Sunday Summary – May 22, 2016

This week in writing.

This week I managed to write nearly 7.5k over six days (I gave myself today off), so I’m pretty happy! I achieved three days of getting up and doing a 30 minute writing sprint before work, though on Thursday and Friday I slept in. I only had time for a 15 minute writing sprint on Thursday evening (I had to run to choir rehearsal) but I managed 500 words in that time. My WIP now stands at 30.5k, only ten days after I was exclaiming excitedly about having reached 20k.

I’m going to continue trying to get up early and write first thing. It makes a difference! I had tried it before and always felt groggy and like I wasn’t making any progress, but I think that I am now making progress on the novel helps wake me up.

This week in reading

I currently have nothing out from the library! It’s such a relief, as I’ve had some ebooks hanging over me for a while and now I can get back to them. I ended up returning the Kingdom of Little Wounds early. When it takes 4 days to read 90 pages, that’s a sign.

As such, I’ve returned to A Gathering Of Shadows by V.E. Schwab, which is the sequel to A Darker Shade of Magic. I am having some trouble remembering all the details of the first book, and I did find the beginning a bit slow, but I’m a third of the way through now and our main characters are about to be reunited, at which point I think things will pick up.

I’m also listening to an audio version of Reluctantly Charmed by Ellie O’Neill, which I will be reading as part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge.

My goal of reading for at least half an hour remains the same.

This week in blogging

After such a good blogging week the week before, this past week I was terrible! I blame the fact that I was trying to cram in writing on Thursday before choir, because that is when I would usually visit other bloggers. So that’s motivation to keep getting up and writing in the morning, to free up that time later.

I did, however, post two book reviews and schedule three more.

Only goals for this week are to write the usual Wednesday post and write reviews for any books I finish.

This week in health and fitness

I successfully exercised on five days of the week. However, one of those days was yesterday and I definitely consumed more than I burned. My healthy habits are improving though, which is good to see.

Other highlights this week

Last night some theatre friends and I went to see a local production of the musical Catch Me If You Can. I’m not sure whether it was the show itself, and the big closing number, or the catch-ups with our friend in the cast afterward, but either way, I left with a sore jaw from grinning, and a buzz that prevented me from getting to sleep until 12:30.

good lord, we are a bunch of dorks

That’s all for this week. See you soon!

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#WIPpet and #WWW Wednesday – 25 May 2016

First of all, I’m excited to announce that I’m doing a giveaway! Launching a book in the middle of semester was perhaps a silly thing to do, as it meant I couldn’t properly promote it at launch time. But that’s all done with now, so here I am with two signed paperback copies of A More Complicated Fairytale to give away. It’s open to everyone, anywhere in the world, because if I restricted it to Australian entries I’d probably get maybe two. 😛 You can go here to enter. Good luck!

(If you want to know a bit more before entering, the Amazon and GoodReads links are both in the sidebar to the right)/;’

My goodness, this has been a good writing week. You can read a long ramble about the reasons for the sudden upturn in my progress in Sunday’s post, but suffice to say – you know how last Wednesday I was all like, “It’s taken me from November to now, but I’ve just reached 20k on Worlds Apart”? Well, I’ve added over 5k just this week. My aim for the ten weeks between uni semesters was to add another 10k, but I’ve upped that goal to 30k, which will bring me to a total of 50k by the time I return to uni. Fingers crossed I can keep up the momentum! I’ll still try to keep my WIPpets somewhat in sequence so as not to cause too much confusion, but at least I don’t have to worry about running out of material to share from now.

For today’s WIPpet I have five lines, which also happen to make up two paragraphs in my Scrivener file (and it’s the 25th). Quite a lot has happened prior to this scene, but all you need to know is that Princess Adelyn and Carrie Cortain had the royal guards catch up to them while they were trying to escape. Due to circumstances that would take far too long to explain here, Carrie has been taken by the guards and Adelyn has lost all of her memories of who she is, etc., and has been left alone in a giant forest. And yes, there is a reason she thinks she may be Carrie, but again with the “too convoluted to explain” thing.

The girl wandered the forest, her hands brushing against the rough bark of trees as she passed. She jumped every time she heard a noise. The pack on her back made her shoulders ache, but she kept moving. She didn’t know if it would be safe to stop, though she didn’t know where she was going, either.

The other girl had called her Carrie. Was that her name? She assumed so, though they had seemed to be in trouble. Perhaps she had been using an alias. Why didn’t she know who she was, and why was the other girl so keen for her to get away to the point of sacrificing herself? And who was Milton Nethercote, the man she was supposed to somehow locate?

If you are unfamiliar with WIPpet Wednesday, allow me to elaborate. It’s a blog hop where writers get together and share snippets from the WIP that somehow relate to the date (eg. my 2 paragraphs/5 lines thing for today). You can reach our link-up by clicking the blue guy in the right-hand sidebar. Please feel free to join in with us! We’d love to have you.

Now onto WWW Wednesday! This is a blog hop in which we answer questions about what we’ve been reading this past week. This is hosted by Sam over at A World of Words. You can join in by commenting on today’s post over on her blog.

• What are you currently reading?

The Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal. Ive only read the first 100 pages so far, but I’ve already witnessed the marriage of a twelve-year-old girl (thankfully, despite my fears, there is no wedding night described), and the violent miscarriage of another girl not much older (it’s set in the 16th century, so basically everything is awful) yeah. It’s going to be a bit harrowing, I think.

I also made a very decent chunk in the audio version of The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor. I got the email from my library that was available this morning, so I delayed leaving for work slightly and downloaded it. I’m already halfway through. I’m quite fussy about Alice in Wonderland retellings/adaptations, but I am actually liking this one. I think the fact that the Mad Hatter-equivalent character is not the love interest for once is helping. His connect to Alice/Alyss is entirely different. (I know that in Splintered, the Wonderland love interest was based on the Caterpillar, but I hated that book, so it doesn’t count :P)

• What did you recently finish reading?

I finished two audio book thrillers this week. The first was Disclaimer by Renee Knight, about a woman who has to confront her deepest, darkest secret when she is delivered a novel which clearly references said secret. It required a fair bit of suspension of disbelief, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It made me think. Second was Viral by Helen Fitzgerald. It’s about a girl whose worst moment ends up as a viral Internet video. It was good, and really drew attention to the woefully inadequate laws we have around video uploads and that sort of thing. But one of the two POV characters was quite unrealistic, I felt, which let it down a bit.

As Friday night was the beginning of my first weekend with no uni work, I spent it in bed reading The Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood, which was a very quick read in the end. While there were some parts I didn’t especially like, the ending was really gripping!

I realised that I wasn’t going to get The Last Days of Magic by Mark Tompkins finished by today, when it was due back to the library, so I gave up and returned it on Monday. However, I’ve put it back on my GoodReads TBR shelf rather than my DNF shelf in the hopes I’ll be able to come back to it when I’m in a better mood for it. It’s one that I do want to give a proper chance to.

I posted two new reviews this week, one for Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton (3 stars) and one for World War Z by Max Brooks (3.5 stars).

• What do you think you’ll read next?

My next audio book is Reluctantly Charmed by Ellie O’Neill, which sounds cute and lighthearted and charming.

It’s not so much a case of reading next, but getting back to reading. The Edge of Darkness by K. L. Schwengel  and A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab have both been sitting, started but not completed, on my Kindle, waiting for me to get back to them once I got rid of all my library books. Kingdom of Little Wounds is the last of my library haul for the moment, so I will actually be able to return to these.

Whew this was a long post! If you’ve made it all this way, you have my thanks. I’ll sign off now, and go and catch some of you on your owns blogs!

#WWW and #WIPpet Wednesday – 18 May, 2016

Once again, I have failed at keeping up with everyone’s blogs! However, on the brighter side, I handed in my final two assignments for the semester this week, and now I am free for ten glorious weeks! My aim is actually to get a lot of writing done in that time, but it will mean increased blogging time, too, I hope.

Anyway, now is time for WWW Wednesday, a blog hop in which we answer questions about what we’ve been reading this past week. This is hosted by Sam over at A World of Words. You can join in by commenting on today’s post over on her blog (though I’m posting quite early, so if the post isn’t there yet, check back later).

• What are you currently reading?

The Last Days of Magic by Mark Tompkins. It’s not exactly wowing me and the writing feels a bit clunky, but it’s early days so I’m not writing it off just yet.

• What did you recently finish reading?

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton. I actually realised about two thirds of the way through that there was no indication from the book that some of the things I had been expecting would be there, so I guess I did a bit of a disservice to myself and the book by having unfounded expectations. I still enjoyed it, but not as much as I might have otherwise. My review goes up on Friday.

I also finished World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, which I was listening to on audio. My review will go up on Monday. I enjoyed it, though my mind wasn’t blown.

I  posted my review of Rivers of London by Aaronovitch on Monday.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

The Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal, which I mostly picked up because of the stunning cover (seriously, go check it out), and The Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood are the last two of my library books. I will probably read the Poison Diaries first because it’s shorter, and hopefully I’ll get through it before the due date, though I’m actually keener to read The Kingdom of Little Wounds.

Now for WIPpet Wednesday. My WIPpet maths this week is such – it’s the eighteenth, and so I have a nine-line paragraph because I added the two digits together. Carrie is getting Princess Adelyn out of the city, but they have to go on foot, and they’re getting into the dodgier parts of town.

Princess Adelyn kept her hood raised as they walked. It was still dark outside, but the street lamps lit their way. She wasn’t sure how much longer that would remain the case, though, as they headed into the poorer parts of the city. Once they reached the forest Jasper had mentioned, she didn’t know what they would do to see their way. Carrie seemed to know what she was doing though. She walked confidently through the streets. Adelyn was surprised that a young woman from the part of town where the Cortains lived would know her way out of the city by this road so easily.

If you are unfamiliar with WIPpet Wednesday, it’s a blog hop that I coordinate, wherein us writer types share an snippet from our current WIP (hence, WIPpet) that somehow relates to the date. The date correlation can be as tenuous as you like; we enjoy creativity in that respect. 😉 You can join in by clicking the little blue guy to the right. 🙂

On the subject of this WIP, I am very close to hitting 20k on it! Which isn’t a lot given I started it November, but I’ve had some rough patches lately, writing-wise, so I’m getting excited at any and all milestones.

Now that I’m done with uni for a while, I’m hoping to do some proper promo and marketing for A More Complicated Fairytale. Some people actually bought it despite my lack of marketing! But I’d like to see a few more! (If you’re keen, you might like to use the link in the sidebar to buy your own copy, but I am going to hopefully have a giveaway up and going in a week or so, so you might like to hold off until then).

Well, I’d best be off now. I’m going to the circus tonight! 😀 Hopefully this week I’ll actually manage to get around to a lot of your blogs. Until then!

#WWW and #WIPpet Wednesday – 11 May, 2016

I’m sorry I haven’t been a great blogging friend/colleague lately!  Time has been of the essence and while it’s one thing to put a post up, actually getting around to the rest of you guys and interacting is a whole other story. I’ll try my best this week and hopefully once I get uni out of the way for the semester next week, I’ll be able to hang out with you guys a bit more.

Anyway, now is time for WWW Wednesday, a blog hop in which we answer questions about what we’ve been reading this past week. This is hosted by Sam over at A World of Words. You can join in by commenting on today’s post over on her blog (though I’m posting quite early, so if the post isn’t there yet, check back later).

• What are you currently reading?

Technically, The Edge of Darkness by K. L. Schwengel  and A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab, but they are both still on hold while I get through my pile of library books.

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton is the next book from my library haul! It’s received mixed reviews but I’m hoping I’ll enjoy it. I have been craving something else with djinn since reading The Golem and the Djinni last year. At time of writing this post, I’ve read 14 pages, but I did like them! It feels a bit like a Western, except with an Arabic-inspired setting.

• What did you recently finish reading?

I finished Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch just this morning. It was due back to the library yesterday, but they generally give you a couple of days’ grace before fining you, so I think I have got away with no fees. I wasn’t too fussed on it and don’t intend to continue with the series. I’ll write a full review to go up on Monday.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

The Last Days of Magic by Mark Tompkins, as it is the next one due back at the library, and also the only one of those that I had on my TBR, rather than just randomly picking up.

Excitingly, I am also making a return to WIPpet Wednesday! Hurray! I know how much you all missed me. 😛 I didn’t have the best writing month in April, because I was stressing about how I really didn’t know where nay of my three WIPs were going. However, I have returned to Worlds Apart, which is the one I actually have outlined right to the end, even if the world-building isn’t complete yet. My plan is to just finish the damn first draft and then fix things. If you are new, you can read previous excerpts from Worlds Apart by going to the relevant blog category.

This scene follows on from previous ones I’ve shared, where Jasper Cortain and his wife, Helena, are being questioned about the Princess’ disappearance by Captain Eli Masden. Masden is using his mind control magic on Helena in order to get information out of Jasper. Jasper tries to go to her. The two words mentioned in the first sentence are just “No, stop.” I’m sharing 2 paragraphs because it’s the 11th and 1+1=2.

As Masden spoke the words, Jasper something inside his head. It was like a worm was crawling around in there, preventing his normal brain function and instead making him do as Masden instructed. He froze mid-step.

Jasper grimaced, and tried to move his legs. The worm in his head resisted, but he could feel it give. He summoned up the magic he used to drive out ailments in others, but instead of letting it blast out through his hands and into another affected person, he directed it at the spot in his own head where he could feel Masden’s magic setting in. The force of the blast took him by surprise, and Masden as well, by the looks of it. While Jasper staggered a few steps backward, he saw the other magician get thrown roughly into the back of his chair.

If you are unfamiliar with WIPpet Wednesday, it’s a blog hop that I coordinate, wherein us writer types share an snippet from our current WIP (hence, WIPpet) that somehow relates to the date. The date correlation can be as tenuous as you like; we enjoy creativity in that respect. 😉 You can join in by clicking the little blue guy to the right. 🙂

Well, I’d best be off now. I’ll try to catch you all soon!

#ROW80 Check-in – November 22, 2015

This is very much a drive-by check-in. I’ve just been to a Thermomix demonstration, and it went a lot later than I was expecting. However, there was a lot of delicious food, so I’m not complaining. I kind of want a Thermomix now. Too bad they are $2000 or so each. Anyway. Enough about Thermomixes. Goals this week:

• Write at least two pages in notebook or 200 words on the laptop every week day. Consolidate this on the weekends.

After struggling to write a decent ending for draft 1 of Operation: Sugarplum, I decided to call Draft 1 completed on Monday. Since then, I’ve been using my own slight variation on the Snowflake Method to plan my next WIP. I definitely reached 200 words every day; on Wednesday I was up around the 700 mark and on Tuesday it was over 1000 words of planning. I also had quite a lot of traveling yesterday, so I did some editing on Operation: Sugarplum.

• Write one book review a week and queue them up on the blog.

I wrote review of Winter that went up yesterday. I wanted it to go up while the book is still in shiny new-release mode. I rejigged my scheduled posts a bit to allow it. My review of Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl also got posted on Friday.

• Send three Postcrossing cards per week/maintain maximum total cards traveling.

I didn’t get a chance to do that this week. Which is to say, I had plenty of chances and ignored them. Heh. Next week.

All right. That’s it from me. I’m off to bed.

#ROW80 Check-in – 01 November, 2015

I missed last week’s check-in due to the week leading up to it being busier than most, and having very little to report. I met my writing goal every day, but that was it. This past week has been a lot better, though.

• Write at least one page in notebook or 100 words on the laptop every week day. Consolidate this on the weekends.

I wrote four days out of five. Usually I would make this up on the weekend, but I’ve been trying to get as much done on my uni work this weekend (see below) so no writing has happened. I’m drawing to the end of Operation: Sugarplum, which is both scary and exciting. I don’t really know what I’m doing with my final climax, but I am basically just trying to write something each day. I’ve been making some notes for the second draft as well, though this one will really need to be put away for a while before I work on it again. I’m a bit sick of the sight of it.

Since it’s the first of the new month, let’s have some stats. During October, I added 3352 words to Operation: Sugarplum, plotted another 294 words and wrote 357 on non-WIP things for a total of 4003 words during the month. Not huge, but about 1000 words a week, which right now, is about all I am hoping for. There were only three week days during the month when I didn’t write, and I made up for two of them on the weekends. I wanted to make up this week’s, too, but my essay breaks were made up of not writing things because I was sick of it.

One more week of uni (my final paper is due on the 6th) and then I’ll up this goal to account for having way more time to devote to writing.

• Write one book review a week and queue them up on the blog.

I wrote two this week, for Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, and The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson, which was my lead-up-to-Halloween read. I’ve actually got enough reviews scheduled now that I’m into the new year. I did consider making them weekly, but I don’t think I write enough of them to quite manage that. I did also consider just posting them on the Friday of the week when I write them, but I like schedules too much for that.

• Spend one evening and one weekend afternoon on uni work.

I actually organised to have Wednesday off work, and I spent the day working on my final essay. I went through all the books I had from the library, and made lots of notes in the morning. In the afternoon, I got about 400 words written. I’ve also worked on it both days this week and I have about 1750/2500 words.

• Send three Postcrossing cards per week/maintain maximum total cards travelling.

I’ve got a bit behind on these, but I will buy some more stamps on payday this week and send some more. A few of the ones I sent at the beginning of the round have started arriving, which means I’ve got more I can send.

• Ride bike to work or walk into the city after work at least three times a week.

This hasn’t been happening as often as I’d hope. With luck, once uni is done and I’m not worried about getting into work as early as possible so I can leave as early as possible, I’ll have a bit more wiggle room for riding in or taking my time getting home.

If you’re unfamiliar with ROW80 (A Round of Words in 80 Days – the writing challenge that knows you have a life), you can read more about it on the website. It was the brainchild of Kait Nolan and it’s hugely beneficial for a lot of people. I’m going to head off now and have a proper break from the computer, I’ll see you all later!

#ROW80 Round 4 – Check-in #1

This has been a pretty good week for me. Not only did I have a bit of a breakthrough on Operation: Sugarplum, but I also had a class with an award-winning Australian author. It was for the creative writing module of the uni course I’m doing this semester, “Writing in the Public Sphere”, and it was just eight of us along with this author. I’m going to do a blog post with all the stuff she talked about; I intended to have it up before this post, but that didn’t happen, so I’ll link to it in next week’s check-in.

Now having said all that, let’s have a look at how I went with my goals:

• Write at least one page in notebook or 100 words on the laptop every week day. Consolidate this on the weekends.

I wrote something every day except Wendesday. I made up for that today, though. I think having the weekends for making up time is a good plan. Most of this stuff was on Operation Sugarplum, though on Monday I wrote 252 words from a random prompt.

I’m also going to increase these word count aims in November, once I’ve got uni out of the way for the year.

• Write one book review a week and queue them up on the blog.

I wrote and posted my review of The Amazing Adventures of Acacia Carlisle by fellow ROW80 participant, Cate Morgan. I figured something with no reviews on either Amazon or GR deserved to have a review posted this week, rather than the three I already had scheduled, which are all really popular books with plenty of reviews. So I’ve bumped those ones back a fortnight.

• Spend one evening and one weekend afternoon on uni work.
  

I was mostly preparing for the intensives we had on Friday and yesterday. I’ve started one of the short exercises, and I have changed my mind about which longer paper I’m going to do. But I still need to get a move on with it. I have arranged with my boss to take a day off in a couple of weeks to work on it.

• Send three Postcrossing cards per week/maintain maximum total cards travelling.

I’ve actually written six, though I need to put them in the post tomorrow. I registered to send three new ones, then realised I had three sitting there that I had claimed in March or something. Users can still register expired postcards, so I figured I might as well send them so they stop showing up on my list as expired.

• Ride bike to work or walk into the city after work at least three times a week.

Erm, well, it was the wrong time of the month this week, so I just drove to work each day, because it was more comfortable. That’s not an issue this week, though, so watch me go!

If you want to find out more about A Round of Words in 80 Days (the Writing Challenge That Knows You Have  a Life), please visit the ROW80 site. You won’t regret it! That’ll do me for now. I’ll see you around your blogs!

#ROW80 Round 4 – Goals post

Today signals the beginning of the new round of A Round of Words in 80 Days. The last few weeks I have been writing words, but I have not been feeling them. I’m not excited about what I’m writing. In fact, this has extended to a few facets of my life, recently, but I’m trying taking steps to inspire myself again. The weather is warming up over here now, and I want to try to spend more time outdoors. Especially over the next month or so, because after that, it’ll be too hot.

I currently have three WIPs on the go. The first, Lessons Learned, is the one with the characters of Grace and Frederick, and set in a historic town in country Australia. You can read some excerpts from it here. In its current state, it sits at about 6000 words so far. Then there’s Operation Sugarplum, which is sitting at 5k. The third is Worlds Apart, which I’ve shared from a couple of times, but I’ve probably only written a couple of thousand words on it, as it’s mostly still in the planning stages. And it’s still mostly all handwritten at this point.

My aim for this round of ROW80 is to finish Operation Sugarplum and make significant progress on Lessons Learned. No, I don’t exactly have a definition for “significant” in this context yet. I’m going to work on Operation Sugarplum first, so I’ve got some time to figure it out.

I also decided I’m not going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. Or maybe any year. I logged into the site earlier to look at the forums, and they have added a feature to the profile page called “Lifetime Achievement: Total NaNo Word Count”. Mine is 190,652. That’s nearly 200k words that I have not really done anything with since the months when they were written. I think perhaps Camp NaNo is my thing, if anything, with the option to select what you’re writing and how much. Writing 50k in a month makes too much work down the track. For me, anyway.

So with all that in mind, here are my goals for the round. As usual, I’ve added an exercise goal in as well.

• Write at least one page in notebook or 100 words on the laptop every week day. Consolidate this on the weekends.
• Write one book review a week and queue them up on the blog.
• Spend one evening and one weekend afternoon on uni work. I only have a couple of short exercises still to write, but I need to start the research for the 3000 word paper due November 6.
• Return comments on this blog and visit the blogs of those who visit me each week.
• Send three Postcrossing cards per week/maintain maximum total cards travelling.
• Ride bike to work or walk into the city after work at least three times a week.

I think that ought to keep me busy.

If you are unfamiliar with A Round of Words in 80 Days, you can read more about it here. Its tag line is “the writing challenge that knows you have a life” and it is immensely helpful! I’m going to head off because there are a few more things I need to get organised to get back to work tomorrow (we’ve had a long weekend). I’ll catch you all during the round!

#ROW80 Checkin- August 16

This week was a vast improvement from the last, I am happy to say. I’m pantsing my way through a contemporary romance set at a university, whipping through what I’m reading. Here’s a break down of my goals.

• Write one page in notebook every day

The only day I didn’t write was Thursday. It felt much better than the week before, when I barely wrote at all.

• Type up the week’s writing on Sunday evenings.

I am going to do that immediately after finishing this post.

• Read for half an hour every day. Keep on track for 52 books in the year.

Yes. Definitely. I finished Dust Girl and The Viper and the Urchin and am continuing Balanced on the Blade’s Edge. Persuasion is on hold because my iPod isn’t working. I also started Crewel, but I didn’t realise it was dystopian fiction, and so it wasn’t what I was expecting (I thought it was fantasy). I like for everyone to subjugated equally when I read dystopian fiction; things like the women having to be married by 18 and having to be styled and made beautiful don’t really appeal to me as much. I’m going to give it to page 100 and then decide whether to keep going.

• Write one book review per week, and queue them up so I don’t miss another post

I wrote and scheduled a review of Dust Girl. Also tweaked my review of Dorothy Must Die and can now hand it in for a uni assignment. So that review will now go up at a later date when the assignment has been marked. I was going to do a critical analysis of three reviews of Go Set A Watchman for this exercise, but then I realised I could do a review of anything, and suddenly the exercise became a whole lot easier.

• Ride bike to work/walk from work into the city after work at least three days a week.

I rode Monday and intended to also ride Saturday. I was just about out the door when I remembered I was seeing a show last night and wouldn’t be able to finish work at five, ride/bus home, freshen up and get to the venue in time for dinner. So I had to drive.

• Devise fortnightly meal plans in the couple of nights before pay day.

We took stock of what we had in the cupboard and managed to stock ourselves up for four different recipes for under $50. I wish more grocery bills were like that! I also made apple pies. Delicious.

That’s all from me! See you all soon!

#ROW80 Check-in Week 5

This has been a bit of a lacklustre week, as you’ll see when I do my summary of goals. I tired myself out early on in the week, and never managed to get quite back to myself. Riding my bike all the way to work when I hadn’t ridden in about three months turned out to be a mistake. However, I am going to try again tomorrow. I’ve also done barely any uni work, and will need to get a serious wriggle on with that this week. Here are my goals in more detail:

• Write one page in notebook every day

I didn’t do this, though I sort of have a reason. I had been writing daily, but I got to a point where I didn’t really know where I was going. And trying to just write through that wasn’t helping. I did do some brainstorming, but that resulted in ideas that really need to stew for a bit before they go down on paper. In the meantime, I did start brainstorming another story, but I wasn’t trying to force that out either. I think I probably wrote something 4/7 days all together.

• Type up the week’s writing on Sunday evenings.

Nope. I had the laziest day today. Though I did redo my AMCF manuscript into the CreateSpace template (accidentally lost the old one when I had to get my laptop reformatted recently)

• Read for half an hour every day. Keep on track for 52 books in the year.

This I did manage. Though I’m thinking of dropping Throne of Glass; it’s just not impressing me much. I read some spoilery reviews and I don’t think it’s going to improve. I also started The Viper and the Urchin by Celine Jeanjean and it is great so far! I was intending to finish my library books first, but the silly people in charge of the short play festival I was performing in yesterday decided that not only did the wings have to be in blue light, but also the dressing rooms (despite the fact that the dressing rooms are far enough up the corridor from the stage that the lights aren’t going to distract the audience). Which meant we were basically in the dark. So I started reading this on my phone.

• Write one book review per week, and queue them up so I don’t miss another post

Nope.

• Spend Tuesday and Thursday nights, and Saturday afternoons working on assignments.

I didn’t spent as much time as I should have, but I have completed one of the two 800-word papers I have due in August. This week I need to make a damned good start on the 3000 word paper I have due on the 31st.

• Ride bike to work/walk from work into the city after work at least three days a week.

I rode on Monday, and was then saddle-sore until Thursday. On Friday the fog was really thick in the morning, and I currently don’t have a light on my bike, so I didn’t risk it. But once is better than nothing, right? I’m going to try again tomorrow, and see if I can manage it more than once this week.

• Devise fortnightly meal plans in the couple of nights before pay day.

This was an off-week for this. However, we have worked out half of the things we’re going to get on pay day this week. So that’s it for me. Hopefully I’ll get a good night’s sleep tonight, and have a far more productive week this week. I’ll catch you all soon!