NaNoWriMo 2016, not a winner...

I've written 28,798 words this month, so sadly, I was not a winner, but I still plan to write the rest of this book, and I'm starting to make writing more often a habit.  

After the election debacle, I had a conference in Arizona, both of which seriously derailed my progress early on and I was never able to recover (emotionally or otherwise).

So here we are, it's December 1, and I knew about a week and a half ago that it wasn't in the cards for me this year.  I still very much plan to write throughout the year because if there's one thing I learned from this year's attempt, it's that I feel like a better person, a more fulfilled individual, when I'm actively writing something new.  

I downloaded the app "Streaks" on my phone and I've set it up so that I need to write 3 times per day for at least 5 days a week and it's helping me make it a habit.  

So hopefully I'll have myself more prepared next November, because I truly love the whole experience of NaNoWriMo.

Until then, I'll be back often with random updates on my life.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

I've still been working on my NaNoWriMo book...I have about 20-25,000 more words to write before I can wrap up the full story but I'm feeling good about it.  With work and jewelry, right now has been busy...but between the week of Christmas and New Years and for a few days after New Years, I will have a lot more time.  I'm off work from 12/24 at noon until January 5th.  I have a few things to finish for jewelry but I will be done this weekend and almost completely caught up.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty excellent right now.  It's the holiday season, I'm finishing up a book, I'm caught up on jewelry (and I was even in the newspaper for my jewelry!!) I'm exercising (not as much as I should be, but enough that I don't feel too guilty), I'm thoroughly enjoying all aspects of my life.  It's a great feeling.

With the New Year coming up, I've been considering ideas for resolutions.  I want to try writing more short stories next year so my plan is to do a short story one month, then try to get it published the next month.  So January, March, May, July, September, November would all be writing months and then February, April, June, August, October and December would all be try to get published months.  And then generally editing one of my two manuscripts (probably the one I wrote a couple of years ago), while also looking into sending out queries for that book.  That's my writing resolution.

My jewelry resolution will be to get the things added to my shop that I want on there, like the white copper charms and other varieties of white copper keychains.  I seriously love working in white copper...and the firing of it so far has been 100% successful, which makes it my new favorite metal clay.  Plus it looks just like silver after it has been fired, so I can sell it as a much more affordable alternative.

For health/exercise, I want to do more yoga (a resolution that keeps getting renewed), mediate more (another renewal), eat more vegetables and less crap.

For family I want to do bedtime stories every night (we're bad with this right now) and work on more fun learning activities for both girls after school and on weekends.  At least something every day.

That's probably good, right?  I love resolutions.

Happy Friday :)