#WriteTuesday – Goodbye Sustainably North

Apologies for missing last week’s #WriteTuesday.  I was dealing with some health stuff and wasn’t at all thinking about blogging or any other writing (and honestly was having a bit of a hard time concentrating on stuff).  So I’m dealing with that now and altogether feeling better (I don’t want to get into any details on it, but I have type 1 diabetes and was having a lot of low blood sugars).  It’s going to take a bit of work, but I should have things back to normal soon (and I’ve already seen a difference – I mowed the lawn over the weekend without going low! That was a hugely positive step!)

While I was dealing with everything, I was also kind of thinking over my priorities and goals for the future.  I really do want to get some of my game and writing projects finished.  But I keep putting them off, in large part because of the pressure of having Sustainably North going consistently (both writing-wise and reading-wise thanks to all of the books I’ve been reviewing there, too).  I’ve bought a few books on blogging that I had every intention of reading before now in an effort to improve the blog, but I’ve been putting them off, too (generally in favour of the reading I’ve done for Sustainably North, which I don’t regret – I’ve read some extremely interesting books on the environment, which I probably would not have read if not for the blog). But between Sustainably North and a few special projects I’m working on at work (which I am very excited about), I feel like I’m stretched too thin right now.  Something has to give.  And unfortunately, even though I have really enjoyed writing the blog, it has been too much of a time sink, taking away from the other projects I would really like to see done.  Plus if I don’t put even more time into it (through reading those blogging books), right now I lack the tools to improve Sustainably North.  😦

While the decision to stop working on Sustainably North was made over the weekend, it’s been on my mind for at least the last month, if not even longer.  As I said back in June, I have other projects that I want to finish.  And I have a large project potentially lined up for the fall (which is not official yet though), so I’m very aware that time is going to be at a premium for me soon.  So something really does have to give.

So while I am proud of the fact that I’ve been consistently posting on Sustainably North for over a year, it’s unfortunately time to say goodbye to it, at least for now.  I’ve paid for the hosting until the end of the year (which is honestly the reason I didn’t give it up sooner than this).  But after a talk with my brother about it, I decided that it was okay to let it go now, rather than continuing to stress out about it.  I told another friend about my decision and he suggested that maybe I should just take an indefinite break from the blog.  I suppose that’s an option to consider, especially since I have paid for the blog hosting until the end of the year.  At the very least, I intended to save the blog’s XML files (and possibly move it to a free WordPress site at the end of the year).  But that’s a decision I’ll make down the road.  But for now, this is goodbye to the blog. 😦

If you’ve been reading my posts on Sustainably North, thank you so much for supporting it!  There are still posts scheduled until the end of the month, so you’ll still be able to read a little bit more new content on the blog if you’d like.  🙂

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#WriteTuesday – Reflecting

Wow, where did the week go?  And also, where did June go?  I can’t believe it’s July already next week!

June has not been a great month for me and the goals I’ve been setting for myself.  Yes, I’ve gotten a few of them accomplished (I was actually really proud of myself – I got my email back under control!)  But I haven’t done any edits on the Make Your Way story.  I also haven’t sat down yet to take a look at how my goals for the remainder of the year will change thanks to that big project I’m taking on this fall.

I was thinking about it a bit today, and it almost feels like I’m focussing on the wrong things right now.  I’ve been working so much on Sustainably North over the last while, that everything else has sort of taken a back seat, even though finishing some of the games I’ve had on the go for the last few years (!!!) is just as important (if not more so?) With that in mind, I really need to reevaluate my priorities for the coming months.

That’s all I’ve really got for today.  I wish I had a bit more, but right now it’s kind of just a time for reflection and planning.

How about you?  How are things going? 🙂

#WriteTuesday – Back from Vacation!

Hi everyone – thanks for the birthday wishes last week! 😀

Originally I thought I was going to get some work done last week.  But between my birthday and going away with my family for a few days to the Bluefin, I ended up taking the entire week off.  It was a much needed vacation, but now I’m back and working on some writing once again.  I didn’t get any work done on the Make Your Way story, but yesterday I did get the last few June posts written for Sustainably North, so that was exciting.  I need to get going on the July ones because this month is already half over!

So I just got word that I’m going to be working on a project this fall (I’m not giving any details here until after everything is finalized).  I’m very excited about this opportunity, but now I’ll need to decide on what my priorities are going to be for the rest of the year.  I had a rough plan for up until December, but that will necessarily have to change.  So over the next week I’m going to try to work on that (along with getting the July posts for Sustainably North written); if I have some time, I’ll do some work on the Make Your Way story.  I hate to put it aside for another week, but that might be necessary – we’ll see how things go! I’ll also need to rethink my Sustainably North plan for August; I was thinking of doing a bunch of book reviews, but I’m going to change that, too.  It’s going to be another busy week!

So how about you?  What’s new?  What are your plans for the upcoming week?  🙂

#WriteTuesday – Catching Up with Family and Friends

Over the last week, I ended up spending a lot of time with family and friends, rather than working on writing. I went for coffee with my brother, which we haven’t done in quite some time.  My aunt and uncle were visiting from out of town; it was nice to see them again.  It was a friend’s birthday party on Saturday.  And I visited with another friend on Sunday.  Oh, plus I rode the local bus for the first time in years, and went out on my first bike ride for 2019!  It’s been a very busy week. 🙂

While most of the week was spent socializing, I did manage to get the book I wanted to review for Sustainably North read, too (the book review is written and scheduled for later this month)!  The book was Urban Cycling by Madi Carlson; I tweeted about finishing it, and Carlson replied saying she was looking forward to reading the book review.  I’m not going to lie, that put a bit of pressure on me to make sure the review is really good.  I struggled with writing it all weekend, but I’ve done my best with it and finished earlier today; hopefully she likes it!

I also started going through some of the emails I had piled up.  I let the Pinterest emails pile up in my Sustainably North email account; I actually decided to unsubscribe from most of their emails because it was getting to be too much (plus they keep sending me pins that I’ve already pinned on my boards!)  So for this coming week, I’ve got two main goals: I want to continue going through more emails, and I want to get more work done on the Make Your Way story.  Next week is my birthday, and I doubt that I’m going to get very much done, so hopefully I can get a lot accomplished this week!

What about you? What are your plans for the coming week? 🙂

#WriteTuesday – Edits Begin!

I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t actually get the Make Your Way edits started this week.  I gave myself WAAAY too many goals, plus the week was rather busy.  But I started them yesterday! 🙂

I was actually rather happy with the story; it’s in a lot better shape than I thought it would be.  So far I’ve read over it once and made notes of things that need to be changed.  This coming week I’ll actually work on those changes in the Game Book Authoring Tool file.  My plan is to tighten up the story first; once that’s done, I’ll work more on the dialogue.

June is coming up faster than I thought, so I did some work on the June posts for Sustainably North.  The topic for June is going to be commuting; I chose that because I signed up for the Commuter Challenge through my work.  Unfortunately, I can’t finish all of the posts now until after the Challenge is completed on June 8th, so I got what I could done and scheduled for now.  I also decided on the June book, Urban Cycling, so I’ve started reading that (but it’s been a bit slow going because the book I chose is more of a reference manual like You Grow Girl was, and so more suited to flipping through rather than reading cover to cover).

So what about you? What are you currently working on? 🙂

#WriteTuesday – Happy May Long!

It was the May Long Weekend here in Canada – hope you had a great long weekend if you celebrate Victoria Day (or any other holidays!) If you didn’t have a long weekend, I hope you had a good weekend all the same. 🙂

My goals for the last week were to plan out the June Sustainably North posts and to start the edits on the story for Make Your Way. I accomplished the former, but unfortunately didn’t work on the latter; as the long weekend hit, I decided instead to read The Greenprint, the book I had decided to review for Sustainably North in June. I ended up getting about a third of the way through the book and decided it wasn’t for me (I didn’t like the writing); because I didn’t finish the book, I decided not to review it. Instead, I found a couple of other books that I think will be a better fit for my June topic at the library, so I’ve put them on hold. I will hopefully have them in a few days, and will decide which one to read and review at that time.

Since I didn’t get started on the Make Your Way edits as planned, it looks like this next week will be busy! Along with starting the edits, I’m hoping to write out a bunch of the June Sustainably North posts, and read a couple of books (I started one, and once I’m finished it I’ll start on the June Sustainably North one).

What about you? What are you currently working on? 🙂

#WriteTuesday – Back After a Break

Like I said I was going to, I took the last week off from writing.  I’m not going to lie: it was kind of hard.  At the back of my mind I kept thinking that I really need to figure out what I’m doing for June on Sustainably North.  I was also tempted to start writing another short story for fun.  So I don’t know that it was a particularly relaxing week, but I stayed away from writing.

One of the best things to come out of this was that I finally read Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver.  I was a huge fan of Uprooted, and was really looking forward to reading her next fairy tale.  But I wanted Spinning Silver in trade paperback so it’s the same as my copy of Uprooted.  So for my birthday last year, my brother gave me a gift card for Chapters, and I waited almost a year, saving that card until Spinning Silver was finally available in trade.  It arrived late last week to the store and I picked it up on Friday.  I then spent most of the weekend reading it.

I’m not going to lie: it felt so good to be reading fiction.  I’ve read so much nonfiction over the last few years, many of which have been climate-related books.  They’re heavy, and honestly rather depressing.  So even though Spinning Silver is not exactly a happy read (the kingdom in question is besieged by the lord of winter, who is extending winter further and further into the other seasons so crops are dying) and is in its own way topical (dealing with crazy weather patterns), it was still fantastical and honestly just an all around good read.  (Although I freely admit that I thought there were a few too many point of view characters popping up – I think Uprooted was better because the narrative is much tighter).  Even though the nonfiction books I’ve been reading have been good in their own ways, it was wonderful to go back to fiction.

Once I was finished reading Spinning Silver, I then spent some time going through some old magazines.  I got through about five or so that have been sitting around, waiting for me to read them (I was especially happy to get through a few Maclean’s magazines – I was almost a year behind on them!!!)  Other than that, I found myself mostly hanging out with friends and family (happy belated Mother’s Day to all of the mothers out there!)

This next week looks like it’s going to be rather busy.  Between work and other plans, I’m going to have to be really careful with my time.  I’m hoping to have June planned out for Sustainably North by next Tuesday, and have started the edits on the Make Your Way story (in a perfect world, I’m hoping to have the first full editing sweep done; we’ll see how that goes as the week progresses!)  So wish me luck, and lots of luck to you, whatever your plans are over the next week! 🙂

#WriteTuesday – Make Your Way Story Draft 1 Complete!

I did it!!!  I finished the first draft of the story I’m writing for the Make Your Way anthology!  I exported the story from the Game Book Authoring Tool; the draft is 28 pages long (13,661 words)!  Check out the completed graph:

The final story ended up having 71 sections!

There are now 11 possible endings (the light green sections).  Since last Tuesday, I’ve added another 23 sections to the story.

Now that it’s done, it’s going to need some major editing.  But I’ve decided that I’m going to take a week off from working on it to work on some other things.  After all of the work I’ve done on this story over the last few weeks, plus all the work I’ve been doing on Sustainably North (I have all of the May posts scheduled!), I figured that a bit of a break is in order, just to clean up (my kitchen table is my work space, and it’s totally a mess right now as you can see…)

So next week I’ll get to work on editing this story (and planning out June on Sustainably North).  But in the meantime I’m hoping to have a relaxing week (maybe I’ll even read a fiction book for a change!) I hope you have a great and productive or relaxing week, whatever the plan may be!

#WriteTuesday – Progress on Make Your Way story!

On Sunday, I was really proud of myself – I was able to write and schedule most of the remaining Sustainably North posts for May!  Prior to Sunday, I got a few quotes and the May bUneke post scheduled.  But on Sunday I wrote and scheduled the two essays for May, as well as the final Friday post (it’s going to be another taste-test!), and of course the editorial post (which I didn’t want to write until I had the two essays figured out).  So all that’s left for May is to finish reading the book I’m reviewing, then write and schedule the review!

Then yesterday afternoon, I actually did some work on the Make Your Way story!!!  I was going to plan out all of the endings before writing them up, but as I started working on it again, I found myself doing a little bit of planning, then a little bit of writing.  Going back and forth really helped me when I got stuck.  I also had to remind myself that this story isn’t a full game book, so it’s okay to end some of the threads quicker than others.  I wrote up one ending (hurray!) then took a break for dinner.  When I got back to working on the story an hour or so later, I managed to plot out the endings for the rest of the story threads!  And from there, I actually got four of them written out!  Check out the new graph:

The different blues are RPG choices the player can make. The light green marks the endings. And the reds/purple were just for me to mark different story threads.

I added about 20 sections to the story today!

Since today is the last day of the month, I’m not quite sure if I’ll be able to get this draft done before May 1st.  But that’s okay; even if I don’t, I should be able to have it finished by the end of the week! 🙂

#WriteTuesday – After the Easter Weekend

Happy Easter everyone! 🙂

I’m really excited – on Friday I finally finished reading the book The Great Transition by Lester R. Brown for Sustainably North (that was the book I chose to review on the blog for this month).  With it read, I was able to write a book review for it and schedule it for the end of the month; now all of the April Sustainably North posts are finished and scheduled!  Next I need to get working on the May ones.

But writing the May ones wasn’t part of the plan for this week; once I was done with the April posts, I wanted to get some work done on the Make Your Way story.  Now I don’t know what my problem is, but I’ve had a heck of a time working on it and getting that first draft written (this has been an ongoing problem since last year).  I actually Googled “why do you have trouble working on a writing project” and came across this article on starting but not finishing a project, which gave some great tips depending on what you have trouble with.  I know I’m definitely someone with starting energy who gets distracted by new projects, so I really need to sit down and actually work on it if I want to see it through.  I also found this article on recapturing your motivation for a project.

While neither of those articles specifically answered what my problem is with this particular writing project, they at least reaffirmed that I need to just get it done.  So even though I (for reasons still unknown) didn’t want to work on it, on Saturday night I made myself read over what I had written to date.  The story is in definite need of editing, but the basic threads seemed pretty solid.  I also flipped through my notes a bit. Unfortunately most of those were from when I was working through a couple of issues with the City of the Dead setting (which is where this story takes place) and not actually notes on the plot.

Of course, rather than getting to work directly on the plot, I ended up going through this blog and eliminating some of the categories I had.  I really had way too many (I didn’t count, but there were three full pages of them!)   I’m hoping to cut the categories down to 15 or less, which is going to be a big job (especially once I’m through all the really small sub-categories).  By the time I finished for the night, I was down to 33.  I also rediscovered the blog post I had written back in 2014 about Keith Barker’s Stories and Dice, and decided to post it rather than delete it.

But that was okay.  Sunday was Easter dinner, so I spent the day cleaning and cooking.  The plan was to get back to the Make Your Way story on Monday.  But then I accidentally set off a fire extinguisher Sunday night in my storage room, and had to spend Monday cleaning that up, too.  I didn’t get nearly as much writing done this weekend as I had hoped to, but life’s like that some times.  Hopefully I’ll be able to cram everything I want to get done into this week instead. 🙂

So how was your Easter weekend?  Anything planned for the coming week?