Read this on galpod.com.
About a third into this month, I had a breakthrough with the book I'm working on. It's a good thing, of course. But because I needed to do a lot more research, it meant a lot less writing. I hit about 40% of my word goals for the book. But I'm reading an excellent book that looks like it was written especially for me. It's telling me exactly what I wanted to know, plus there are books and blogs listed that I'm going to check once I'm done with the book (should be before the end of the week).
So, I had to scrub this month's goals and start from scratch. I decided to work on my skills while I'm not writing in the book so that I can at least write every day. That worked out well. I started with a Deliberate Practice of goal-setting and time management (no words written but lots of diagrams and thinking and dates). Then I moved to specific skills: last week I worked on word selection that is based on mood and character (3254 words). This week I'm working on my figurative language (which I'm not as bad at as I thought I was, so there's that).
I started a new everyday notebook, and I also got myself another notebook to keep specific things. I copy into the second notebook things like story ideas, blog post ideas, inspiration stuff, and observations. It's handy to have all of those collated together where I can find them. I started doing a weekly plan, which I find very helpful. In my weekly plans, I have a place for meal-planning, habit tracking, a to-do list, and a place to reflect on the week. It keeps me focused, which I sorely need during the summer holidays.
The summer holidays. I wrote quite a bit about that. July felt long. I'm not sure it's because of the holidays, I'm just saying. Now, with our adventure looming ever bigger (how's that for word choice?), most resources are directed towards getting the last things and making sure we have enough clean clothes to pack and that we're not leaving heaps of food in the fridge. There are also last ditches at work for both my partner and me, so that we can go on this trip and actually take a break.
Speaking of taking a break, I'm still not decided what to do with the blog during our trip. I'm debating between 1) taking a clean two-week break, and 2) updating a sort of travel log on here. I'm tending towards the second option, although I would probably delay it a day or two because I'm not keen on pinpointing our location in real time on the internet. But, if you don't hear from me, it's not because we got lost in the woods (hopefully), it's because I've chosen the second option. And I might decide on a compromising update-every-3-days kind of option. I honestly haven't decided yet, so if you have an opinion, now's the time to let me know! :)
Here's to a happy, sunny, relaxing August!
Hey there! Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, you can subscribe to my blog to get updates and stories straight to your inbox!