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August Update 2022
Wednesday, August 31st, 2022 02:52 pmGeneral life stuff: I'm labeling this as an August update, but really it's just one day away from September. Someone I love very, very much died this year, and I am feeling incredibly sad, depressed, and lost over it. My partner and I are still living in a situation that is absolutely horrible for us in almost all ways, and it has gone on for far too long, but we will hopefully escape it soon and move into a better location, with better circumstances for us. Part of the bad circumstances is that we are not able to get our health needs adequately attended to, which is effecting us. And some of our health issues are definitely getting worse, and it seems like new ones are cropping up. We also have less access to transportation than usual, and are living in close proximity to highly abusive relatives. It's extremely important that we are able to leave and improve our lives, but once that is done, I hope and believe things will get substantially better.
Reading: I feel like I have hardly read anything so far this year. Looking over my list, and also just thinking about it, I realize that that isn't really true, it's just a combination of feeling like it's true, mixed with having finished less books and possibly read less than in most of the last few years. In actuality, I've read a reasonable amount for me, though almost all of my reading was at the beginning of the year, and a lot of it was finishing books I'd started reading last year. I also have had a habit this year of starting many books, and then quitting reading them, or moving through them incredibly slowly. This is exacerbated by the fact that somewhere in the year, my tracking of which books I am reading and/or that I have stopped reading broke down. I got far worse at recording, and often, didn't at all. This combined with the previous point to make it seem to me like I didn't read much at all. There are also some books that are taking me a very long time, regardless of whether I will finish reading them, or whether I have or will quit reading them. A textbook, an academic non-non-textbook, and some books that have many exercises to do in them come to mind. I also have had a lot of trouble concentrating on reading this year, less time to do so, and I have been having increasingly severe problems with asthma and allergies which have been making reading physical copies of some books very difficult. And I also have been wanting to less some books less, to a certain degree, while also wishing I could read more. I have stopped reading several books due to asthma and allergies, and several due to simply losing interest or motivation, or feeling like reading something else. I've also gotten overwhelmed with the number of books I was reading and had to lower the number a few times. I've also read things that weren't my first choice to read -- some required reading for classes, and I'm currently reading a book on a subject that neither applies to me nor interests me in order to summarize it for my friend, who doesn't have the time or energy to read it, but who needs the knowledge in it desperately. I am partially restless and wanting to read books I haven't read before. However, when I do, I often find myself not wanting to read them, and wanting to go back to something more comforting and familiar. However, I've also stopped reading a couple of books because they were so comforting and familiar and i had reread them so many times recently that I was getting bored. There are also books that I feel like I really should read, and books that I want to read, but I just don't have the spoons for. I am rather irritated at realizing that often, if I only read a book as I do the exercises in it, often I wind up neither doing the exercises, nor finishing the book. There is a book I am most of the way finished, and another I am partway finished, both of which I've wanted to read for years. I'm enjoying them both, but reading them sometimes feels like a slog, nevertheless -- especially the one I'm closer to being finished reading. I think I mentioned before that I've also had less time to read this year. And I'm dealing with stress, anxiety, grief, and depression, which are not helping. Some of the books that I started and quit reading are books that I had made it a significant way into before stopping.
Writing: There were periods this year (in some ways, much like last year, but also different) in which I didn't think I'd meet either my Get Your Words Out habit writing goal or my personal annual wordcount goal. It's still possible that I won't meet my GYWO goal, but I think it likely that I will. I believe, as I type this, that I have 13 more days of writing in order to meet my goal. And I also think that there are about as many days left in the rest of the year as as the total number of days of my writing goal (around120 days). I have not written some things I wanted to write, and I also definitely missed deadlines for publications and contests I wanted to write for. But I also did submit my work to at least two places, so far this year, and I'm proud of that, though i wish I'd done more and better and not let things get so close to deadlines. Once submission was rejected. Another is still pending. I've written a few poems, and part of at least one that won't work as intended. I also wrote part of at least a couple essays -- one of which is quite long, perhaps novella length. I worked on a memoir, and I'm pretty sure I've written a little fanfiction (I haven't published my fanfiction anywhere so far, it's something I write purely for my own comfort, relaxation, and pleasure, and also sometimes to share with my partner who enjoys many of the same fandoms as me). I have done administrative writing tasks -- editing, formatting, typing things up, writing cover letters, etc. -- not as much as I would like, but some. And I have plans to write more this year, some specific, and some not. The 3 Day Novel contest is coming up later this week over Labor Day weekend, and I'm hoping to participate. I'm already registered, and for the first time in years, I have a pretty fleshed-out plan of what to write (many years, I'll have a story setting or character(s) idea, but no real plot. This year, I have much more of a plot in mind, and I'm also hopeful that the particular genre and style of this particular idea will make it easier to write. I did not meet my fairly small word count goals for either the April or July CampNaNoWriMos this year, and I don't think I wrote anything for my project for the one in April, which is not surprising, considering what was going on in my life and the life of one of my loved ones at that time. I am farther behind on my wordcount goal for the year than I would like to be, and I'm not sure that I'll meet my goal. I am about 37% or 38% of my goal, I think. Either, way, I think I need to restructure how I count my word count, and adjust my goal again for next year, because the way I have been doing it has not been working, not even with smaller goal numbers. On the other hand, I think my habit goal is working well, though I wish there were more options for numbers of days available. I think I'm about 89% finished with that, though only 81% will show up on the group spreadsheet until later this month.
Reading: I feel like I have hardly read anything so far this year. Looking over my list, and also just thinking about it, I realize that that isn't really true, it's just a combination of feeling like it's true, mixed with having finished less books and possibly read less than in most of the last few years. In actuality, I've read a reasonable amount for me, though almost all of my reading was at the beginning of the year, and a lot of it was finishing books I'd started reading last year. I also have had a habit this year of starting many books, and then quitting reading them, or moving through them incredibly slowly. This is exacerbated by the fact that somewhere in the year, my tracking of which books I am reading and/or that I have stopped reading broke down. I got far worse at recording, and often, didn't at all. This combined with the previous point to make it seem to me like I didn't read much at all. There are also some books that are taking me a very long time, regardless of whether I will finish reading them, or whether I have or will quit reading them. A textbook, an academic non-non-textbook, and some books that have many exercises to do in them come to mind. I also have had a lot of trouble concentrating on reading this year, less time to do so, and I have been having increasingly severe problems with asthma and allergies which have been making reading physical copies of some books very difficult. And I also have been wanting to less some books less, to a certain degree, while also wishing I could read more. I have stopped reading several books due to asthma and allergies, and several due to simply losing interest or motivation, or feeling like reading something else. I've also gotten overwhelmed with the number of books I was reading and had to lower the number a few times. I've also read things that weren't my first choice to read -- some required reading for classes, and I'm currently reading a book on a subject that neither applies to me nor interests me in order to summarize it for my friend, who doesn't have the time or energy to read it, but who needs the knowledge in it desperately. I am partially restless and wanting to read books I haven't read before. However, when I do, I often find myself not wanting to read them, and wanting to go back to something more comforting and familiar. However, I've also stopped reading a couple of books because they were so comforting and familiar and i had reread them so many times recently that I was getting bored. There are also books that I feel like I really should read, and books that I want to read, but I just don't have the spoons for. I am rather irritated at realizing that often, if I only read a book as I do the exercises in it, often I wind up neither doing the exercises, nor finishing the book. There is a book I am most of the way finished, and another I am partway finished, both of which I've wanted to read for years. I'm enjoying them both, but reading them sometimes feels like a slog, nevertheless -- especially the one I'm closer to being finished reading. I think I mentioned before that I've also had less time to read this year. And I'm dealing with stress, anxiety, grief, and depression, which are not helping. Some of the books that I started and quit reading are books that I had made it a significant way into before stopping.
Writing: There were periods this year (in some ways, much like last year, but also different) in which I didn't think I'd meet either my Get Your Words Out habit writing goal or my personal annual wordcount goal. It's still possible that I won't meet my GYWO goal, but I think it likely that I will. I believe, as I type this, that I have 13 more days of writing in order to meet my goal. And I also think that there are about as many days left in the rest of the year as as the total number of days of my writing goal (around120 days). I have not written some things I wanted to write, and I also definitely missed deadlines for publications and contests I wanted to write for. But I also did submit my work to at least two places, so far this year, and I'm proud of that, though i wish I'd done more and better and not let things get so close to deadlines. Once submission was rejected. Another is still pending. I've written a few poems, and part of at least one that won't work as intended. I also wrote part of at least a couple essays -- one of which is quite long, perhaps novella length. I worked on a memoir, and I'm pretty sure I've written a little fanfiction (I haven't published my fanfiction anywhere so far, it's something I write purely for my own comfort, relaxation, and pleasure, and also sometimes to share with my partner who enjoys many of the same fandoms as me). I have done administrative writing tasks -- editing, formatting, typing things up, writing cover letters, etc. -- not as much as I would like, but some. And I have plans to write more this year, some specific, and some not. The 3 Day Novel contest is coming up later this week over Labor Day weekend, and I'm hoping to participate. I'm already registered, and for the first time in years, I have a pretty fleshed-out plan of what to write (many years, I'll have a story setting or character(s) idea, but no real plot. This year, I have much more of a plot in mind, and I'm also hopeful that the particular genre and style of this particular idea will make it easier to write. I did not meet my fairly small word count goals for either the April or July CampNaNoWriMos this year, and I don't think I wrote anything for my project for the one in April, which is not surprising, considering what was going on in my life and the life of one of my loved ones at that time. I am farther behind on my wordcount goal for the year than I would like to be, and I'm not sure that I'll meet my goal. I am about 37% or 38% of my goal, I think. Either, way, I think I need to restructure how I count my word count, and adjust my goal again for next year, because the way I have been doing it has not been working, not even with smaller goal numbers. On the other hand, I think my habit goal is working well, though I wish there were more options for numbers of days available. I think I'm about 89% finished with that, though only 81% will show up on the group spreadsheet until later this month.
