2018 reading

So once again, it appears that the vast majority of my reading was short nonfiction–astronomy and archaeology/paleontology articles mostly, with a good portion of health and diet research and a side helping of art history getting ready for our big trip to Spain last fall.

Best nonfiction: Smithsonian magazine

Best poetry: Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey. Seriously, if you haven’t read this yet, do it, even if you didn’t like the Odyssey in high school. Especially if you didn’t like the Odyssey in high school.

Best fiction: Troll Tunnels, the third book in Erin M. Hartshorn’s Technowitch series. (Full disclosure: Erin’s my good friend and crit partner.) This series just keeps getting better with every installment. Can’t wait for Maenad March due out later this year, and a special holiday novella featuring the trolls’ quest for a Yule log 😀  (Sign up for Erin’s newsletter here: http://www.erinmhartshorn.com/newsletter/)

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well, that didn’t go as planned

So here we are almost at the end of 2018 and I haven’t posted here, or commented on other people’s blogs, or pretty much anything I wanted to do. It has not been the year I planned, in any sense. Probably good for me in the long run…but we’ll see. 

plans for the year 2018

Goals for the year:

• improve health and fitness (stick to plan the specialist recommended, one day at a time).  At this point the only goal is whether I followed the plan. Results should follow.
• finish at least one project in process.
• be more regular about something besides Candy Crush Soda. This includes keeping up with this blog, checking the Alice M. Cole blog and mail more frequently, and looking into my other neglected accounts such as Goodreads. This does not include going back to Facebook.

Here’s the game plan for the major writing items. I haven’t decided how public I want to be with the family and personal goals; right now I think not.

January was for recovering from December and planning the coming year.

February and March: finish Genie-ous second draft and hopefully an edit pass of the completed draft.

April is Camp NaNoWriMo. I’ll flesh out the Troy and Sal draft from November.

May will be Story a Day at Forward Motion. I haven’t participated for years and I miss it.

June: final pass on Genie-ous and send to market.

July: Camp NaNoWriMo session two. I’ll either edit Troy and Sal 1 or work on second draft of the hurricane story. I might also decide to draft Troy and Sal’s second novel.

August: Edit Troy and Sal, if not done.

September: mostly family. Evaluate progress and adjust plans accordingly.

October: Finish draft of T&S 2

November: probably draft Troy and Sal’s third tale.

December: family

January 2019: recovery month and plan 2019.

 

I’d also like to work on Crows, and I might slot it in late in the year if everything else is going well.

New year, new art class

We’re taking portrait drawing this term. Lots of fun so far.

From yesterday:

Portrait drawing near end of second class

My effort on the right. The guy on the left is instructor Jeff Ellse illustrating a point for Neil. Tom, our model, sitting patiently in the chair. (Thanks Tom).

art class first painting of the year

I think it turned out rather well. (NaNoWriMo? I don’t know what you’re talking about.)

pier at Oak Bluff

NaNo Day 1

I should have remembered that the first day of the month always requires some attention to household and financial needs. And Wednesday every week is busy–laundry day, grocery day, doing the bills day. So I should have set some more modest goals for the first day.

Nevertheless, I did get started. Set up the file and got the outline ready to go.

Tomorrow I’ll be in Boston for art class and Neil’s music lessons and dinner out, so it will probably be a low-count day, too.

Inktober was a massive fail

But you probably already figured that out. Sigh.

Here’s hoping NaNovember goes better.