A mixed bag

This past week has been a mixed bag. Some days I got a lot accomplished, some days I was nothing but a lazy sluggard. I had hoped to get so much more done, but once again I must admit that it is what it is.

Yesterday, Hubby and I went for a ride and I took an unbelievable 107 pictures. Oh, for the days before digital cameras, when I actually took the time to look at things, instead of click, click, click. I’ve shared the very best picture above. You will have to keep checking my other blog, The Dino Chronicles, for more pictures and stories from the day. Right now I am so far behind on posting to that blog, that I have material until Christmas.

But what about my current goals for this blog?

Here they are. My wish is to have all of these things marked in bold green by the end of the year. For now, regular green is what is on track for the next 12 weeks, yellow has been worked on and red is a fail.

1)      Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”. Crunching the numbers, that means I need to average 5,000 words a week to end at 70,000 words or so. Right now I’ve written 9,400 and 2,900 of those were this week. I think that 5,000 a week is a far stretch for me, but let’s give it some time and see what happens.  

2)      Continue researching publishers for my first novel “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”. This goal has me stymied. The one and only publisher I've submitted it to wants to publish it. I know – super, duper, yippy-yi-ya! It just seemed too easy, you know? When something seems too good to be true, it probably is. They’ve sent me a contract, so I suppose the first thing I need to do is go over that with a fine tooth comb and see what my gut instinct tells me then. Right now, I have a good feeling about them, but there is no reason to make a rash decision. I’m going to try to blog later this week about the process I’ve been going through. Maybe if nothing else, that might help others out there in the same boat.  

3)      Do some editing on my two memoirs, “Pat’s Story” and “Two More Trips To Africa”. Not a thing yet.  

4)      Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week. Yes, on track. As a side note, Tuesday’s post has had the second most views of anything I’ve posted to that blog in the six years I’ve been keeping it. Last count 732. The most viewed post, “Are you a seal or a sea lion” has had a whopping 5,904. I have no idea why, except I guess that people are interested in sea mammals.

5)      Finalize the next trip to Kenya for my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers. At our meeting last Sunday afternoon, four prospective volunteers filled out applications to join us on the trip. We will see who follows through and who bails.

6)      Get my body in shape. I would have to say this was a fail this week. I think I exercised three mornings, lifted weights once and took a couple walks. In between, all I did was eat. I did set up a tire obstacle on one of my trails in the woods and naturally the first time I ran it, I fell. That would be the story of my life.

I think what I should do is commit to writing on my newest novel four times a week, do some editing one day a week, continue blogging and stop being a slug. That’s what I’m going to shoot for this week. I think I'm also going to sign up for Pacemaker. That will help track my progress and hopefully help keep me on track. 

Hope to hear from lots of my fellow ROW80’ers on Facebook. I’ll check in with as many of you as I can. 

(Huh. I should write about this - obstacles to our writing, and not just the tires.)