2015 My Year In Fic

2015 My Year in Fic

2015 Fiction Word Count

Progress Bar from Writertopia

This year was interesting. It seems like I forgot my plans halfway through the year and then lost that time. And I did this while having the plans plastered eye-level at my desk right where I couldn't miss them.

It also explains why after I wrapped up edits around November, I got that restless antsy feeling. Luckily, a conversation with a friend made me remember that Strix: Forget the Sun was outlined and ready to write, so I dived into its rough draft to make the antsy go away. But it was only this week as I pulled my trackers and metrics together that I realized I hadn't wrote anything since May!

Yeah, I'm lucky I didn't go bonkers on people way earlier than that. Other changes to this year: working on the laptop. In all honesty, I can't point to more words written as proof of improvement and there was a time period where I didn't pull it out while at the paying job (crossing fingers that the layoff merry-go-round is finished for the next four years at least). But overall, I think it helps not having my progress ground to a screeching halt whenever I travel. We'll say 2015 was my learning year and see what my results are in 2016.

Stories I Finished:

Signs and Portents: Trinity was finished and published at the Library, AO3, and FF.net.

Part of the Night: The One Rule is posted at the Library. My edits are done for it to go up at FF.net and new copy is ready to go up at AO3.

Part of the Night: The Wayne Legacy is posted at the Library. My edits are done for it to go up at FF.net and new copy is ready to go up at AO3.

Stories I Didn't Finish:

Strix: Forget the Sun counts here because I picked it up again. The Zy's Universe counts here because I dropped it so utterly.

My favorite story this year: Signs and Portents: Trinity. It's a Man of Steel fix-it fic, but I love the little things in it so much. And the flash mob reenacting "Welcome Christmas."

Story most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Signs and Portents: Trinity hasn't gotten the reviews that other stories in the series had, but the reader I dedicated it to saw it so it's all good.

Most fun story: The Wayne Legacy, I had so much fun Nolan-izing the Batman canon.

Stories I wrote that I never thought I'd write: Signs and Portents: Trinity took me way too long to come up with a framework for the story.

Hardest story to write:

Biggest disappointment: That I forgot about Zy's Universe.

Biggest surprise: Having gone from May to December without writing anything.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would, less, or about what you predicted? WAY less.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? I learned how to best use my laptop.

Did you meet last year's goals?

• Reach 130,000 words in the stories in Zy's Universe. -- I never finished my read-throughs and didn't get to edits.
• Submit a horror short story to an anthology. -- I must have missed all the deadlines for this.
• Finish The Wayne Legacy -- Done, except for posting at FF.net
• Finish the last story in the Signs and Portents series -- Done
• Post 12 updates to Facebook -- I set this one up to get over my dislike of using Facebook. Yeah, that didn't work.
• Post regularly to Intentionally Left Blank -- That just didn't work but I'm not sure why.
• Make changes to the BookWorm's Library -- Okay, I did do these.

Do you have any goals for the coming year? The goals from my 2016 one-page business plan are:

• Reach 130,000 words in the stories in Zy's Universe.
  • Edit Stellar Gift of Death to a draft ready for beta reading
  • Edit "Words of Parting" according to the feedback I got
  • Edit "Blue Man on the Porch" to a draft ready for beta reading
  • Write a short story on Xeryl's background
  • Write the Ail 12 on vacation case that ended in a shootout (new take on the "Case of the Hideous Medallion")
  • Plot two sequels to Stellar Gift of Death
  • Begin writing the next novel in the series
• Finish rough draft of Strix: Forget the Sun
• Establish a dedicated writing hour
• Post 12 updates on Facebook. Proving I am a glutton for punishment, this is back on the list. But I did give myself an out by just cross posting stuff I wrote in the blog.
• Post regularly to Intentionally Left Blank
• Redevelop FanFiction Garret -- Basically it died because I couldn't keep the back end updated. I've got new tools now, and it's also lowest on the list of priorities here.

Here's to 2016. It can only get better.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Hot Bod Third Try

Okay I REALLY suck at keeping an updated blog when I'm writing. Yeah all the words are going to a story! Boo, anybody knowing what's going on right now. :p Hopefully the summary helped catch everyone up. This post is pretty much dealing with my diabetes, because I'm on a new regimen and I need to make notes of what's happening. Curses ahoy, don't read this one out loud.

My 2014 goal of more exercise and overhauling my food choices slacked off in February when I stopped measuring myself to see what my body was telling me about my health. So I got less strict about what I was eating and never developed a good exercise routine to follow. The time period wasn't just me completely ignoring my health. I ponied up the money for monthly massages—namely because there was no way exercise was happening as tight as my muscles were—and they have helped immensely.

So I trucked along in this subpar fashion and then signed up for the Reversing Diabetes World Summit 2014 on May 5. Initially I just followed Mark Sisson there, but I ended up listen to everybody and taking notes. Suzy Cohen, RPh. talked about how a lot of the side effects of medicine were caused because the medicine steals vital nutrients from you and the over-the-counter supplements are not pharmaceutical or medical grade so you wouldn't be replacing what your body is missing with those. Well crap, how long have I been on metformin? Dr. Josh Axe gave me goal numbers to be aware of.

Diabetic

• A1C level = 6.5 or above
• Fasting morning glucose is greater than 125 – 130

Reversed Diabetes

• A1C level = 5.5 or lower
• Fasting morning glucose = 100

Looking back, I think I picked up my mother's defeatist attitude when it comes to living with diabetes. She watched aunts follow the strict doctor's orders, kept themselves skinny, and still lose legs and eyesight. Her mother lived a lot longer (albeit in horrible shape by eating whatever she wanted. I thought I was doing better by at least being aware that I function best on a Primal diet, taking the medicine prescribed to me, exercising until I fell off the wagon, but I never sought out any additional research until the Summit dropped itself in my lap.

I checked out Drug Muggers by Suzy Cohen and Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis, since so many presenters at the Summit said his work was their starting point. I got my bloodwork done at the end of May for my June appointment with my doctor.

May 28, 2014 – June 4, 2014

• Fasting morning glucose = 183
• A1C = 7.8

He added a new prescription for Farxiga. I read my books, watched my food slightly better, and waited until I ran out of bad supplements.

I took my list of supplements modified with the information found in Drug Muggers (but not by much) to my chiropractor, who I had bought multi-vitamins from before. The office manager confirmed they sourced pharmaceutical grade and she'd price my list for me, but she recommended that I go see Dr. Jessica, a Traditional Naturopathic Doctor, for a check over. "Honey, you probably don't need all of these."

That sounded reasonable, and was even more reasonable when I saw the price tag on my list of supplements. I got an appointment to see Dr. Jessica on August 21st and filled out her health assessment before I went. My weight on August 13th had ballooned up to 194 lbs. and I had my worse week of sleep ever that week. So I answered the "list you current health concerns you would like changed" with "put my body in balance to fight the diabetes, better quality sleep, knowledge of what foods I should eat. Losing weight and getting off my medication are long-term goals." And by long-term I meant I never see it happening but I'm okay with it as long as I don't have to take insulin shots ever.

The two issues that alarmed Dr. Jessica the most about my assessment was how much aspartame I was consuming and how little water I was really drinking. Yes, I had heard many times how aspartame is evil but I didn't want to deal with caffeine withdrawal headaches and I ALWAYS figured sugar was my real enemy. "If my blood sugar ever gets to normal then I can switch back to normal drinks" was my thinking on the issues. Dr. Jessica said it was better to switch to a sugared drink for caffeine and deal with the sugar than use aspartame. And guess what, Nature just published an article on "Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota." Thanks a whole FUCKING lot food industry!

The not enough water thing, I counted all the fluids I drank but never considered the diuretic properties of caffeine. So right away my 24 oz. of Diet Dr. Pepper put me in a deficit. Add to that Farxiga's side effect of making you pee more and how we all need to drink half our body weight in ounces of water, my body was retaining fluid like it was a dam just to function. At 194 lbs. I should be drinking a little over three quarts of water.

Dr. Jessica recommend I change my diet to gluten and dairy free, switch to sea salt, and eat more salads for lunch. Dairy-free surprised me, but she suspected it was the reason behind my always annoyed sinuses. She only prescribed three supplements to help support digestion and pancreatic function and recommended a cinnamon-based drink mix that uses mâte for caffeine called CinnaMâte. I took a sample of that to see if I liked the taste, but expected to switch the regular Coca-cola, since regular Dr. Pepper tasted off to me after so many years drinking Diet Dr. Pepper.

When I went grocery shopping that weekend, it was another thanks a whole FUCKING lot food industry! moment. I cut out high fructose corn syrup as much as I can because human bodies do not process it like sugar (you lying TV bastards!) it is addictive and they have put it into everything they can put it in. The lying TV commercials just cemented my hate of this product. Guess what 90% of all commercial, readily available not-diet sodas are sweetened with in America? Double fuck you food industry! I did find Virgil's Sodas and OMG! Not advertising hype the cream soda and Dr. Better flavors I had gave my taste buds a Great Gatsby party. Unfortunately, they are caffeine free. :p

Turns out I did like the taste of CinnaMâte and it kept the caffeine-withdrawal headache away. But I had to wait until I got paid again before I could buy a month's supply. So I foolishly decided to just have one Diet Dr. Pepper to get me to work without a headache.

The pain that hit my spine with that drink was worse than any whiplash I have gotten. So Tuesday, August 26th was when I drank my last Diet Dr. Pepper. I brewed iced tea when I got home for the commute until I got the CinnaMâte on Sept. 8th or found bottled tea made with real sugar.

I started the new supplements on August 26th too and tried to start a new Yoga routine of fifteen minutes daily. So far the exercise has been a miss. I can squeeze it in during the evenings, but not if I wake up late and leave all my chores for the end of the day. This week has been me rediscovering how I've ignored my personal checklists and getting back on them.

So this my third week into the changes and I already have some improved numbers.

Sept. 8, 2014

• A1C = 6.4
• Fasting morning glucose = 117

Sept. 18, 2014

• Fasting morning glucose = 111
• Weight = 186.5 lbs.

Like I said above, weight loss is not my goal but if I lose weight while getting my numbers in a much healthier spot, I'll take it. The fasting glucose isn't at a steady sweet spot quite yet either; I have had some days of higher than 130. Dairy-free has been less strict than gluten-free, because dairy sneaks in ways I don't think of. And every time I have some, I wake up to a half-clogged nose. Issues I have to bring up to Dr. Jessica: going back on MSM, still taking an hour to fall asleep, and sporadic leg cramps.

But overall I think everything is looking better than it has for most of the year.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

2013 In Review and 2014 Plans

Last night or early this morning, I had a dream featuring my dead cousin. He was murdered back in October, and while we had been inseparable as children, family circumstances separated us in our teens. I never knew the man he grew into. In my dream, we were digging garbage out of my house and yard, sorting stuff out for recycling. Nicky drove up in a battered truck wanting to confront someone he blamed his problems on. He didn't look like the last pictures I had seen of him, the full head of hair threw off my recognition. I woke up when I realized he is dead.

What a way to start the end of the year. But it was a positive dream. I was rooting out what doesn't work for me and I'm not blaming anyone else for my faults. My finances, health, and writing are not where I want them to be thanks to my choices.

Same song, same lyrics, every year.

But if you're expecting me to go dig up what I swore I was going to do in 2013 and beat myself up for not doing it in this post, nope, I'm not doing it. I do have changes on my mind and I have already tweaked my KanbanFlow checklists, so this is more what do I have to look forward to than what I regret.

Writing including Blog posts: I shunted off the original work again, despite having a productive word count. That's okay, I'll pick it up for 2014. Blog posts I wrote and typed and never posted (as you can see by the post-dated post I've been posting today). I can post daily--see Discipline Under Fire--so I don't think posting every week is an impossible task. So Tuesdays will be my blogging day and I'll compose in Blogger's editing window, so I won't gather typed posts that I don't post.

Three writing projects at once is too many. I never should have let the Muse team up with the Perfect Girl who thinks everything must be done as son as I think of doing it. However, bouncing between two projects hits the sweet spot. Rather than concentrate on meeting a word count--even though I will track it--I'm making a list of what I want to work on for 2014.

• First draft of Strix: Forget the Sun
• Second draft of Stellar Gift of Death
• Post TDKR: Weapon of Shadows
• Post Part of the Night: the Wayne Legacy
• Rough draft of the next story in Signs and Portents

Health: I'm officially a diabetic now, my Achilles tendons have been tight every morning I get up for weeks now, and my hips have been tightening and causing me pain. I have to exercise and I have to overhaul my food choices.

The Primal exercise program I developed worked well until I stopped doing it. :p So that's where I'm starting tomorrow with that mix of body-weight exercises and yoga routines. Plus the elliptical machine since my blood sugar and weight are so out of whack I need more exercise to bring it down.

I know what to do food-wise, but I didn't buckle down during the holidays. Holidays are over now, so no more excuses.

Finances: I refuse to beat myself up for what has happened, so my goals for 2014:

• Pay off car
• Get current on all bills
• Stay current on bills
• Reward car payoff with laptop purchase
• Remodel bathroom

That's all I'm putting on myself for 2014. Now I have writing, posting, and cleaning to do.

Have a happy New Year, everyone!

Read Free!
The BookWorm