Year of Consistency Check-in: February Wrap Up
Here’s a photo of my February writing calendar. I was tracking lots of things last month:
The flowers – walking for at least half an hour. I walked for 18 days/28 last month!
The owls – significant work on my YA ghost story proposal
The “terrific!” “excellent!” “fantastic!” “wow!” tags – significant critique work
The robots – 1k on my MG steampunk project
The hearts – participating in or attending a book event
The Care Bears – organizational work on a new project, P&P
Writing: I’m paused on the YA ghost story for now. All month I’ve been saying I “should” work on the MG – but if it’s already become a “should” at this point in the game, that’s a major red flag! The idea is super fun, and it’s something I may come back to at some point, but right now it’s just not working. I’m not sure I’m a MG writer at heart. But there are two new projects that I came up with on retreat last week, and I’m crazy excited about both of them. One is a historical YA (no fantasy or paranormal elements) that requires a ton of research but feels like a big sweeping romantic historical saga in a way that thrills me. And I’m doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work to organize that mysterious P&P project!
Reading: Failfailfail. I will make more time in March for reading. I could hardly make LESS time. I’m still at 9 books read so far this year, which is way behind where I want to be!
Promo/Business: I organized signings in Chapel Hill and Asheville, NC for STAR CURSED’s paperback release in April; you can find more info on my Events page. There’s been a lot of behind-the-scenes organizing for events and other things this month. I also did some significant crit work, though no full mss.
Health: February was a really difficult month for me, anxiety-wise, which definitely contributed to not being as productive as I’d have liked. I tapered off my anti-anxiety medication back around Thanksgiving, and now I’m trying to learn how to manage it without medication to see if that’s possible for me. Exercise helps more than almost anything – yay for natural endorphins! Last week on my retreat I walked on the beach 5 days out of 7 – I would have loved to walk all 7, but Wednesday it rained and was freezing and Friday the tide was so high I tried to go out for 5 minutes and came back because I was afraid I was going to get cut off from our house and wind up soaked trying to get back! But I walked 18 days out of 28 in February, which is pretty awesome. I hope I can keep it up in March!
Cooking: I only made 2 soups in February, so I’m a little behind on the Soup Project. But I’m hoping to double up this week & next to catch up. Today I made an awesome Stone Soup (red potatoes, onions, garlic, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, kidney beans, cilantro). It was delicious – The Playwright and I both gave it a 4.5/5 – and really healthy!
Social/Other: Last week I was on a retreat in North Carolina with three of my best writing friends – Andrea Cremer, Marie Lu, and Beth Revis. The three of us met and really bonded on my first Breathless Reads tour back in February 2012. I’m lucky to have such kind, funny, smart, generous, encouraging women in my life. We took walks on the beach and played board games and drank wine and made delicious meals and watched movies (Joss Whedon’s MUCH ADO! DIRTY DANCING! PRINCESS DIARIES!) and talked about everything. I came to the retreat feeling anxious and sad and frustrated. I left feeling happier and more energized and inspired than I have in at least six months. It was INCREDIBLE.
What about you? How are you doing on your 2014 goals?
Looks like a really productive month! Can't wait to hear about the new historical idea. Anything "sweeping" sounds awesome. And hooray for restorative retreats!
Will you be at dinner tomorrow? I would love to tell you about it! And thank you – the retreat was AMAZING. 🙂