Bumps in the Road & February Goal Progress

I've written previously about writing sometimes being frustrating. I've also written about what to do when you feel like you're just going to lose it in general.

I think I need to sit down and read each of those posts a dozen or so times.

Things -- on a whole variety of fronts -- have been really frustrating/rough recently. Nothing has been colossally bad. Probably the worst has been the ongoing difficulty with my right arm. I've started physical therapy for it but so far I haven't seen any real relief from the pain in it.

In general, though, I've just been feeling down and it's been harder than usual to keep things moving forward. I'm grateful for my Seinfeld Chain because it's been a major factor in keeping me from giving in to laziness and skipping writing altogether one or more days.

Most people end up going through these bumps in the road. To some extent, I've been through them before since I started writing actively again the middle of last year, though I can't recall any which felt quite this bumpy...


On to a slightly-happier note: Fortunately, looking at the progress I've made on my goals for this month is actually a relatively positive thing despite the frustrations I'm feeling. Below is a rundown of where I stand. There's really no good reason for me to not hit five of the six of these.





1) Spend time in the first half of the month analyzing my first draft of "Adrift" and time in the second half of the month planning the second draft. - I've made some progress on this, which is an improvement over last month. It's been slow progress, though, so I doubt I'll complete both halves of this task in February. Still, I'm happy that I am finally getting a bit of traction here.

2) Write 5,000 words of new fiction including at least one new short story. - I'm basically on track for the word count here and I've already completed one flash fiction, so I'm in good shape for the second part of this goal. Even though I haven't written a ton of words of fiction, I have made a good amount of progress on the non-fiction project I'd been considering.

3) Keep all my writing routines -- Seinfeld Chain, revised blogging schedule, etc. -No issues with this.

4) On 2/29, have one non-time-sensitive blog post written and ready for future use on a day when I'm not able to post something "new." - I used the one I had on hand as of 1/31, so I need to replace it.

5) Submit one or more short stories for the first time this month. - Done. Submitted "An Unsuitable Job for a Human" earlier this month.

6) Look more seriously at scheduling to attend Marcon in early April. - This is a local science fiction convention. I haven't really done much more thinking about this since late-January. I'll try to get out by their website and check admission costs, programming schedules, here soon.