February 2015

It has been a tough month especially burying my Grandma this month

1) Eat healthier – no going on a diet but to watch portion size, try to make sure I get my five a day and to make healthier choices where I can. I also bought a smoothie maker in an attempt to help with this one.

So far I am not doing too well at this one but I have a plan which ties in to my answer to the next question…

2) Exercise more – I want to try to exercise at least 4 times a week, starting with 10-15mins and building up to at least one hour session and the others at 30mins. Before I have tried for too much to soon ended up in pain then quit.

So far this has also been a bust but my daughter is buying me a Fitbit for Mother’s Day (although I am getting it early).  The Fitbit tracks your 10000 steps a day which is one of the aims for getting fit but also it tracks how many active minutes you do each day and the aim is for thirty minutes a day, it also links to the Myfitness Pal App which tracks my food intake so between the two fingers crossed my health and fitness should soon be heading where I want it to be.

3) Write everyday – I intend to spend at least 30mins of every day writing, be it on here or in my journal. Most days will of course involve a lot longer and working on my books or other pieces but even on the busiest of days I need to make that small amount of time count.

I have done this every day except two and that was the day before my grans funeral and the actual day of the funeral but I think I can forgive myself for missing those two.

4) Daily WIP Progress – although I mention above actually writing every day by this I mean that on days I do not have time to sit and actually write on one of my WIPs then I will still find a way to contribute to it either by having a read through, printing a page off to edit or to make extra notes relating to whatever project I am working on.  Writing is so much more than just getting a story on paper.

Again I have not quite managed this, although I missed the couple of days missed previously I have also had days where the time has been spent on blog posts but not on WIP which needs addressing.

5) Improve my skin care regime – more of a personal one but time is not on the side of my skin and it does react to weather conditions so especially if I want to feel more comfortable filming vlogs I have  to invest a few  minutes each morning and bedtime.

I have done much better at bedtime and tried to ensure that make up is removed each evening but have had a few late running mornings where I have rushed putting it on and not moisturised first, part of the reason for the improvement may be the cold I have had which has led to quite dry skin.

6 ) Publish VATV – to be fair this would be done already had the computer not died but now it will be a case of hoping that my dropbox had updated properly but I know I do have 9 stories fully edited on hard copy that can be typed back up and the other stories will be saved in some form, I will set a new released date as soon as I have the new computer in my possession and set up.

Nothing happening on this front yet but working towards it.

7) Publish Queen of Ages – another project which stalled, but as soon as Voices is out I intend to start another edit run on the first  part of my trilogy and get stuck into to writing the second part which I also intend to be out before the end of the year.  Had technical issues not meant the delay to Voices I would have gone for all three within the year.

As I am still working on Voices I have taken the decision to actually submit Q of A to a couple of publishers, not expecting much but what the hell have nothing to lose.

8) Catch up on my emails – that should be catch up and keep up, as many of you have been aware I have made a good start on this one while trying to recover from flu but if you have not had a flood of extra likes on posts from last year it does not mean I have not read and enjoyed them but I did read some in my email inbox and others the like button just would not work on this silly touch screen tablet.

As I write this I have just over forty left to clear I find certain days I get the numbers down and work days they creep up again so I need to get it cleared and it will work out and balance better.

9) Use scheduling better – I normally prepare blog posts and a number of Facebook posts in advance then schedule them to go live at certain times,  I want to work on being more consistent at this however I confess I am finding it hard to do on the tablet so that may have to wait for the computer as well.

I have been rather hit and miss with this like so much it is a case of must do better, the silly thing is by getting better organised I will take the pressure off myself.

10) Put myself first more – I have discussed this in part previously but there is more to it which I will go into at a later date more. So often we are too worried to say no, too afraid of hurting others feelings but the fact is you can only be treated like a doormat if you lie down for people to walk over.

While I have not really had chance to put it into practise but I have been spending more time thinking about what I want and where I want to be by the end of the year and beginning to make plans to make things happen.

11) Get out and about more – finances dictate that I cannot go off on crazy adventures every weekend but I want to make sure I fit in 4 away days and see at least two shows at the theatre this year.

Not been anywhere this month but it is still early in the year and the weather has been lousy, hopefully the first away day should come up in the next month or two.

12) Have faith in my writing – I am determined as well as the larger projects to create one extra short story a month and to submit it to market.

I did submit a flash fiction to Mash Stories Quarterly competition and am working on a piece for submission to Zest as well as submitting Queen of Ages to the two publishers.