my laptop's sudden demise last night, when the hinge broke and nearly destroyed the screen when I tried to open the computer.  Right now I have the screen's bezel held together with a kitchen clip, both to keep it together and to serve as a visual reminder not to try to close the computer again.

Of course, this is going to add some unexpected to-dos to my list this week, as I'm going to have to set up a new computer and transfer over all my data, which is so time consuming and tedious.

Last week was a mixed bag.  I didn't meet all of my goals but what I did get done, I'm really pleased with.  I worked on my novel every day from Tuesday (our write-in) onward, so I'm back on the wagon as far as writing goes.  I got some good work done on the museum copy, too.

Unfortunately, I fell off the wagon as far as working on taxes and organizing both go.

This week I have similar goals, with the obvious addition:

1. Set up my new computer
2. Write every day
3. Work on taxes every day, even if it's just a little
4. Work on museum materials
5. Get back to work on organizing

Unfortunately, it's going to be a busier week.  Not only do I have a new computer to set up, but I also babysit tomorrow and Wednesday (only briefly, thankfully, but it's still a few hours out of my day each day) and will be helping go through an extensive doll collection at the museum Thursday morning.  Plus Friday is my birthday, so I expect a few dinners out to take away from my time as well.

All I can do is to get through it the best I can, I guess, so here goes nothing!

Time for a New Laptop

One of the worst things as a freelancer is when your computer dies unexpectedly.  That's what mine decided to do late last night.

Technically, it's not dead-dead, which I'm grateful for because it means I can pull all my data off of it still.  But the hinge on the laptop broke, and the way it broke, it popped the bezel around the screen partway off when I tried to open the computer.  Fortunately, I saw what was happening in time, and we were able to see inside through the broken bezel well enough to finagle it open.  I put a clip on the corner with the broken bezel, to hold everything together and also to remind me NOT to try to close the computer again (I already tried once, out of habit).

But it does mean I need to get a new computer ASAP, because I depend so heavily on my computer, and because I don't want to wait until it is dead-dead.  I could work on my Surface Go, but it wasn't really purchased for the purpose of running my writing business, and I don't think it would hold up well under the increased demands.

A writer's computer is such an important choice because it does have to hold up to so much.  I've found writing is hardest on my keyboard, as I've worn out several during my career as a writer.  This is the first time I've ever had a hinge break on me, but I'm not entirely surprised, given how much I open and close my laptop.  (Plus, after my research last night it appears that hinges breaking is a common Lenovo problem, probably due to weak hinges or poor hinge design.)

So last night I did some online laptop shopping, trying to decide what to get this time.  Another Lenovo was my first choice initially, as I've had this computer for 3.5 years and have been overall very happy with it.  I did change my mind once it started looking like broken hinges are a common Lenovo issue, and not always covered by warranty, since Lenovo blames the user for opening and closing the computer too much.  (Never mind that that's what a laptop is for!)  I am a little concerned about the likelihood of that happening again, and potentially sooner, as I do like my computers to last me at least 3 years.

Ultimately I decided to go with another Surface.  I really liked my old Surface, even though it eventually died due to overheating issues from a malfunctioning fan.  But I liked the weight, size, and especially the fact that the keyboard was a separate piece and easily replaceable, since heavy keyboard use is the usual way that I kill laptops.

My new computer will be here tomorrow morning, and then I'll set it up, make sure I like it, and start the annoying process of transferring everything over.  The type pad will arrive a day or two behind the rest, so for now I'll be using a different Bluetooth keyboard, and switch over as soon as the new one comes.

It's a big change to go back to a Surface as my main computer, after using the Lenovo for 3.5 years, but I'm looking forward to it.  I have liked my Lenovo, and I don't necessarily need the new Surface for its travel capabilities since I do have the Surface Go for that, but I'm hoping it'll be a better machine for me in the long run than another Lenovo.