Read this on galpod.com. May is generally a good month for me. I usually have lots of energy as I'm sort of coming out of winter hibernation. This May was no different. I find that incredible, given everything that's happening in the world right now. I set small goals on purpose at the beginning of the month, mostly focusing on establishing a writing and jogging routine. Here's a run-through of my writing goals and how I did on them. Finish a synopsis for LP: done. Make a lis

Read this on galpod.com. April certainly has been a long month. The days blend like a long dream, and you can't tell what day it is or how long it's been since anything of note happened. Not having goals this month didn't help this sense of meandering. I did manage to establish a routine of writing for two hours every weekday morning. It doesn't sound like a lot but to be honest if I'm sitting down and writing for those two hours I miraculously get more done than I was before

Read this on galpod.com. I know, I know, I've done the year reflections just earlier this week. But it's also the end of the month and the term, so I'm going over the goals and setting goals for January and the Winter term. I refuse to call it Spring term because I'm not in denial about the seasons. Goals for December Finish editing LP and send to a manuscript assessment. Yes. Finish the academic paper. Yes. Blog twice a week. No. I only posted once on the week of 16/12. Run

Read this on galpod.com. I don't know why I keep thinking I'll get work done when we're away. I always think, sure, the kids are home, but I'm sure I can get in a good two hours of uninterrupted writing every day. They're big kids. Or, sure, we're at my mom's house, and all my siblings and their families will be there, but I'm sure I'll get some quiet time. You would think that by the time you're 40 you'd've stopped being delusional. Or at least get a better grip of reality.

Read this on galpod.com. Well, it's been a hectic month in my standards. I've had a few random stuff happening such as volunteering workshops (both helping out and training), and my girlfriends taking me to a spa as a belated birthday treat (it was lovely). Also, there's this project that came into my life in January which I know I promised I'd write about, but I'm not entirely ready for that yet. Looking back at my March goals they have not been very ambitious, and I'm not s

Read this on galpod.com. I didn't have monthly goals for February. I was coming off the birthday high and trying to wrap my head around the gift my incredible partner bought me (more on that soon. Next week probably). But I figured I could look at the lens of my new year goals and see where I stand. My new year goals were: Writing 1. Edit Labour Pains: this has been going pretty well actually. I mean, it's going to be a big job to edit it, but I think it'll be much better whe

Read this on galpod.com. A couple of days ago, over at my super-fun writers' group, we talked about goals. The discussion quickly derailed into ways of sharing your goals, but it was an interesting discussion nonetheless. One thing I want to talk about today is about setting writing goals. We talked at the group about goals such as publishing a book, and I've seen people do that. In my academic years as well, I heard people saying things like "I'd like to publish three papers

Read this on galpod.com. Right. My amazing MIL took the kids to play outside, so I estimate I have about an hour. I'm completely ignoring the nearly 100 emails in my inbox and ploughing through this. Let's see. Where were we? Thursday: Keep doing I want to keep journaling, obviously. I've neglected it a bit since we came to Israel, but I'm hoping this is due to the massive amounts of family members and friends that we've met in the last ten days. Friday: Stop doing I want to

Read this on galpod.com. I know, I know. That's going to be confusing. But I anticipate tomorrow and Friday to be extremely crazy what with flying to Israel and my dad's memorial. So I'm trying to stay ahead of this particular curve. We'll see how that works out. Saturday: Good habits formed Journalling every morning is one of the good habits I managed to (roughly) keep this year. I write three things I'm grateful for most mornings. It has helped me a lot to think about my pr

Read this on galpod.com. Trying to answer these questions, I pulled out all of the notebooks I've used in the last year. There were three of them. I seem to have been in a similar state this time last year, being unproductive and distracted and feeling like doing nothing. I wonder why that is. Saturday: Successes It doesn't seem like I've set any goals for 2018 until May but I was definitely working on my second book, and I can see it shaping up to be what it is now as I read

Read this on galpod.com. I stumbled upon this challenge of year-end review prompts over the weekend, and I thought that might be fun. I won't update every day, but I thought I'd clump several prompts together so that it makes for a reasonable post. So, here are the last few prompts: Sunday: 2018 in three words. 1. Journalling - I've taken journalling seriously this year. I have lots and lots of notes in my notebooks, and I go over them occasionally. It's been helpful in clea