December Resolutions

December is always a busy month for most people, I think.  Christmas cards, Christmas parties, Christmas shopping, as well as all the other normal stuff of life tend to pile up during this month and often leave people stressed out when they should be enjoying themselves.  For me, December is particularly crazy as well as particularly fun because my birthday is on the fourteenth, just over a week before Christmas.  In light of this, I’m going to try to be productive this month as well as take some to enjoy myself and not stress out. 

Read Eight Books

 

I have eight more books to read if I want to have read 60 books in the course of 2012.  This might be a tough goal to hit with work and other parts of life vying for my time, but I’m going to try my hardest.  I plan on reading some classics this month as well as some lighter books to change things up.  Currently, I’m reading The Three Musketeers, next is A Change Of Fortune by Jen Turano and then the original Star Wars trilogy.  I got Star Wars in a leather bound version on Black Friday.  Yeah, I know, I have a problem.

Enjoy My Birthday

 

I turn eighteen this year (Eeeep!), so I want to try and make this birthday a particularly special memory.  I plan on going to a gluten-free café with my parents and then going shopping sometime near my birthday, as well as going to see The Hobbit in theaters with a few of my geeky friends.  I’m incredibly excited for it.  

As a random fact about me, I actually spent most of the day of my sixteenth birthday playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II.  It’s a great game and all, but I think I would rather remember spending my eighteenth birthday with my friends and family.  You’re cool, Starkiller, but you’re not real.  Sorry.  

Hey!

Get Back To Writing

 

NaNoWriMo was an awesome ego boost for me, but there’s one problem: I’m still not done.  Even if it’s just a little bit, I need to get to writing again sometime this month before this story becomes a project that I never complete.  Even if it’s just a few hundred more in the course of the month, at least I’ll be remembering it and thinking of what to do next.  

There are my resolutions for December.  What are yours?

This post inspired by Kelli at SheLearnsAsSheGoes     

November Report Card

With NaNoWriMo, Thanksgiving and everything else going on in my life, November seemed to fly by.  I admit that I mostly forgot about my resolutions for a lot of the month, but I still got plenty done.  All of my Christmas shopping is completely done, I wrote over 50,000 words, I had a great Thanksgiving with my family and I played a great game (review coming soon).  Overall, November was a great month, and even with everything that was going on, I’m proud to say that I felt pretty productive this month.  Expect to see my resolutions for December tomorrow!   

Participate in NaNoWriMo

 

Obviously, from my previous post, I did this.  I surpassed my highest expectations of myself, and I can’t wait to get into writing more on my novel and one day getting my story out there.  

 

 Grade: A+

 

Make Something Delicious

I did this a few times this month.  Nothing ridiculously experimental or challenging, unfortunately.  I didn’t really have the time with everything else going on.  I did make some delicious food, regardless, though.  Nom nom nom.

 

Grade: B-

 

Set Up My New Computer

One word: fail!  I got the parts ordered, but that’s as far as this goal has come.  Perhaps by next month I’ll actually get it put together, but I’m not going to make any promises with my birthday and Christmas both in December.  I’m a little disappointed with myself when it comes to this resolution, but oh well.  This computer’s still working fine for now, so I’m not in a hurry. 

 

Grade: D-

Overall Grade: B+

How did you guys do on your resolutions for the month?  Any exciting plans for December?

This post inspired by Kelli at SheLearnsAsSheGoes

I WON!

I am in awe right now.  Why?  Because I did it!  

I wrote 50,000 words on my novel in less than a month.  This is such an incredible feeling right now that I'm not even sure I can describe it.  I guess I'll try. 

Imagine this: You are an average person.  Blessed, certainly, but you don't feel that you've done anything that's overly special.  You've always wanted to build a giant wallaby out of Legos, but you've never devoted the time to it to make it happen.  (Yeah, I know that it's kind of an off the wall goal, but use your imagination.)  

You've got a few bits of the wallaby built, but it's been collecting dust for months in you closet.  
One day, you decide to challenge yourself and spend a few hours every day putting that wallaby together.  You do, and each day you get better and better at finding which pieces go where.  

Four days before your goal ends, you've got most of a wallaby.  It's big, it's beautiful, and most importantly, your hard work has done this.  If you had not spent your time working on this, the world would be without a mostly-complete marsupial made out of Legos, and that would have been a shame.  

Okay, so maybe I haven't quite made it out of this challenge with my sanity completely intact, but I am proud of myself for making it this far.  Better yet, there's still more to go, and I'm excited about that.  I have more to write.  After that, I have editing to do.  I am still a ways away from publishing my work, but I am much farther along than I was at the beginning of this challenge.  

So, friends, I am going to jump up and down after I post this.  I am going to celebrate for the rest of the day and maybe even the rest of this week, knowing that I did what I set out to do.  I didn't give up, and even if most of my writing is terrible, I saw this challenge through to its completion.  

I WON!   

Mid-November Progress Report

Sorry I haven't been very active lately, but participating in NaNoWriMo as well as other priorities in life have made these past 15 days fly by.  Even though it's been busy, life has been good.  So, this morning I'm taking a moment to tell you how I've been doing as well as thank God for the blessings I've already had this month.

Participate in NaNoWriMo

I'm very proud of myself when it comes to this goal.  Not only have I been able to keep up, but I'm even a little ahead of schedule.  I'm currently at 24,144 words, and I haven't written today yet.  My story is going great, and I'm starting to believe that I might make it to 50,000 words and even publish this novel someday in the not too distant future.   

Make Something Delicious  

I'm doing good when it comes to this goal.  I made some blueberry scones at the beginning of the month that were amazing, as well as some really good oatmeal and raisin cookies last week.  With Thanksgiving almost upon us, I bet I'll be making other yummy stuff as well.  

Set Up My New Computer

This goal has kind of been shoved aside so far.  With NaNoWriMo and everything, I haven't made the time to even order the parts yet.  Besides that, once I get it, build it, and get it set up, I have to move all my important data and reinstall a bunch of programs.  Yeah, this may not end up happening this month.  

How are your resolutions going this month?  For you other NaNoites, how's your novel coming? 

 

Life of a NaNoWriMo Participant, Day 4

Being a record of the time that Kaylin spent writing for NaNoWriMo on Sunday, November 04, 2012.

 

9:49 AM:  Alright!  I’m ready to start writing for the day.  I’ve got a giant glass of water, a Thomas Bergersen playlist up on Youtube, a timer set for an hour, and very few ideas of what I want to write today.  But you know what?  That’s okay.  I’m a seat-of-my-pants kind of writer, and the words will come when they come.  Maybe.  Of what quality those words will be is a matter of some debate, but as a very wise person once told me: “You cannot edit what you have not written.”  If you’re reading this, Steph, you’re welcome.

10:17 AM:  I’ve made it to 409 words so far today, which is pretty good considering the lack of planning that I did ahead of time.  I admit that my inner editor complains every once in a while, saying: “That’s a fragmented sentence.  That’s the cheesiest dialogue I’ve ever heard.  You really should fix that before you go any farther.”  Sometimes, I just have to tell her to shut up and let my inner author do whatever she wants.  Twelve hundred more words to go to make today’s goal. 

11:36 AM:  Whew!  I finally made it to 6,668, which is just one word past my goal.  Yes, I did the bare minimum, but at least I made it.  I just got done writing a pretty difficult scene that I’m not sure that I will end up using, but it was an interesting exercise regardless.  I listened to all sorts of sad instrumental music to try and give me a better feeling for what was going on, and I hope I did okay.  If I come up with some great idea this evening, I might write a little more. For now, I’m going to go eat lunch and then study my verses for Awana this afternoon.  

7:16 PM: Well, I have pretty much no idea what’s going to happen in my story tomorrow, but I’ll be doing some reading and brainstorming this evening.  Something will come up, likely just as I’m about to fall asleep tonight, and I’ll have some sort of something to write about. 

November Resolutions

November is here already, and it’s time for me to make some resolutions.  I’m going to attempt to tackle a pretty difficult goal this month, so I’m going to try not to overload myself.  Here goes. 

Participate in NaNoWriMo

If you haven’t heard of NaNoWriMo, it’s pretty much a month-long challenge for authors to write like crazy.  The goal is to have 50,000 words or more by the end of the month.  If I do half of this, I’m going to be incredibly proud of myself.  This is pretty much my main goal this month, and man, is it going to be a hard one.  I just need to discipline myself to take at least half an hour every day and write.  Even if it’s all terrible, at least it’s something.

Make something delicious

I love to bake, and I’d love to try a new recipe and have some fun making something tasty in the kitchen this month.  Making things gluten free so that I can eat them can be an interesting challenge sometimes, as gluten free flours don’t always work the same way as wheat.  This month, it’s all about experimenting and having fun.

Set up my new computer

I’ve got parts for a whole new desktop computer coming my way, and I’m super excited to start building it and upgrading my system.  It’s been at least five years since I got a new motherboard and processor, so I should see a huge improvement in my computer’s performance.  With games like Skyrim and Dragon Age 2 that can make use of DirectX 11, I’ll also see a difference in the quality of graphics, which I can’t wait for.

 Since NaNoWriMo is such a big challenge for me, that’s it for this month.  We’ll see how I do. 

 What about you?  What are your resolutions for this month, and what exciting things are coming your way in November?

This post inspired by Kelli at She Learns As She Goes.

October Report Card

So, here’s how I did on my resolutions for this month. I’ll be back again tomorrow with my new challenges for the month of November, so stay tuned.

 

Do at least ten minutes of yoga every night 

Out of the whole month, I only missed three days and I’m willing to give myself a little bit of grace for those because I had a mild case of tonsillitis those days.  Most nights, I even did 15-30 minutes.  Overall, I’m quite proud of myself when it comes to this goal.  

 Grade: A

 

Finish reading all of these books

Ha.  I didn’t do nearly as well on this goal as I thought I would.  I finished one volume of Library Wars, All Things New, and Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce.  I’ve also started Soul of the Fire, but I’m only 300 pages or so into it.  Work and other parts of life have been more important lately, but I guess I did some of what I said I was going to. 

Grade: B-

 

WRITE!

*grimaces* Oh yeah, this resolution.  I’m ashamed to say that I did rather poorly.  I’m going to give myself a bit of a break, since I did write on my blog and wrote most of that short story that I said I was going to.  Unfortunately, many of my other concepts were shoved aside this whole month.  Writing takes time, and I didn’t really make much time for it.  Here’s hoping that I’ll do better next time. 

Grade: C-

 

Start saving for college

I actually kind of impressed myself as far as this resolution goes, saving much more than I thought I would.  I even made enough to spend some on Christmas presents for most of the people on my shopping list.  Huzzah!

Grade: A

 

Overall Grade: B

Not too bad for my first month of resolutions, if I do say so.  I definitely need to work on making time to write, as well as starting to prepare my schedule for when I’m taking college classes.  

This post inspired by Kelli at She Learns As She Goes

How did you do on your resolutions this month?