Soda-Fueled Organization and an ROW80 Update

Woo! Another week down. Another week closer to the impending move-out/in date!

I'm buying a mattress tomorrow. Exciting, stuff, right??

Remember last post how I said I love organizing things? Look what I made myself today:

That looks very small, but only because... well mainly because I'm too lazy to resize it. BUT, it's okay, because that's what explanation is for. That, friends, is a schedule that I make all of the time for work. Instead, I applied it to my writing and gave myself a strict schedule for Arieties (that purple blob at the bottom), Skye's story (The blue), and another untitled novel that is still in planning stages. I don't know if you can read the little words on the side of each row, but I've given myself benchmark points where I can reevaluate myself to make sure I'm on target.

That goes until June. That's actually the first draft, the second draft is more updated, but also more secretive because why would I give away all of my secrets?

I apologize for this rambling post, but I'm hopped up on soda and I can't concentrate. I'm the idiot who didn't even think about drinking a glass of soda an hour before going to sleep. Oh, I forgot to mention that I drank barely any soda until high school, leaving my body completely unable to handle the sugar rush that comes with it. Believe it or not, I'm much better than I used to be. A bottle of soda sent me OFF THE WALL in high school.

(I wrote this post last night so I'm going to include my ROW80 update here. Again, sorry about the rambling, but I am very proud of my spreadsheet so I'm going to leave it.)

ROW80 UPDATE!

I hit my goals. I wrote 3620 words this week total AND made sure to spend 20 minutes a day on plot development. Well, okay I slacked off on Saturday and Sunday, but I spent an hour on Thursday and 40 minutes on Friday working on plot so I think it evens out.

This week's goals:

1. Write 1500 words a day on Skye's story. This is a little ambitious, but I am totally redoing the story, as in creating a new file and starting from scratch with a new direction. It has to be done.

2. Rewrite an alternate first 3 chapters of Arieties. I've narrowed my issues with this story down to this part. I'm going to set this over this week and next week, though, because I want to prioritize Skye this week. Arieties is all next week, though.

3. Work on plot development for 20 minutes per day.

Good luck to everyone else this week!

You can keep your "real world"

Moving is not a good time.

Okay, let me correct that, steps 1 and 3-5 of moving are not a good time.

Step 1: Find an apartment. Done... and thank the lord I'm done.

Step 2: Find THE apartment. Done... and YES. This was the fun part. We found the apartment and I immediately started visualizing the way it would be when we lived there.

Step 3: Pay for the apartment. Sheesh... welcome to the real world.

Step 4: Pack for the move. Wait... when did I get this much stuff? And I have to transport it all? Where am I going to put it? THEN I have to carry it up to the apartment? And what do you mean I don't have half the stuff I need? What????

Step 5: Transport it. Ugh... I need to start working out. Can't it just magically teleport into my new room?

Step 6: Organize it. Yessss. I love organizing. It's a weird trait, maybe, but I have so much fun putting everything away and finding a way to make it all fit into a space, no matter what size. In senior year of college I had the smallest room in the house, but somehow fit everything I could possibly need with space to spare. I love it.

I'm still only on step 4 and am not looking forward to finishing it or step 5 at all. Why did I choose to move in the winter again? Someone fast forward time until Step 6, please.

ROW 80 Check In

I probably should have skipped this check-in, because I like to skip things when I don't do them very well. But, in the spirit of my new conquer-your-fears attitude, I'm going to stick it out.

I didn't hit all of my goals this week. I did edit Arieties for an hour, but let's face it, that was probably my least ambitious goal. I'm kind of stagnant with Arieties because I'm having mixed feelings about the story as a whole right now. I'll push through, giving it another hour a week, but I think we need to stay on a break for now.

As for writing, I wrote about 2000 words this week, most of it revision. I'm going in a different direction a bit with Skye's story so we'll see how this works out. I'm still going to set my goal at 3500 for a week (with a week beginning on Sunday) so I'm going to do my best to actually hit it.

Even though I didn't hit my goals, I'm going to add another one: Spend at least 20 minutes a day developing the plot for a new story. I have 3 bouncing around my head in various stages of development so I think I need to get some sort of plot down before they start killing each other. 

In all fairness I was somewhere between freaking out about moving out and celebrating moving out all week so I didn't have the best focus.

Hope everyone else killed it in their goals this week!

I did it!

Wellp, it's happened. After about 2 months of searching and saving, I've finally signed a lease!!!

I've hit step 1 in being a grownup and it was a lot less scary than I thought it would be. Well, for now. I'm sure when February 1st starts getting closer I'll start freaking out, but for now I'm just excited.

It really hammers home the cliche that you have to face your fears. I did it. I looked the one thing that has been stressing me out in the eye and said "Get out of my way. I'm going to be okay." And you know what? I am. I am so okay.

Of course, I'm also considerably more broke financially, but I'm young. I don't need tens of thousands of dollars in the bank to make me happy right now. Maybe one day when I have obligations that amount to more than pay  my rent and feed my cat I'll have a different tone.

Stay tuned for more! I'd continue but I have to wrestle a cat into a carrier for her trip to the vet. She knows it's coming and she's not happy.

ROW80

My last shot at ROW80 did not end fantastically so I'm going to give it another try. It's my first week so I'll start with some easy goals:

1. Write 3500 words a week. That comes out to 500 words a day, but I know that I'm going to miss some days so I can make that up.

2. Edit Arieties at least 1 hour every week. I took a little break from my baby so I've got to ease myself back in while I'm working on The Limit.

I might add to this as ROW80 goes on, but we'll see how this goes. Good Luck to everyone else!

Just Jump

A few years ago I went cliff-jumping with some friends. I was so ready for it, so excited to make our way up the "cliff" and stare at the green water. I was so excited to feel the rush of adrenaline as my feet left the edge of the rock and plunge toward the ground. So one of my friends jumped. Then another. Then it was my turn. I  stood at the edge, ready to jump and..... nothing. Well, there were too many rocks. I could fall.

Everyone helped clear the rocks off so the smooth ground would be stable and I could jump. So I looked down at the water... nothing. I froze.

I read a great blog post by Jenny Hanson today called Do You Fear Your Dream and I literally sat back and said YES! I have these moods where I get really inspired followed by periods of inactivity because I trick myself into thinking I can't do this or don't deserve this or the rocks were in the way or blah blah excuse blah.

It isn't just limited to cliff jumping or even writing. I've been looking to move out of my house and into an apartment closer to my work, but the problem is I've never moved. Ever. So when I had to start looking at apartments my brain froze. I've spent about a week stalling my potential roommates because I figure they can find themselves an apartment and toss me out of the equation. Except I know they won't. Still, I'm in freeze mode.

It would be so much easier to keep living in my parents' house. Not only is it cheaper, I have a built in excuse to not participate in things! How perfect is that?

Answer? Not perfect at all. Because deep down I know that one day I'm going to regret it. So I'm going to go out of my comfort zone.

I'm going to move out. I'm going to write. And every time I hear that little voice start to speak up, I'm going to tell it to shut the hell up. Then I'll jump.

Introducing: Voldewart

WARNING: This may gross you out

So for the past 3 or so years I've had a wart on my elbow. Before you all start with the "ewwwwws" I'd like to point out that there is no evidence to suggest that he's actually infected anyone else with a wart and he doesn't even look all that gross. Kind of like a little round extension of my elbow.

Anyway, my dermatologist is baffled that this wart has survived all of the treatment she's thrown at him. Baffled to the point that she gave me freaking CHEMOTHERAPY CREAM.

Let me just take a moment to point out that on my dresser, right now, is cream that is used to effectively kill cancer cells.

What has it done in the 1 month that I've been using it on the wart?

It's turned the skin around the wart into a dark, maroonish brown color that can totally not be healthy. Cancer treatment did not kill this wart.

So I've given up. I'd like to see what my derma says when I go back to her, but for now I've decided to name him since he's clearly not going anywhere. The great minds of my household (aka me and my 17 year old brother) put our heads together to come up with several options, but one name stood above the rest. If you've read the title of this post then you know what's coming. That's right. Everyone give it up for *drumroll*

VOLDEWART

Notable runners up: Adam Lamwart and Warten Buffet. Weak showing, George Wartington.