Tuesday, July 31, 2012

July Summary, August Goals

At the beginning of July I set for myself a number of writing and other goals. This is how I did with them.

  1. I planned to finish my June Camp Nanowrimo novel, Esperanza/Zombie Dawn. I added some words, but then decided the whole thing needed to be reimagined yet again. I had only a few good working days the whole month.
  2. I planned to work on learning Korean, particularly how to read the Korean alphabet. I have learned 144 words using BYKI (free language software). I also took up learning a bit of Latin as a break from the Korean.
  3. I planned to get more exercise. I got a pedometer and write down my number of steps every night before I go to bed. I think I am increasing my activity level.
  4. I planned to work on housecleaning and barn cleaning daily, and also to read Bible and Catechism more frequently. I did not do very well on these goals at all.
It was kind of a disappointing writing month, perhaps post-Nano letdown. The good news is that this morning I had some fresh enthusiasm for a writing project, and signed up for Camp Nanowrimo in August. My nickname there is nissalovescats, if you participate you might be able to request me as a cabin mate.

For July I had two worksheets I used to keep track of my many goals, one for writing goals and one for other goals. Given my poor performance, I decided to reduce my goals for August and keep track of them all on one sheet. Here are my August goals.

  1. Work on Camp Nanowrimo with my novella, The Song of Making People Die. I got the idea from a TV show which mentioned a 1933 Hungarian song, Gloomy Sunday, implicated in a number of suicides. After I finish the novella, I will begin another novella or short story featuring the same main character as the first, a young woman who owns a spaceship and runs a transport/trading business among the planets. I plan to continue my ritual from last time of posting my word count daily at the Nano site, and also on a word count meter here, to keep me motivated.
  2. Continue to learn Korean words, reaching a goal of 200 known words. 
  3. Learn Latin words--- goal of 100 words total, and listen to the ecclesiastical Latin audios I've downloaded for my chosen Latin book, Lingua Latina.
  4. Continue with the exercise thing, recording my daily paces and trying to keep it up to a good level. (I hope that my desire to keep my number of paces high will motivate me on the whole house and barn cleaning thing.)
  5. NOT worry about daily blogging and other internet distractions.
So, what about you? Have you met the goals you set for July? Are you planning goals for August? How do you keep track of your month's work and how do you keep yourself motivated?

Remember, a zombie apocalypse does not excuse you from meeting your daily word count goal!

3 comments:

  1. I have soooo not reached my goals. I was going to work on math with my girls every day. That lasted about 2 weeks. I was going to power through and finish my zombie novel. Not happening.

    ReplyDelete
  2. In my case I'm just pleased that I managed to set goals for three months in a row. For me, that's an improvement. And I am getting a few things accomplished. I managed to dye my hair purple, after all. (My therapist was surprised--- even though I told him I was going to and he was more than OK with it during that session.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Right on! I loved when I had purple hair. :) my niece said she would dye my hair again. I'm thinking of just a blue strip.

    ReplyDelete

Please visit my other blog at http://myantimatterlife.com for my most current content. This blog is mostly an archive--- though visitors are welcome.

May the Lord bless and keep all the folks who stop by this blog.