March definitely felt like typical early-spring time. Lots of goals and ambitions, lots of plans being made for later in the year, and lots of de-hibernation from the grey post-holiday winter.
Last Month’s Goals
- Read four books! Like I said, I’ve already finished two this month, and I’m well on my way to finishing two more, so I might as well go for it.
- Exercise every other day and get to the gym twice. Same.
- Finish New Earth ending and outline chapter structure. Alright, my online class is done, which opens up some time during my week. I fell out of the groove, so I just need to get back in it.
Read four books?
Yes! After a deficit of finishing books in February (but not a deficit of reading), I finally finished a couple of reads I had been progressing through for some time, and added a couple more for good measure.
- I completed long-time audiobook read Black Leopard, Red Wolf, for which I will post my full review next week.
- I finished my paperback reading of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, which is deserving of its own review because of its thoughtfulness and how it’s influencing how I think about my kids playing in nature, and about gardening/landscaping our yard this year.
- I read The Valley of Fear as part of my ongoing — and nearly completed — read of the entire Sherlock Holmes omnibus.
- And I read No Good Men Among the Living, a fascinating and tragically true account of several Afghan individuals trying to survive the early years of the war in Afghanistan. Also worthy of its own review.
That’s a pretty good encapsulation of my overall reading interests: epic fantasy or sci-fi, some mystery/thriller and also classical literature, and thought-provoking nonfiction works about historical events or issues I care about.
I haven’t talked much about my reading of the entire Sherlock Holmes collection by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one gigantic audiobook that I’ve been picking away at story-by-story for about the last year-and-a-half. I knew I didn’t want to try to read the entire collection in one shot, so I’ve just kept the file downloaded on my phone and listened to individual stories piecemeal, trying to appreciate each one in its own right, rather than as a collection.
This is the only way I will listen to these types of collections going forward, and there are certainly other authors I want to tackle next. I’m nearly complete with the Holmes collection, and I’m already eyeing the next long-term collections to work my way through.
Exercise more plus go to the gym?
Not quite, and I think continuing to include this in my monthly goals posts is both distracting me from the real purpose of these posts and putting too much pressure on myself that just turns into guilt.
I’m trying to work exercise more into my day-to-day routine, and I’m getting there in little steps. I think I just need to live it. I keep thinking about exercise in terms of how I used to exercise, which was nearly everyday in dedicated 60-to-90-minute sessions. That’s not my life anymore, and I’m not aiming for that. I just don’t know quite what I’m aiming for at this point, except for more. And that’s not a goal I can reliably track, except with myself, on my own terms.
So I’m leaving it at that.
Finish New Earth ending and review chapter strucutre?
No, and this is one of those items I need to refocus on in this forum. I did make some progress on my final chapter, but I did not complete it.
I wrote last week about finding a new mode, where sheer boredom with doom-scrolling and also general frustration at not feeling like I was doing enough in general had me finding ways to focus on the things I actually need and want to focus on. This could be housework, spending time with the family, or just reading for more than 10 minutes.
The trend has largely held, so far. I just need to expand it to writing as well. One of my strategies to focus more on my writing is to find the time, and allow myself the space, to write in short bursts — 20 minutes, 15, 10, even, if that’s all I can give.
I think another issue I’ve been struggling with is my overall vision for my writing. I have lots of story ideas, but at the moment, it’s difficult for me to visualize actually getting them all done on any kind of tangible timeline. This makes it difficult for me to stick to medium- or long-term goals. So, I need to really evaluate what my medium- and long-term goals are with writing. Not just where I want to end up in some undefined future, but how I can get there from this month, over the next three months, six months, eighteen months.
I’m not committing to what that vision is, not right this second. But I am committing to thinking about it earnestly and honestly.
Goals for April
- Finish three books.
- Current reads-in-progress: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaichovsky, and MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios by Joana Robinson, Dave Gonzales, and Gavin Edwards.
- Likely next read: His Last Bow (in the Sherlock Holmes omnibus)
- Finish final chapter of New Earth and review story for overall chapter structure. I can definitely do this, even if it takes me twenty tiny working sessions.
- Contemplate what my vision for my writing/publishing actually is. I know where I want to end up, but first I need to think about how I want to get there.
Steve D
Evening Satellite Publishing 