ice water and ocicats

Health and Fitness

I did well on exercise in September: 20 times. Most of that was an hour of swimming, though I did count "pacing in my room while on the phone" a few times.

Diet: unchanged.

Dailies

I was pretty good about tracking in September. Drawing was easily the winner on creative activities, at 20 times. Editing was 15 times, most of which was the final read-through. Writing was six times. Three were the last days of the month, as I finally dragged myself to the end of the scene I'd been so bleh about writing. 

Writing

I wrote all of 718 words, but hey, finished the unenthusiastic scene of A Dragon's Secret. I bet I will do something else with that scene before I send it to first readers, but eh, done for now.

The Business of Writing

I finished the final read-through of A Wolf-Shifter's Pack! I have a few small things left to do before layout, and then I can publish it.

Art

I completed three more fan art pieces of Olive: two that were pretty complicated, and one straightforward portrait. I started a second straightforward portrait and didn't finish it until October, because I went overboard on details for it.

This one was my favorite of the three: https://mastodon.art/@rowyn/115175044747789153

Reading

I finished reading "Status Window to the Soul", which took me a while because after the first third, it just wasn't that compelling. I started reading "The Dragon King's Bride", but didn't finish that until October. I guess I should put those in my Storygraph. I'm trying to be better about tracking manwha as "things I have read", at least when I finish one, but I am still not good about it.

Also, in August I beta-read the second Space Dragons novella and forgot to mention it in my August review post, whoops. It's not published yet, so I'm not logging it. I kind of want to log unpublished things but it also feels rude to the author to add their work to Storygraph before they publish it.

I started reading the web serial for "The Housekeeper of the Dungeon"; I've been unlocking a few episodes per day for free and reading them as I go. It's made me feel even more like "reading manwha and other graphic novels is still reading", because the web serial is one long book. Each episode of it is a few pages long, and most of them cover significantly less story than the corresponding webtoon episode. For a long time, the manwha and web serial were almost identical in terms of story events; I'd expected the manwha to cut a lot, but it hasn't so far. I did finally get to some material that had been cut, one scene that was changed, and what looks like a couple of episodes that the manwha added (although possibly things have been rearranged instead of cut/added, since I haven't finished yet.) The manwha has a better translation and the changes it's made improve it, in my opinion, so I still prefer the manwha. But the web serial is enjoyable and complete already, so I'll finish it. But thus far, I'm fine with unlocking as much as possible slowly for free before I buy the last section. I suspect this will continue to be true, since the kind of tense, nerve-wracking scenes that make most people want to read quickly to find out how it's resolved generally just make me put the story down these days. I guess they still worked with Murderbot? So I'm not immune. Maybe it depends on the story, or maybe it's my mood. Or a combination of both.

Anyway, the experience has made me realize that I won't necessarily get more out of reading a book than I do out of reading a graphic novel.

Social

Still visiting Sophrani, Kage, and Envoy pretty regularly! \o/

Goal Scorecard:

• Provide care for parents: Done!
• Pay September bills: Done!
• Complete final read-through on A Wolf-Shifter’s Pack: Done!
• Do something about the next scene of A Dragon's Secrets (write it, or skip it, or phone it in, or whatever else gets me to writing a different scene): Finished the scene!
• Look at this list a few times during the month so that I actually do the next two: Oh yeah did this too.
• File 2024 taxes (I have an extension on filing until October but I don’t want to wait until the last minute. Again.): Done!
• Complete and print forms to register car: Done!

Stretch goals completed:

• Exercise 15+ times: got to 20, woo!
• Track what I read: okay so I had to go back through my September entries and log them in this entry to remember, but technically, that's tracking.
• Do some art: finished two things! Spent quite a bit of time drawing and painting, really.
• Visited friends: did that! \o/

October Goals

It's more than a third through October, so I feel a little silly setting goals now. But I have some things I would like to get done this month that I have not done, so I better put them down or they're not happening.

Register car

• Provide care for parents
• Pay October bills
• Publish A Wolf-Shifter’s Pack
• Get COVID vaccine before my siblings leave (and flu vaccine at the same time, but COVID is the one I can't wait on because I need to do it while someone is here to take care of Mom while I'm sick from COVID vaccine aftereffects).
• Take Dad for TDAP and shingles vaccine (or have someone else take him)

October Stretch Goals

• Work on outline for some new project
• Finish two or more scenes of A Dragon's Secret
• Play more of romance soloRPG
• Exercise 15+ times (organizing stuff/cleaning counts as exercise)
• Track what I read
• Keep up on my Dreamwidth feed
• Ask Bookbub for a Featured Deal and run another ad campaign for a book
• Get backmatter updated for whatever book I promote
• Pick an old picture to redraw
• Do some art
• Visit friends