September was interesting. We spent a weekend at the beach, and both of our boys got their feet wet in the ocean for the first time. Work has been nuts for a variety of reasons, topped off by my best team member and good friend leaving for a new position. And we sold our old house!

It took me way too long to remember everything we did last month.

Last Month’s Goals

1. Read three books.
2. Exercise every day.
3. Write long-form at least every other day.

Read three books?

Yes! I read three books in September by powering through the remaining three installments of The Last Kingdom series. I should have posted my review of the final book last week, but totally missed my regular post. I did not finish my current nonfiction read, but I’m picking away at it.

I’m on the lookout for my next big series, but I’m content to pick away at my current to-be-read list for the time being.

Exercise every day?

No, but I think I’ve still improved my routine. I haven’t yet gotten a new gym membership, so to ensure that I can do something each day, I’ve just started building my own yoga routine. It’s basically a full-body flow that takes me about 10 minutes, for now. I’m slowly building on it, adding moves as I see fit.

Because it’s my own routine, it’s really easy for me to just step away from desk for a few minutes and work through the flow a couple times. Once I get a gym membership, my plan is to use this yoga flow on my off days, just to stay loose.

Write long-form every other day?

No. I only worked on long-form writing on seven days. Missing my blog post last week didn’t help.

Overall, I feel motivated to continue picking away at my writing–the issue is finding and dedicating time to do so week in and week out.

What I’m really questioning is whether I have–or should have–any medium-term goals aside from just getting my current stories to final draft status. I had always assumed I would publish them when I had them ready, but then I look ahead to my next project, and I don’t see that being publishable for a few years at least. I’m at the point where I just have stories I want to write, and I know I can’t publish new stories every other year. Is it enough to publish once every six years? Or, should I put more energy into just writing.

I may be exploring this a bit more in a blog this month.

Goals for October

1. Read three books. This is about as close to automatic as any goal can be for me.
2. Exercise every day. I’m going to continue with my current yoga routine, since it’s been working out for me. I’m not sure when I’ll add something else to my routine at this point, but I’d like it to be soon.
3. Write long-form at least 10 days. Yes, I’m scaling back my writing goal. I always try to be realistic about my goals, and I haven’t made a writing goal in I don’t know how long.

Steve D