*taps mic* Is this thing still on? (Q1 2018 Round-Up)

taps mic Is this thing still on? (Q1 2018 Round-Up)

I live! It's been a heck of a ride the last few months. Let me explain...

In sum: after being out of work since November, I started a new job at the beginning of April. I managed to avoid going completely off the deep end, but it was a near thing. New job is almost the polar opposite of the old job, but it's a nice change of pace. It's given me a chance to focus on writing again. I managed to win Camp Nano this April, and I'm doing pretty well with the 100 Day Project thus far. (My Instagram is primarily pictures of my writing and pictures of my cats, if you're interested.)

So! Q1 2018 round-up:

Words written YTD: 10,684 on two projects (Intermezzo (new project for Camp Nano) and Novel Wars)

Writer-ly things accomplished: Won Camp Nano for the first time in a couple of years, managed to write every day since the beginning of April; jumped back to an old project with fresh eyes

New books read: An assortment of non-fiction books and magazines, with a few graphic novels thrown in for fun.

Old books re-read: Continuing the Discworld re-read.

I haven't read nearly as many books as I normally have by this point in the year, but I'm hoping to change that. It's taken some time to get myself back in the habit of being active every day. More importantly, I'm feeling more like myself, finally.

Comments

Wanna Hear Me Talk?

I mentioned in my last post, but now I'm doing the official promotional thing. I'm going to be doing a couple of presentations at the Flights of Foundry convention next weekend! Specifically, I'll be doing a game demo for Rolling Realms on Saturday, September 28 at 1pm Pacific. On Sunday, September 29 at 3pm Pacific, I'll be doing a panel presentation on copyright and public domain basics; finally, also on Sunday, September 29 at 5pm, I'll be on a panel sharing my handwork (specifically my crochet, cross stitch, and blackwork) with a few other fantastic people. This is my first time doing this kind of presentation, and so I'm a wee bit nervous. Still, I'm super excited, and the fact that it's all online means that I'll at least be in my home, and the cats may or may not make an appearance on camera. So! If you're interested in what's looking to be a fabulous online convention (that's FREE!), come join us next weekend!

Calm Your Mind with Needle and Thread

I was fortunate enough to be able to host a workshop at GeekGirlCon last weekend, which went extremely well. My friend Erin was in town for the convention and was kind enough to co-host the workshop with me, which worked wonderfully because she was able to answer some questions that I didn't know how to answer, and also keep us on time (she's a professor, so she's experienced with dealing with classrooms full of people). I thought it would be a good idea, for my own benefit if nothing else, to document the first part of the workshop, which was a talk about embroidery and mental health. I've made the PowerPoint and list of resources available on a separate page of this blog ( here ). I don't know about you, but the last few years have not been especially kind to my mental or emotional health. I discovered early on in the pandemic that going back to something I learned when I was a child, cross stitch, was something that could help ease my anxiety and give me somethi...

Hope is a Four-Letter Word

I've been bouncing around with this for the last few weeks, ever since I read a couple of quotes from the book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. The book overall had some interesting ideas about reframing the idea of trying to get everything done. Even though there were a couple of things that made it clear the author was not approaching things with an eye toward neurodivergence (his discussion of distraction, for example, only talks about the "choice" to be distracted, and not how some people's brains simply don't focus the same way others' do), I was feeling generally positively toward the book until I got to the last chapter, and read this: "Hope is supposed to be 'our beacon in the dark,' [environmentalist Derrick] Jensen notes. But in reality, it's a curse. To hope for a given outcome is to place your faith in something outside yourself, and outside the current moment - the government, for example, or ...

Search This Blog