fabled_librarian

 

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Content Warning: Brief and vague mention of chronic illnesses and some of the side effects of them.

My plan for word count and Get Your Words Out habit goals for 2022, plus the math I used to come up with the word count goal numbers:

 * I am doing something I have wanted to do for years, which is cataloging my and my spouse's books on Library Thing. While in some ways, this is not a great time to do it, in other ways, it is an excellent time to do it. A couple of years ago, I got rid of or left a significant number of my books due to a break up and a move. I was able to keep a lot of them, but it was still far less than before. Over the intervening years I have continued to weed out my library, though I have also purchased new books. Now, due to changing circumstances, we are whittling our library even further. In many ways, it is a good thing, and we have been trying to move along books that we don't want or need, but our current need to drastically reduce our number of books is not entirely by choice, and it seems like we may have to get rid of more than we wanted to. It is good to finally get them cataloged into Library Thing, though, even if it is exhausting and overwhelming. I do think it is good to know what we have and have our collection organized. Additionally, the process of needing to catalog does help me decide, "do I really want or need to keep this book?"

* I had meant to try to do monthly update posts on this blog, in addition to updating the two sticky blog posts I keep on here. For the most part, I did not manage to update monthly, and I usually didn't have the energy for it.

* I only have to write at least 8 more days this year in order to succeed in my Get Your Words Out goal for the year. I hope to write many more days than that, but we will see.

* Setting "stretch goals" for myself of ideally trying to write at least 15 days each month, or at least 12 if I can't manage 15, is working out extremely well for me. I still technically meet my goal and am not officially behind if I write at least 10 days each month. Though to be honest, I have been considering myself behind in the months I didn't write at least 12 days a month -- and in the beginning of the year, I considered myself behind in the months when I didn't write at least 15 days a month. The latter is really not sustainable for me, though, at least not right now. But building in the extra days allows me some leeway in case of contingencies -- and there are sometimes contingencies due to chronic illness, disabilities, and other factors. It also means that if I stick to it, I can finish early, not have to scramble at the end of the year, and I don't have to worry about not having enough days left in the year to achieve my goal. It may also give me a more accurate tally of when I write the most, since I won't be racing at the end of the year. I think and hope that a nice side benefit will be that it will also help to keep me motivated if I achieve my GYWO goal early, since I am a goal-oriented person, and since I have a goal of writing at least 10, 12, 0r 15 days each month.

*When I write the most and least will not be entirely accurate this year. I wrote quite a lot of days in September partially to make up for not meeting my stretch goals in two of the previous months, and partially because I knew I had a situation coming up where I probably wouldn't be able to write for a while. I now have another situation coming up where that may be the case, and it seems it may partially overlap with the first situation.

*I am pleased with the number of books I've read so far this year, though only partially pleased with which books I've read so far this year. I'd also like to finish reading several more books, and start and finish a few more, plus there may be a few more that I just need to stop reading for this year.

I did it! I met my Get Your Words Out Goal this year! It was my second time participating in Get Your Words Out. It was also my second consecutive year in a row for it, and my second year doing the 120 Days Habit Challenge. I met my quota of days writing or working on writing on the Winter Solstice, which is meaningful for me, and which I think is so cool. However, I would prefer to cut it much less close next year, as far as meeting the deadline goes. But I am very pleased and proud of myself, and feeling pretty accomplished. I would like to write much more consistently throughout the year next year, but I wrote far more consistently this year than last year, so I am making progress.

I wrote 8,867 words that I consider countable (and remembered to count) in 2019. That's ten percent of what my goal was and way less than last year. But I wrote much more consistently in 2019 than I did in 2018, and as I believe I said or alluded to elsewhere, I would much rather write and work on writing consistently than have a higher word count. I realized that my (very similar) word count goals for the previous two years were incredibly unattainable for me at this point in my life, and so rather than set myself up for failure again, I dramatically decreased my word count goal for next year. It may need to be adjusted again. I'll see how it goes next year, and adapt it accordingly.

In reading updates, I finished reading 25 books over the course of 2019. I'm pretty pleased with those numbers. I know that 's several more than I read in 2018, though for months I haven't been able to figure out where the list is that I was basing 2018's books read numbers on. It's possible I only tracked it fully on my phone and then deleted it at the end of last year. But according to another blog post  I wrote, I finished reading 15 books in 2018. That worked out to about a book and a quarter each month. 25 books finished in 2019 is ten more books than last year, and works out to having read just over two books a month, which sounds and feels accurate. It's still not the number of books I would like to read in a year, and I would have liked to have finished two or three more books by the end of the year than I did, but it is dramatic progress over last year, and I'm very pleased with it. I also need to remember to factor in that six of the books (the Kushiel's Legacy series) were incredibly long and very detailed reads. Also, I think almost all of the books I finished in 2019 were first time reads, which usually take me significantly longer than rereads do since I got sick. I also started but didn't yet finish two other books in 2019, and there are several other books that I began before 2019 that I haven't yet finished -- none of which I counted towards the total I just gave. For to begin reading in 2019, I don't think I stuck to my list at all, and while that mildly irks that detail and goal-oriented perfectionist in me, in this instance, I think it was very beneficial. And on the other hand, when it came to finishing reading books I had previous started, but not yet finished, I stuck to the list very well, which I'm pleased with (though I think it took me until about April to really hit my stride with that). I do wish I had finished a few more, but I'm okay with that. Overall, I'm really pleased with my reading this year, and I hope to improve upon it for next year.

I use this blog fairly exclusively for tracking my reading and writing and I'd like to keep it that way, but I also accomplished and/or made significant progress on a few other things in my personal life this year, which I'm also really pleased with and proud of.

CW: Chronic illness, regular illness, hospitalization, seasonal affective disorder, executive dysfunction, procrastination

 First of all, I've been sick almost the entire month with a really bad cold that morphed into pneumonia. I'm much better and almost over it, but it doesn't feel completely gone, and it seems to have created some other problems and maybe exacerbated other, previous ones.

NaNoWriMo -- Partway through this year, I realized that I was nowhere near meeting my word count goal for the year. Shortly after that, I realized that my word count goal for the year wasn't realistic. Later, I realized that my word count goal for NaNoWriMo wasn't realistic, either, so I decided to revise it to 5,000 words instead of 50,000. I didn't expect it to let me input a custom word count goal on the NaNoWriMo website. But this year, they changed the way the way the website works. I'm still getting used to it, but there are a lot of changes positive and negative. One of the positives it that it will let you choose a custom word count for a project now -- but it seems like if you specifically label it as a NaNoWriMo project, it will default to an unchangeable 50,000 word goal. So I input my project as a custom project (which is another positive -- it seems like you can have projects on there now that aren't limited to falling within the NaNoWriMo dates) with a 5,000 word goal, except that I set the dates to align with NaNoWriMo. I also set myself a goal of finishing the devotional short story I'm working on and ideally starting and finishing another short story as well over the course of the month. It's the last day of the month and I haven't written 5,000 countable words during it, finished the short story I've been working on, or even started another short story -- much less finished one. I'm disappointed with myself. I did work on the one short story a bit, and I really was extremely sick (plus there are my other health issues to factor in), but I could have done more if I'd applied myself. As of write now, I've written 2,055 words during the month that I consider countable. However, I did write on all but six days this month, which I'm pleased with. Almost all of them were writing in my journal, but there were a few days when I did creative writing and at least one or two days when I did both. 

Get Your Words Out -- This is my second year participating in Get Your Words Out and it's also the second consecutive year I've done it. I love it. It really helps me and motivates me. Both years I chose the Habit Goal and both years I also chose 120 days. I'd already decided to do the same goal again next year, whether I meet my goal this year or not. I believe I'm further along with my goal this year than I was at this time last year. I also wrote much more consistently this year than last year. I also wrote or worked on writing at least one day a month every month this year. That said, there were several months where I only wrote a handful of days, and many months when I wrote less than my monthly goal of at least ten days a month. And I am still cutting it very close at the end of this year. There is tons of room for improvement, and I hope and plan to do much better next year. But I'm pleased that I made progress and was more consistent this year. Both this year and last year, I wrote a tremendous number of days in November compared to most or all other months. It is interesting to me, as both years I was very sick in November -- last year with an intestinal bacteria infection that lasted for three months and that had me hospitalized for part of a week, and this with the cold that evolved into pneumonia that I mentioned. Yet I wrote a lot both months, even though most of it wasn't what I consider countable words. However, I think that is much more a function of me procrastinating on writing throughout the year and then writing a bunch in Novemeber in an attempt to meet my GYWO goal for the year, than it is of me naturally being particularly productive in November. In fact, in previous years before I started participating in GYWO I believe I was particularly unproductive in November. While I have years when I don't accomplish anything during any of the three NaNoWriMos a year, most years I am most productive in April's Camp NaNoWriMo, next most productive in July's, and I accomplish nothing in the main NaNoWriMo in November. Part of that is that I disliked the old NaNoWriMo sire more than the CampNaNoWriMo sites (I think I still do), and that I didn't have another convenient place or way to track my word count otherwise (whereas now I use the secondary tracking function of the GYWO spreadsheet to count my words in addition to my days writing -- and I also keep more general track with the NaNo tracker widget from 'Language is a Virus"). But mostly, it is that I am naturally less productive in Autumn and Winter than I am in Spring and Summer. Summer sometimes lowers my productivity by virtue of me going out more and writing less, but in general it's one of my two most productive times. I also have seasonal affective disorder, and November is usually when it seems to start getting really bad. It does usually hit me earlier than that, but it's been much better  for me since the daylight savings time change got pushed back. Additionally, I really love both Halloween and Samhain, and that helps me power through the beginning of it, along with a few other things.

Annual Word Count Goal -- My word count goals for last year and this year were wildly unrealistic, which is something I finally admitted to myself. I've accordingly drastically lowered my annual word count goal for next year -- primarily by lowering my Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo goals (which were also unrealistic, especially the latter). My goal for next year is still ambitious, and possibly too ambitious, but it's much more easily achievable, and I'll see how it works out. If I need to readjust it again next year for the following year, I will. In the meantime, I wrote many more countable words last year than I did this year, but still nowhere near my goal -- and I had a much better, more consistent, and more productive writing year this year overall, compared to last year. While I'd like to do much better with both my habit goal and my word count goal next year, if I had to choose, I'd much rather have a writing year next year that's more like this one was than last year was, overall. But I'd really rather do much better on both fronts.

Reading and Beat the Backlist -- I've changed a lot of the books I'd planned on reading for Beat the Backlist again this year. Though I don't think I made as many changes this year as I did last year, but that may just be an entirely subjective feeling. I read prodigiously during this November. At the very beginning of the month, it was because I needed a break from a series I was reading and was desperately trying to finish the book in that series I was on (which was an excellent place to pause) in order to give myself a break, and because there was a book in another series that I really wanted to read. I also wanted to try to finish the main series I'm reading before the end of the year (which probably won't happen). And towards the end of the month, it was because I wanted to have finished reading at least two out of three specific books I'm currently reading by the end of the month -- and so far, I haven't. But mostly, it was a combination of two other factors. The first was being so sick for most of the month. For a lot of the month, I was too sick to read physical books -- or even listen too audiobooks -- and just laid around, slept, and sometimes watched TV shows or movies (but a lot of the time I was too sick for that, too). However, there was a good portion of the month when I was well enough to listen to audiobooks and/or to read physical copies of books, but not well enough to do anything else. So I read. A lot. Which I love to do, and am glad I was able to do so much of, but I wish I'd been able to do other things as well. I even read a lot in ebook format over the course of November, which is unusual for me -- it's my second least favorite format (my least is reading off of a computer screen or website) and I also usually can't read much in ebook anyway, due to having somewhat whimsical physiology issues. But I did get a lot of reading done in audiobook and physical formats in particular this month, which is great. And even though I didn't finish two out of the three specific books I wanted to finish reading by the end of the month, I did finish one of them and I'm very close to the end of a second of them. I also finished an audiobook that I'd been listening to for a really long time, started and finished another physical book, and finished an audiobook that I began in either November or the end of October. And I started another two or three physical copies of books. So far, I have read slightly more books over the course of this year than I did last year, which I'm very pleased with. I'm still not back to my previous reading levels and rates, and I probably never will be, but I'd still like to read more books next year than I did this year. I don't want it to be at the expense of absorbing them, though, insofar as that's possible anymore.

Planning for Next Year -- I set up a tentative combined to-be-read and Beat the Backlist reading list for 2020. It will need to be adjusted and it's probably too long/ambitious, but it's a good start and at least it's up and put together. I have a specific daily planner I use every year that I love and that I have deep nostalgic and sentimental value attached to. I use it to keep track of doctor's appointments, birthdays, anniversaries, and secular and federal holidays, along with any other rare engagements. But for the past few years, I've been attempting to set up a religious planner and a writing planner. I was only ever partially successful with the religious planner. Next year, I'm going to try setting up a combined religious and writing planner (as well as a few other things). For one thing, it's because I can't afford a separate planner for each, but I also think it will work better this way. I'm still going to maintain my regular planner for mundane activities. My mundane planner is a gift from a relative every year, which I'm incredibly grateful for, and I just ordered my other planner for 2020 yesterday. I even splurged and paid extra for expedited shipping so it will get here faster. I've already started organizing things for it for next year. I've also already chosen my GYWO habit goal and my personal word count goal for next year. I am working on trying to tie things up that need it and that I can tie up. I'm trying to finish reading what books I've been working on for a while that I can before next year. I have other plans for next year as well that I'm hopeful and optimistic about, and I'll see how they go.

 I don't really feel like writing this, but I'll make a few notes:

* I have both positive and negative feelings about my writing progress so far this year. 
* I feel like I've made more progress with writing so far this year than I had by this same time last year, but I think on paper I'm about even, even though I think I've actually done much more this year. I wrote one day less in the second quarter this year than I did last year, but I wrote a few more days overall by the end of the second quarter this year than I did by the end of the second quarter last year. And I'm just three or four days short of the number of days I'd written by the end of the third quarter last year.
*I feel like I've also read more books by this time this year than I had by this time last year, though I'm not sure if that's factually true, and I don't feel like checking it. Regardless, I read sixteen books total last year, and so far this year, I've read six.
*I had determined not to start reading any new books, especially new fantasy books, until I finished some of the books I'd been working on. But that turned out to be the exact wrong thing to do. I did start a few books and not finish them after I made that determination. But what really turned things around was when I started reading a new fantasy that I was really interested in. I'd been seriously struggling with the long list of non-fiction books on my to-be-read list before that and just slogging through them. It's still a bit of a slog, but it has much improved. Reading that book -- and now another fantasy book after it -- made it much easier to read and get through the non-fiction books. I had been desperately craving fanatsy, especially of a particular type, and especially fantasy I hadn't read before, and I feel like I should have realized how much not reading it was gumming me up. That said, I don't think I should add any more non-fiction to my list until I've finished reading quite a few books, and I don't think I should add too much fantasy at a time.
*Despite my above comment, and even though the truth of that comment stands, I find myself nettled that I keep starting new books without substantially whittling down (by finishing them) the number of books I'm currently reading. Likewise, I am disgruntled that I keep adding books that aren't even on my to-be-read list at all/ I am also bothered that I keep reading books that I don't already own, as opposed to books that I do. I think I am being more selective about that than I was in the past, though, and so far, I'm pleased with the results.
*I was/am on a search for fantasy set in in polytheistic, animistic, or ancestor venerating frameworks, and I'm pleased with two of the three new books I've tried so far. I'm having trouble with the third one, though I suspect it's very good.
*I've only written 1,176 (I think?) words so far this year that I both consider loggable, and that I remembered to log.
*I've written more lately in my journal, which is a good thing, and I'm trying to get back into the habit of doing it daily again.
*I started working through The Right to Write again, for days when I don't feel like writing, and I haven't done much yet, but I picked up where I left off. I also consider it a good thing that I haven't done much with it yet since restarting, because I tend to use it when I don't feel like writing and can't even bring myself to write in my journal.
*I made a new email address for writing submissions and a new submittable account associated with it. Then I submitted several times to a writing journal with a quick turnaround. Loki helped me tremendously with all of that, and I'm very grateful.

CW: hospitalization, chronic illness, dysfunctional relationships, ableism

 For Get Your Words Out, I'm really pleased with and proud of myself. I managed to write or work on writing all but two days in November and also for a lot of days in October. October is the first month where I actually met my quota for days writing, though in one other month I wrote for nine days which was one shy. I don't want to be in a rush to meet my quota at the end of next year. I also want to pace myself and I want for writing to be a regular, daily thing for me -- not something I do every once in a while. Having a deadline really helped. So did two books: The Right to Write by Julia Cameron and Write-A-Thon by Rochelle Melander. Those books really helped me to write more often, more fluently, and to be less perfectionist about it. I haven't finished either of them, yet, but I plan to. They both have unintentional ableist elements, especially the latter (which I have done less work from) and many of the exercises are the same or similar, but I found them both to be helpful. I'm hoping to dig into Write-A-Thon in March of 2019 to help me get ready for CampNaNoWriMo in April 2019. I'm also hoping to finish The Right to Write before January, so that in January, February, and March, I can focus on doing the exercises laid out in another book by Cameron, The Artist's Way, which I've read has a writing program in it that takes three months.

I participated in NaNoWriMo in November. I only officially wrote 714 words during it, but as I said earlier I wrote our worked on writing all but two days in November. I even managed to write when I was admitted to the hospital for four days, though to be fair, if I hadn't written shortly after midnight the day I went in (which was before my health crisis hit the tipping point) I probably wouldn't have written that day. I also probably wouldn't have been able to do it if my partner hadn't picked up a notebook and pens for me at the drug store and brought them to me. I am also going through a difficult breakup with someone I've been with for a very long-term relationship. My other (and now only) partner and I are moving out of the house we've lived in for the last five years and that we hoped to live in for the rest of our lives, and my former husband's girlfriend is moving in with him when we move out. There are lots of other complications, too, mostly involving health, but not all of them. So because of those things, I'm considering NaNoWriMo 2018 a win and a personal victory for me.

I didn't even come close to meeting my personal word count goal for the year. I believe I'm at about a quarter of the way done. When the deadline for the word count goal arrived, I decided to extend it until December 31st, which I had been debating doing. That gives me more time to meet my goal (though I still doubt I will) and it also lets me start my future word count goals on January 1st, which makes more logical sense and is when most people do them from. It'll also let me keep track of them as a secondary stat along with my writing days for next year's Get Your Words Out. The days and the words still probably won't line up, but it'll be more even and easier to keep track of.

Writing more frequently has definitely made it much easier for me to write and to want to write. Not that it's necessarily made my writing any better, but it's helped me write more often, in more places, and with less difficulty. It's made it much easier for me to get over resistance to writing.


I've missed too many days of writing this year to meet my Get Your Words Out habit goal of at least 120 days this year. But I'm going to try to be as few days short of my goal as possible.

I'm disappointed that I've only read fifteen books so far over the course of the year, which works out to one book and a quarter each month. It particularly irks me because before I got sick, I used to read a book a day -- occasionally every other day or every three days if it  was a book that was long, complicated, dense, or difficult to understand, or if I had more things to do than normal, which cut into my reading time. I am really peevish about this, and wrathful that I don't remember nearly as much as I used to -- including what I read. It is largely internalized ableism on my part, and I'm trying to get over it, but it really aggravates me. It seemed like Novel Knight stopped running the Beat the Backlist challenge partway through the year, though I could have been mistaken. I kept keeping track on here, though. But there is a signup for next year, so I'm definitely going to do that, as well as the Get Your Words Out writing challenge again. And next year, I'll also attempt to participate in both CampNaNoWriMos, NaNoWriMo, and the 3 Day Novel Contest. For Get Your Words Out, I'll do the Habit Challenge again, if it's available. I am not sure if I'm going to stick with 120 days, or if I'm going to move to 240 days. Additonally, I'm going to set an annual word count goal for myself that I've already worked out the math for. And I'm going to try to take part in The Writer's Games, if I'm able to, if I remember in time, and if I can figure out how to, because their website really confuses me for some reason.

I listed my mood as "irritated", which is true, but it has more to do with life circumstances and hormonal fluctuations than it does with the lion's share of what I wrote about.

 My Figures for the number of days I wrote or worked on writing in the second quarter are as follows:

April -- 9 days

May -- 6 days

June -- 7 days
 
Total of Just Second Quarter -- 22 days

Total of first and Second Quarters -- 31 days

Hello. I've looked at Dreamwidth and admired it from afar in the past, but it always seemed complicated and difficult to navigate to me, compared with the mediums I'm more familiar with, so I never joined. But in the last two or three years, I found out about Get Your Words Out and I wanted to try it, but I kept remembering about it too late. This year I read about it on two blogs I follow just in time. So I joined Dreamwidth specifically to do the Get Your Words Out challenge. I pledged for the Habit version of the challenge and I pledged at least 120 days of working on writing in 2018.

Through those same two blogs I follow, I was reminded of Novel Knight's "Beat the Backlist" Challenge and I could really use to do that this year and I would like to. So I think I'm going to use my Dreamwidth account for tracking both of those things. Additionally, since I am already using it for both of those things, and since my other blogs aren't entirely along the lines of personal blogs (though they are personal in many ways), I think I'll use this blog to track and write about my reading and writing in general.

I still don't really know how this website works, but so far it isn't as complicated as I feared, and hopefully I'll be able to figure it out as I go along.

Edited to add: Here is the link to the post where I'm keeping track of the books I've read for the Beat the Backlist Challenge so far: My list of books read.