Author Journey (February 20, 2023)

I knew I had a busy week coming up and I tried to tell myself that, but would I listen? Of course not. That’s why I ended up setting unreasonable goals. So… with that in mind, how did I do?

Author Journey (February 20, 2023)

In my last post, I mentioned how I would be facing a tough week with pressures from the day job. I’m pretty sure I said it several times and then when it came to setting my goals for last week something in my brain pushed that idea to one side and charged into battle. No guts, no glory was the phrase it used. It’s always hard to take advice from others, but it shouldn’t be this difficult when I’m the one offering it… to myself…

The Weekly Recap!

For some reason, I believed that the real-life family event from the week before wouldn’t continue into last week. Hahahaha! It did and my already-pressed-for-time week felt the squeeze. I had earmarked an anime series that consisted of twelve-minute episodes, the equivalent of watching six episodes of a normal-length show. I would have been better off doing six episodes. Watching twelve was the same but having to write up six more posts really killed my time.

That said, I did manage to complete the season and write up episode reviews for all twelve episodes. That felt like a load off even if it did take me all week. I also had two manga books to read and managed to fit those in around the real-life family event and running code. I think that’s three birds with one stone. For the record, I’m not a huge fan of multi-tasking so while this worked this week, I wouldn’t want to plan on doing that all the time.

So, with twelve episode reviews and two book reviews completed that meant that I only needed to write this post to complete my blogging goals too. So that’s three out of three so far. And you thought I said it was a tough week. Well, this is where the fun ends… so to speak.

Tasks	Goal	Completed
Anime Watched	12 Episodes	12 Episodes
Manga Read	2 Books	2 Books
Posts Scheduled	15 Posts	15 Posts
Chapters Written	1 Book Outline	0 Book Outlines
Artwork Completed	1 Sketch	0 Sketches

So, Friday of last week was a professional development day at the school so the kids were home. I ended up working all morning and into the afternoon before we went away for the weekend as a family. So, there was plenty of fun to be had. It was more like that was where the productivity ended. I did read some more of my old series in preparation for outlining book four, but I ran out of time. So, that was the first goal I missed last week. The last goal was to draw Kira from RIP Tide doing something. Well, it turned out that was far too vague a goal and my mind couldn’t settle on what that something was. This week, I’ll be sure to have a much clearer objective. I guess three out of five isn’t too bad.

Aspirations for the Week!

In reality, the two-week busy period at the day job turned into a three-week busy period. That means this should be a quieter week before it all starts again. Hopefully, next time it won’t take as long. Of course, this week begins with a small road block and that is Family Day in Ontario. It’s a public holiday, but since I work for a corporation that spans the country we don’t observe provincial holidays, so back to work for me. However, the schools do observe it. That means today may not be the most productive of days.

The rest of the week should be as close to normal as possible. That said, I am going to attempt to listen to the warnings I have set out and make my goals realistic and clear. The sooner I can get my mind working on what I need to do the better.

Watching Anime

Since I’m only really losing one day this week, I’m going to go for ten episodes. There’s a series I started a little while back where I’m two episodes in and ten would finish it off.

Goal: 10 Episodes

Reading Manga

I’m still pretty far ahead of schedule for my manga reviews and there’s nothing I have from the library that I need to return urgently so I’ll stick with two books.

Goal: 2 Books

Posts Scheduled

I have the season review from the series I watched last week to do and provided I can get through the ten episodes of anime this week, I’ll try to do that season review too. So, ten anime episodes + two manga books + two season reviews + one author journey = fifteen posts.

Goal: 15 Posts

Chapters Written

I’m starting to get some great lines of dialogue popping into my head for this series. Basically, whenever I’m not occupied with something my mind drifts off to the fantasy world and spend some more time with the characters. I want to get another book outlined and I would like to catch up on last week’s goal. That will be where my focus goes should I finish everything else, so I’m just going to say one outline to start with.

Goal: 1 Book Outline

Artwork Completed

I’m going to try my hand at a character sheet for Kira. That will include two full-body sketches – front and side and two profile sketches – front and side. Now, I don’t want the to be too wooden in their poses so I’ll allow myself a bit of freedom.

Goal: 1 Character Sheet

Final Thoughts

It wasn’t a perfect week, but then I think I knew it wouldn’t be to start with. I didn’t make it any easier for myself by shooting for the stars. At least, I did still achieve some of my goals. Hopefully, this week will be a little smoother with fewer distractions. I really, really want to get to the point where I can start writing the revamped version of my series. These characters have been living in my head for a long time and I’m desperate to see how the story ends. I have an idea, but they often like to do their own thing.

I also really want to get RIP Tide to a point where I can publish that. For that to happen, I need to get it edited, the cover completed, and a couple of internal images done. It’s only a novella, so I’m not going to need many images, but the more I can get in the better it’ll be.

I’m getting a better idea of what I need to do on what day to make sure I can achieve everything. The weekend is often the least flexible, so ensuring I have a couple of anime episodes to watch means I can use the time earlier in the week to focus on other tasks. Slowly but surely, I’m starting to come up with a workable routine. Anyhow, thanks for reading.

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