Whew. I feel like I ran a marathon this week or something.
Between a trip to Anchorage (see post on other blog, here), and sleepless nights (partly because of random insomnia/mind not willing to shut off, and a child who refuses to sleep through the night at 7.5 months), I’m exhausted!
Still, I’m determined to keep up on my goals. It makes me feel as though I am getting something out of life to be able to check something off the list. Don’t get me wrong, parenting is a blessing. (At least, I keep telling myself that it is.) But it is an exhausting blessing which changes everything about your life.
My adjustment to parenting has been hard to say the least. I went from a stay-at-home wife who spent her free time writing and spent her days pursuing her own interests, to a stay-at-home mother who spends her days changing diapers, soothing tears, wiping snotty noses, and changing clothes after the baby rips his bib off and smears applesauce or carrots all over his clothes for the fifth time that day. It’s been a big adjustment for this self-reflective introvert.
So setting goals with RoW80 and marking my progress is fantastic for my morale. Being able to add non-writing goals as well as writing goals makes me feel as though I have more control over my life and how I spend my time.
Lately, blogging has taken a forefront to my own writing/editing. I’ve tried to figure out why that might be, and I think it’s just more cathartic at the moment than editing. It’s hard enough to keep my thoughts straight with being interrupted every five seconds, let alone another character’s thoughts and remember what’s happened in my WIP so I can edit appropriately. That said, it’s still one of my goals to make it halfway through that novel, and I’ve been devoting a lot of serious thought to it lately. I’ve been able to work through in my mind the scene I’ve been lingering over for a good two months. I knew there was something wrong with it, and I think I’ve finally figured out what it was: it doesn’t need to be there.
I needed to write the scene so I know what is happening, but the scene itself doesn’t need to be so long, and it can be rolled into another scene with critical information. So knowing that is great for my revision.
I’ve also managed to start figuring out the backstory subplot in this WIP which has been giving me trouble. It’s been bothering me for months, and I’ve been putting off really addressing it and committing to it. That’s made revision more difficult because I don’t know exactly what hints I need to drop to keep the reader interested and to keep the story coherent. So yesterday I figured it out a bit, and, although it may change as I devote more time to it, it’s great to have something to work with and revise with as I forge ahead.
These were my revised goals as of 19-Oct-14.
Writing based goals:
1. Edit to at least the halfway mark of my current WIP.
2. Scrounge about 45 minutes a day to work on a class I just signed up for. (Lasts from the end of October to the end of the year.)
3. Maintain the weekly blog check-ins for Row80.
4. Write two writing blog posts on this blog every month.
5. Comment weekly on others’ blogs.
6. Keep a personal journal. I started this a month or two ago, but have fallen out of practice. I’d like to journal about every other day, just a quick one-page in my Moleskin in order to dump about my day.Non-Writing based goals:
1. Finish unpacking this house!
2. Organize the house.
3. Come up with some winter activity to do with an infant in order to maintain my sanity.(To be revisited when the temperatures drop below zero and I can no longer safely take my son outside)
4. Read daily to my infant son.
5. Read daily for my own pleasure.
6. I would like to bake my way through The Bread Baker’s Apprentice book by Peter Reinhart. I want to perfect my bread baking technique, and think a loaf of bread a week would be a doable goal (both for my waistline and my time commitment). There are about forty or fifty recipes in this book, so I won’t finish it for awhile unless I double up some months.
7. Be more diligent about studying my Bible. Iwantneed to do this daily, and have been slacking. Perhaps putting it as a goal will make me more committed.
So all in all, I’ve been doing fine on my goals. I haven’t hit the personal journaling mark (at all), even though I’ve intended to. It’s just been too hectic so far this week.
I also have yet to start baking bread…it’ll happen, especially since I just treated myself to a bread proofer and started a new sourdough starter yesterday. We shall see how it turns out with a properly regulated temperature.
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Fallon said:
Parenting feels like a constant adjustment. My daughter is 7, and it seems like as soon as I adjusted to taking care of her, my son was born(he’s 4 now). Adjust to having another little one, and he’s taking off. But, there are moments that make all of it worth it.
Good luck with all your goals.
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Kelsie Engen said:
Thanks, Fallon. It’s good to know I’m not the only one feeling like I’m constantly adjusting! It’s a daily thing, isn’t it? But his smile is pretty cute, and he’s getting more personality every day!
Thanks for stopping by!
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Fallon said:
yes, those smiles can certainly make everything worth it.
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shanjeniah said:
You’re doing well! And I know this adjustment…all of a sudden, there’s a little alien in your life, and there’s this communication barrier…
A few deep breaths can help…and giving yourself “credit” for that thinking time, which will eventually feed your revision, when you can focus well enough to get to it.
I’ve found that i can revise for a span of time, and then I need time off for processing and simmering. If I try to rush it, things just tangle up till they no longer make any sense at all…
Wishing you sleep and increasing degrees of comfort with your new role in life.
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Kelsie Engen said:
Thanks, Shanjeniah. The lack of sleep really is the hardest thing…if only he would be consistent!
I do try to remind myself that time considering plotting and scenes does count, but it’s hard some days to realize that all I did was “think” again–how far is that thinking really going to get me?? 😉 But one day at a time! Eventually I’ll steal the time to write down all those thoughts! (Hopefully they don’t escape me by then!)
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shanjeniah said:
Babies don’t care much about clocks. =)
Because we unschool, we don’t have any need for bedtimes. What I’ve noticed with both kids is that their sleep patterns shift through the month. Right now, they’re nocturnal – both went to bed after 7am,(I don’t know how much after, because that’s when I went to bed and now, at 4pm, they’re both asleep. My daughter usually sleeps on the couch, and she’s not a deep sleeper, so I’ll go easy on the hometending today, and focus on writing until she wakes up,
It’s trickier with a baby, because he needs so much more from you, physically – but he won’t need so much forever. In a few years, you’ll maybe look up and realize that you’ve got more freedom and space for some of your own things, and there’s even time to sit down and write once in a while….
And, in the meantime, you’ve got this brand new and fascinating human living and growing with you, changing you, and maybe even giving you new material for writing!
Enjoy! ❤
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Conny Kaufmann said:
Hi Kelsie, you’re doing fine! That’s a lot of goals, don’t beat yourself up if you skip one or two here or there. As for the journaling, I found a daily calendar (moleskine does them, but there are cheaper options) help, as you have space and your days already marked.Even if you don’t write a lot and just paste a picture in, you’ll still have done something that day! 🙂
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Kelsie Engen said:
Thanks, Conny. 🙂 There is definitely an ebb and flow to my productivity–life has a way of getting in the way some days!!
The daily calendar might be something for me to try…not much room, just enough for a few sentences… And a picture idea is a good one! Do you use pictures of your own for this or find one elsewhere that speaks to you that day? What a cool idea!
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Conny Kaufmann said:
Hey Kelsie, I know a daily calendar doesn’t offer much room, but I think it’s perfect to get a bit down each day that you can later expand on if needs be. Sometimes I use my own pictures, sometimes they’re cut outs of things that inspired me or that have something to do with that day. They might be stamps from a hotel I’ve stayed at or the colourful postage stamps from a letter received. 🙂
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Kelsie Engen said:
That is a great idea. Half scrapbook, half journal! Love it! Thanks for the idea!
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Conny Kaufmann said:
You’re very welcome!
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