Birthday wishes

The past week has been rough, thanks to some upheaval in my personal life.  I didn't get anything done Easter weekend as I'd planned, and then I was highly unfocused all week long.  Around the end of the week, I finally felt like I was getting some of my productivity back, but then my birthday was yesterday so I (understandably) didn't do anything productive whatsoever.  Instead, I went to the museum (the Denver Museum of History and Science gave me a free day for my birthday!), one of my favorite restaurants for dinner, and then out to the barn for a late evening visit with my horses.

Happy Easter!

What most people consider a holiday, I am planning to use as catch-up time.

This weekend is a quiet one, at least compared to the last few weeks -- this week especially, when you consider my mad rush to finish taxes Monday night and Tuesday morning, plus book club and an unusual amount of babysitting sprinkled in on the side around my after-school schedule with the kids I nanny for.  This afternoon and evening I had six whole hours to myself at home (shocking!) which I used to get laundry and some other chores done, along with a little work.

Tomorrow, though, I should have virtually the entire day.  An entire day.  It feels like so long since I've had such a thing, that I almost feel overwhelmed just thinking about it.

Tax returns recovery and revised goals

Two days later, and I'm finally feeling like I've recovered from staying up all night Monday night to do our taxes!  Even though I wasn't that tired on Tuesday, I was exhausted yesterday, so I guess it just took a day for the lack of sleep to catch up to me.  This morning I slept later than intended, so I skipped my riding lesson, but I know I needed it because I have felt very rested this morning.

I've also been making stellar progress with getting organized and meeting my goals for the year, so much so that I've been thinking of revising one of them.

Blood moon and taxes

At this point I'm not even sure how I am still awake.  Since I woke up a little after 9 o'clock yesterday morning, I've gotten less than four hours of sleep, and all of that was around midday today.

I'm sure anyone who realizes today was Tax Day can figure out the reason for my lack of sleep.  I used to be so much better organized, and even used to get my taxes done early, but the last few years I've been catching up on my bookkeeping for the year and working on taxes all in the last few days before Tax Day.

The importance of good grammar

The other day on Facebook, I came across a very well-done infographic about 10 common writing mistakes that bloggers make.

(Disclaimer: Like many things you find on Facebook, this infographic is an advertising gimmick, so be warned that you'll end up on a grammar checking software website.  I have nothing to do with the company, other than liking the infographic that they put together for Facebook.)

Goals for 2014: Checking in

I ran a little late this year with setting goals -- and implementing them.  I set goals for 2014 at the end of January (even though it had been on my mind for weeks already at that time), but I didn't start even thinking about how to start working on my goals until a month later, at the end of February.

Just over another month has passed, and I am happy to say that although my progress isn't stellar by any means, it's nothing to sneeze at, either.

NaNoWriMo: Plotting vs. pantsing

For the last couple of years, NaNoWriMo has been using the terms plotting and pantsing to describe the two major ways that people write: with or without an outline.

I personally used to be a pantser when it came to fiction, through and through.  When I wrote as a teenager, it was all in my head: the overall arc of the story, upcoming scenes, etc.  Sometimes I'd have an idea of what I wanted to happen several scenes in advance, sometimes I'd already have an idea of the ending, and sometimes I would come up with everything as I went along.  I never outlined, though, not once.

Camp NaNoWriMo begins!

I love that I get to enjoy the writing high of doing NaNoWriMo three times a year now, instead of just once.

This is my third summer doing Camp NaNo (although you can't really call it summer yet...).  I always miss the greater community that you find during November, with the forums and all the scheduled write-ins, but I also really like the greater flexibility of camp -- being able to set your own word count goal and (this year) what you plan on writing -- as well as the ability to request your wrimo friends as cabinmates.  I do wish they had given us a way to track things like editing as well, but I've managed in the past by tracking pages and converting that into words