Monthly Archives: April 2016

The title, above, is my basic report on my week. I had a lot of fun, and was also productive with my writing. A win for sure! I’m trying a new way of scheduling my time, and it’s working really well thus far. It’s also showing me where I tend to get over-optimistic about how much I can accomplish in a certain period of time, so I can tweak my writing and creating schedule as I proceed forward.

One of the things that is working for me right now is that I’ve become a coffee shop writer. My son and I are currently sharing a vehicle. One or two days each week, I drop him off at college (he lives at home) and then go to a coffee shop for a couple of hours and work on my book. I love it! I confess that I don’t drink coffee. I’ve never liked the flavor, and I don’t do caffeine very often. That said, I do enjoy chai tea with almond milk, so that’s been my drink of choice as I write there. It’s fun to go into a completely new place, by myself, and just focus on my writing. I’m much less distracted, even though there is a lot going on around me – I am writing in a notebook, so the internet isn’t there to tempt me away from my focus. I love that I’m learning new techniques for focused writing.

This week I added 5878 new words. My running total for the draft is 17,266 words, on the way to 120K or so. I’m 72 percent of the way through reading the most-excellent Iterate & Optimize. Exercising and getting outdoors has been going really well, especially now that the weather is warmer. I’m on track with blogging, and keeping up with my coaching course. Things are chugging along well!

Here are my mini-goals for the week:

• Work on my Heart of the Goddess book draft every weekday.
• Brainstorm with BlackLion about new ideas for Feline Dreamers, and begin putting them into action.
• Keep up with blogging – my May post is due this week for Kind Over Matter.
• Listen to live and recorded calls for my biz coaching program.

That sounds like plenty. I’m keeping it real and not trying to cram too much into one week! I wish you a delightful week of writing and fun.

In terms of getting stuff done towards my goals, I’m just going to pretend that last week didn’t happen. Because mostly, it didn’t. This week has been much better.

Here are my Wednesday celebrations:

• So far this week, I’ve written every day on the Heart of the Goddess book. I’ve added 3721 new words. It feels good, and I’ve got some momentum on it now. The grand total so far is 15,109 words.
• I’m 52 percent of the way through reading Iterate & Optimize.
• I finished the annoying personal paperwork that I mentioned in my last update.
• Exercising is going well. The weather has been nice, and I’ve been taking some lovely walks. The photo is from today’s jaunt to the beach.
• My biz coaching program has been going well. I’m learning more and more every week, sometimes every day.
• All of my daily practices are going along fine.
• I’m trying a new way of scheduling my time, which so far is working. It’ll go nicely with the bullet journaling, too, when I get to that point.

I wish you a week full of words and imagination!

It’s Sunday evening already, wow! I had a fun weekend. On Friday afternoon, BlackLion and I went for a walk on some trails by the Saco River, a few miles from our house. Quester came home from up north, getting a ride with a good friend of ours, who stayed the night. We had homemade fried rice for dinner and then played Mexican Train Dominoes and Cosmic Wimpout, two of our favorite games. On Saturday we played Dungeons & Dragons with some other friends, and had a great time. Today we enjoyed some poetry writing and fun games at our Sunday workshop. So, lots of playfulness, which is inspiring. I’m pretty tired tonight, though.

This week went well in terms of working on my goals. I worked on my Heart of the Goddess book draft 4 out of 5 days this week, and I’m now at 11,388 words. I’m 36 percent of the way through reading Iterate & Optimize, which is fantastic. BlackLion and I made a promotional video for our Heart of the Goddess program, and I’m pleased with how it came out. I like making videos; they’re fun. I wouldn’t have said that just a couple of years ago. I feel more comfortable now with being on camera.

I worked on some de-cluttering in my room this afternoon, and got a ton of paperwork sorted and filed. My desk is looking much better. That feels good. I’m keeping up with blogging, and took a bunch of photos during our walk on the river.

Here are my mini-goals for this week:

• Enroll 10 people into our Heart of the Goddess spiritual mentoring program, which begins the 18th.
• Work on the Heart of the Goddess book draft 5 days this week.
• Finish some personal financial paperwork – wait, it is still called paperwork if it’s done online?
• Get more exercise.

I’m off to bed soon with a book and a cat or two. Blessings for an inspiring week ahead!

I just found out about bullet journaling recently, and I’m geeking out on the whole idea of it. I haven’t started one yet, because I really love my Leonie Dawson 2016 day planner. But I can see myself adopting the whole system at some point. As a Virgo, hardcore journal-keeper, avid doodler, and curator of ideas, it lights me up on several levels. If this appeals to you like it does to me, watch the two videos in this link – yes, even the 30 minute one. I usually have little patience for videos, but I was avidly paying attention the whole time. I told you I was geeking out!

Anyway, it’s our first ROW 80 check-in today, and things are going well this week so far.

I worked on the Heart of the Goddess book draft on Monday and today. Here, as promised, are some word counts. I started the Round with 8,356 words already written. On Monday I added 905 new words. Today I wrote 1077 words. That brings me to a grand total of 10,338 words written on this draft so far. Not a bad start at all.

That’s pretty much all I have to report. I did a bit of blogging, and we’ve been planning our next steps in regard to videos, but that’s about it for now. I’ll start up again with the Wednesday celebrations next week. I hope your writing and other projects are going well!

Round 2 begins! I’m excited to harness the active energies of spring and move toward my favorite season, summer. I have some ambitious writing goals for this Round. They’re also really fun, so hopefully that will keep me motivated.

I’ll come up with some more specific word count breakdowns around my main writing project soon.

Without further ado, here’s the list. Wish me luck!

2016 Row 80 Round 2 Goals

Draft Heart of the Goddess book. Work on it daily (on weekdays). Finish the first draft (target of 120,000 words) by the end of the Round.

Re-read draft of Patterns in the Void and make revision notes. Make a plan for writing the revisions during Round 3.

Continue my craft & business learning. Participate fully in my In Arms Coaching biz program. Read at least 3 books about writing craft and/or making a living as a writer. Check out a couple of writer podcasts. Keep notes on ideas to use, and begin implementing them.

Build community for Feline Dreamers through strategic use of video. Send show proposal to Conscious Consumer Network. Do weekly Blab chats, building our audience. Complete at least 2 more videos for Love Alike website. Make promotional videos for our programs. This will all involve writing, in the form of scripts and outlines. 

Complete various behind-the-scenes marketing tasks: Add my author name domain to my website(s). Decide if we still want to create weekday Fae Musings e-mails for our Feline Dreamers subscribers, and if yes, do so. Update our freebies for folks who sign up for our Feline Dreamers list. Add new folks to both of our mailing lists.

De-clutter and organize my life, creating beautiful spaces. Clean and organize my upstairs desk and filing cabinets. Finish our “punch list” for the rest of the downstairs project. Finish de-cluttering and organizing the eaves. Create the photo gallery for the stairwell wall.

Focus on blogging. Post to my Starcat’s Corner blog at least once per week, Feline Dreamers each month, and on this blog twice per week. Write, edit, and submit monthly guest blog posts for Kind Over Matter. Submit a guest blog proposal to Mike Dooley’s site. Write book reviews for Facing North website. Start and keep a running list of blog post ideas, drafts, and picture ideas.

Make inspiring art and music. Practice zentangling. Create new scrapbook pages and art journal pages. Take nature photographs to use on my websites and blog posts. Practice drumming regularly.

Enhance my physical health. Devote time to daily exercise, including but not limited to walking, yoga, dancing, and swimming. Stop eating sugar. Eat less in general.

Live AUTHENTICally and spiritually in my daily life. Do things I love: write in my journal, read, do yoga, dance, spend time with loved ones, and express my gratitude. Pay attention to my dreams and keep records of them. Set intentions before sleep and upon waking. Meditate and do my chakra clearing daily.