I think the worst part of it was all my health stuff in rapid succession: foot surgery in March to repair my Achilles' tendon and a torn ligament, the long recovery where I was non-weight bearing for almost a month, suffering horrible headaches and scalp pain that I found out was due to a pinched nerve in my neck, the failed root canal scare that turned out to be part of my facial nerve pain disease (trigeminal neuralgia), and finally, abdominal pain that sent me to the ER thinking I was going to die. Spoiler alert: I didn't, and it turned out to be pretty mundane, but it was scary.
With all of this crap going on, plus my freelance work, writing had to be set aside. It hurt, sometimes horribly, as I am the type of writer that writes every day, but I knew it would just add more stress to an already stressful situation. I wrote a grand total of 751 words on Wednesday, and I anticipate that that is probably it for the month. My total wordcount for 2019 is around 53,000 words. Probably the lowest since I got serious about it in 2003. Last year was slightly better at 75,000 words, four hundred of which were written on New Year's Eve to make that goal.
But my life has changed so much from those days. For one, I'm working from home now. And I have been struggling to find a sleep schedule/work schedule that works. I am a night person, so I don't perk up until around eleven or noon. I've tried to start work sooner and more often that not, I'm asleep at my desk in minutes. However, starting work this late requires that I work into the evening, sometimes late at night, to get my work finished. And I'm not really fond of this way, and want to change it, but it's been so overwhelming with everything else. And it doesn't leave much time for writing. Back when I worked a traditional job, I wrote after dinner. That was my routine. I could count on it. Now, I'm usually working after dinner. So clearly something needs to change. I'm not even sure what at this point, just that it has to.
That's my number one goal for 2020: Get this schedule thing sorted out. I think the rest would naturally fall into place. I'm about to blow a publishing deadline, and I HATE that. But there just wasn't time or energy. Working with a chronic illness has taught me that everything's in flux. If I'm feeling good today, it doesn't mean that I'll feel good tomorrow. So I naturally want to do All The Things on my good feeling days, but that just wears me out and sets me up for the next day to be crap.
I am also starting some new ways to write. One being dictation/transcription, which I've talked about here. The other one is using a Rocketbook. It's a notebook with special pages. You write on them and then send them to the cloud to be transcribed. Then you can erase them! It is the coolest thing. I got one for Christmas and did a test run last night. It worked very well, except my horrible handwriting caused a few interesting transcriptions. I need to write slower.
So I'd like to add those into my routine as well.
Lastly, for 2020, I want to WRITE MORE BOOKS and hopefully release two. This year I released nothing of my own. I did have a short story in an anthology through Turtleduck Press. The anthology was a part of a shared world project, A Fractured World. Love Shines Through was the theme. Mine was "Of Poison and Promises," and I believe it came out pretty good, considering it was my first time writing in the Fractured World universe. But that was it.
I am also toying with the idea of trying my hand at contemporary romance and romantic suspense. I have a few ideas. We will have to see.
So, hopefully good things are coming. It's a new decade, which is scary and exciting at the same time. I want this to be MY YEAR. Who's with me?
What goals do you have for 2020? What needs to change? How will you be the best you?
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