I’m mostly saying that to remind myself. The last month… hasn’t been good. It’s been busy, and stressful, and exhausting. Despite all my good intentions, I didn’t get any writing done. I slacked off terribly on the 1000 Days project (though I did manage to get something done… almost every day). The workout routine has become kind of impossible. But things are settling down a bit now. Not completely, but they’re back down to manageable levels.

First, the good news: for the next three weeks, things are pretty much back to normal. Or as close to normal as I could hope. I’m going to have time to write, and draw, and do all of the things that I’ve been neglecting so badly for the last month. More than enough time—I’ll spend quite a bit of time bored out of my mind.

The bad news is, it’s only three weeks, and then things get insane again, and they’ll probably stay that way until the end of the year. After all that, once the holidays have passed, then everything should be back to normal.

I’m not going to do NaNoWriMo this year. It makes me kind of sad—I feel like I should be doing it—but I’ve only got three weeks, and I didn’t have a chance to come up with a solid idea. Instead, I’m going to take these three weeks getting ready for 2009. I’m going to finish the first draft of Z.A.U. (a bit late, but whatever). I’m going to solidify some of my long-term goals. I’m going to start prep-work on some of the projects I’ve been thinking about. I’m going to dig out my sketchpad (if I can remember where it got to). I’m going to try to put a dent in the Google Reader backlog.

I’m going to take the opportunity to breathe.

I’m not sure when I’ll be back. There are too many factors that I can’t account for right now. I’m going to try to write (I’m still determined to hit my deadline on ZAU), but don’t expect the progress-bar to change. I’m going to try to work on the 1000 Days project, but I can’t say how much I’ll actually get done.

I won’t be checking email very often. I won’t be around to approve comments. I am going to try to post to Twitter occasionally. Or frequently, depending on how desperate I get for contact with the outside world.

Can I just say that 2008 has sucked? Just a little?

I knew there had to be one.

If you’ve been paying any attention to the progress meter I keep in the sidebar, you might have noticed that, earlier this week, it dropped from something like 79%, back down to 58%. I also pushed the deadline out a month.

This isn’t a bad thing. Turns out that this story (working title: Z.A.U., which doesn’t actually mean anything) is about thirty thousand words longer than I’d originally planned. The story’s progressing well, and I’m almost exactly where I expected to be at this point. But I have too many subplots, and there was no way I could see wrapping them up in 10,000 words. The story has to be longer, and I’m giving myself until the beginning of November to get it done. (I’m not sure if I’m going to do NaNoWriMo this year, but if I am, I don’t want to be worrying about this story.)

None of this would be an issue, except… that stupid progress bar! I went from nearly finished to just-past-half-way-done, and it was right there for everyone to see! I actually held off from changing it for two days, simply because I didn’t want to see it drop.

I’m being irrational, I know.

It is helping. I really do feel like I’m making progress on this story, and watching that bar creep slowly upwards (or left, I guess) provides a surprising amount of motivation, which was the whole point.

Still. I liked it better at 80%.

Today I hit the half-way point in this little project I’ve undertaken.

This is where I start to panic.

I don’t really feel any different than I did five hundred days ago. I mean, I know I am—I know that I have made changes, all for the better, and I know that I’m still only at the midpoint—but it feels like I announced this whole thing last week, and, unless I’m actually looking at the list of things I’ve done in the past five hundred days, I don’t feel like I’ve done much of anything.

This is where I remind myself to breathe.

The thing is (and I’ve said this before), when I started this project, I had no real idea of where I wanted to end up, just that I didn’t want to be so terrified of turning thirty. I thought I knew what that meant (though I admitted at the time that I was pretty vague on the specifics), but as the time has passed, my goals have changed. They’ve solidified. It’s taken me nearly five hundred days just to get a clear idea of where I want to be come my thirtieth birthday. And while it’s awesome that I’ve finally started to sort that out, it also means I spent quite a few of those days spinning my wheels.

So, what have I been doing in the last hundred days?

I’ve started putting together a five-year plan. In retrospect, this seems like the sort of thing it would have been nice to have finished before I started, but I’m not sure it would’ve done me any good then. I couldn’t have been objective about it. Three years was sending me into a panic. Five would’ve killed me. I’m still not entirely objective—this plan is still very much a work-in-progress, and far more difficult than I expected it to be—but I’m getting better. I should have a handle on things by the time I hit day 600. (One would hope.) It won’t have that nice round number I like, but it will give me a roadmap.

And if the primary goal of the thousand-day project is to not freak out over turning thirty, having an idea of where I want to be after I turn thirty can only help.

That’s the biggest thing that happened in the past 100 days, I think: figuring out what direction I want to go. There’s been more, of course. I’ve done quite a lot of photography-related stuff (including my first paid photo work, and getting some of my own photos blown up and framed, to remind myself that I don’t suck). I’m getting my writing back under control, and I think I know what direction I want to push it. I’m more confident in my ability to reach my goals as a writer. (Hell, I have goals as a writer. Other than “be a writer.”) I’ve started drawing again—only just, but it’s the first time in about ten years I’ve even picked up a pencil.

I’ve also started making some changes on a more personal level. I’m starting to feel a bit more like a grown-up. (In a good way.) I’m not there yet—there are certain aspects of this whole ‘adulthood’ thing that truly baffle me—but I’m starting to think that when I actually turn thirty, it might not be a bad thing. Even if I’m still reaching for those larger goals.

This might work after all.

In July, I wrote 11,500 words. In August, I’ve written 18,100. I’ve averaged about one hour per thousand words. Not record-setting, perhaps, but I’m seeing real progress in the current story, and I can actually imagine finishing it on time.

(And, no. Those numbers don’t include my writing here. I’m starting to wonder if maybe I’ve got a finite number of words at my disposal—if I spend them on fiction, they’re not available for the blog. I do have some plans for improvement on that front.)

I feel like I’ve got things under control, for the first time all year.

I think I needed that.

Before I took that time off, I loaded my PDA up with a nice, meaty collection of ebooks. I get twitchy if I don’t have something at hand to read, and the big bulky hardcovers I’ve been favouring recently don’t exactly fit in my purse. My PDA easily holds more than I can expect to read in a week, and it’s there for me whenever I’m bored.

Thing is, I’m not terribly picky when it comes to reading books in an electronic format. I’ll read pretty much anything I’m even vaguely interested in, or that’s been recommended by someone whose opinion I sort of trust. And I’m stubborn. If I don’t like a book, I might set it aside for a while, but I’ll probably keep pushing to the end in the hopes that it might improve. Which does happen, on rare occasions. (I’m only like this with ebooks. They don’t take up any physical space, and they don’t really cost much (if anything), so I don’t really feel like I’m losing much if I keep reading. Just time, and, sometimes, even a bad book is better than the alternative.)

The books I’ve been reading lately, though….

Not all of them have been terrible. Some of them, I’ve gone out and bought actual, physical copies of, I liked them so much. Some have been guilty pleasures. Some I haven’t cared for, but that’s just a matter of taste. They’re not poorly written, just not my thing. (I’m not naming names: the books I really enjoyed, or the ones I’m willing to admit to reading, were in the sidebar. The ones I’m not willing to admit to… weren’t.)

But I can’t imagine how some of them managed to get published. Clunky plots that don’t make any sense. Sentences that don’t make any sense. Awkward dialogue, and a weird need to explain everything that a character is thinking at a given time, and why.

I write to-do lists, and keep track of my progress, but habit is actually my biggest motivator. When I’ve got a good routine going, writing every day for a month or so, it gets easier to ignore the little voice that tells me it doesn’t really matter if I don’t quite reach my goals for that week… I can make it up later. I’ll have the notebook or file opened before I even realize it, and once I’ve got a few hundred words on the page, I might as well keep going.

The problem with this approach is that when something happens to disrupt the routine, I find it incredibly difficult to pick it back up again.

Back in March, I reached the end of the notebook I was using to keep track of my writing progress. I didn’t think much of it—I still kept track of my daily word counts on a piece of paper, and kept forgetting to pick up a new book when I was in the store. It wasn’t a huge priority, anyway: I was still hitting about 2000 words a day. In April, Script Frenzy gave me a proper deadline to think about.

In May, I fell out of the daily-writing habit in a truly spectacular fashion, and I’ve been struggling to get it back ever since.

On the weekend, I picked up a new notebook, and I spent a few hours recording what little progress I’ve made in the past four months. It’s not quite the system I was using before, but, so far, I think I like it better. I set myself a deadline and target-wordcount for the story I’m currently working on.

And, to add a little bit of peer-pressure to the mix, I decided to put those goals on the front page of this site, along with a progress-bar, so you can see if I’m sticking to it. Feel free to nag me if the bar stalls for too long. (Though I’ll tell you upfront—I’m probably not going to be getting much work done the week of the 28th.)

I’m only a few days in, but it seems to be working so far. This is the first time in months that I’ve hit my weekly targets. I’ve written more in the past few days than I did in the entire month of June. I’ve almost reached a point where I don’t have to talk myself into writing every morning.

Maybe it’s a little early, but I think I may be getting things back under control.

Finally.

Six thousand. That’s… not very good. I can usually manage six thousand words a week without really trying. Hell. Usually if I only manage six thousand words in a week, I feel like I’ve been slacking horribly.

Now, my excuses are perfectly valid. I started the new workout routine on the eleventh of May, and I’m still trying to figure out how it fits into my schedule. I photographed a wedding a couple of weeks ago, and I had a lot of prepwork to do for that. And, in between, there was Tasha, and the low-level depression that still hasn’t faded entirely. Writing, as it usually does when I get stressed, has fallen by the wayside.

I’ve got to pick it up again. I still genuinely like the story I’ve been working on. It’s a good sign, since I have a tendency to lose interest in stories when I set them aside for more than a week. I’ve got two amazing ideas that I need to start researching.

I’ve given myself this last week off. I need to rearrange my schedule a bit, and convince myself that the workout doesn’t really interfere all that much. I want to pick up a notebook, so I can start keeping proper records again. I want to take a look at the outline for the story I’ve been working on, to remind myself where I wanted it to go.

Monday, though, I get back to work.

The links are still here, at the bottom of the page, and there’s now an archive and a feed of all the stuff I’ve been up to on other sites.

At that point, there was a pet store at one end of the mall, next to the bookstore. I loved that pet store; it wasn’t huge, but it was a pretty decent size, and I could spend an hour just wandering around, looking at the different animals. Never with the intention of buying, really, just looking.

There were two enclosures at the front of the store, rabbits and guinea pigs on one side, and kittens on the other. The sides of the enclosures weren’t tall, two and a half feet, maybe. If the animals were feeling particularly friendly and decided to approach, you could reach in and pet them. And, yeah: today, that would bother me on any number of levels. But this story takes place fifteen years ago. I loved it.

On this particular day in 1993, most of the kittens were asleep, curled up in the various boxes and cubby holes they’d been given. One, maybe two were awake, and bored, trying to wake some of the others up to play. I watched for a moment, and one of the kittens—a tiny little calico—jumped up onto one of the platforms of the cat tree, roughly eye-level with me. She looked at me, and meowed. Loudly.

I reached in, not touching, just letting her get used to the idea. She sniffed at my fingers for a moment, and then licked them.

And meowed again.

I was in love.

I was also thirteen years old, and kind of obnoxious. I spent the next hour wandering around the mall with my dad, listing off potential names for the kitten. Not that I actually expected to use any of them; we’d been talking about getting a cat, eventually, but we hadn’t actually made any firm plans. I was just smitten.

Less than two hours after first seeing her in the store, I was sitting in the car with that kitten—Tasha—on my lap, waiting while my father went back into the mall to buy all the little necessities of owning a cat. (Like a litter box. And food.)

Best impulse purchase I’ve ever made.

In the fifteen years since, I’ve slept almost every night with that cat curled up next to me. If I’ve been reading or watching television, she’s been on my lap. I’ve stumbled to the window before my first cup of coffee in the morning, because Tasha wanted to look out at the birds, but wouldn’t actually make the jump to the windowsill unless I was there too. I’ve got a small, round scar on the back of my left hand that’s entirely her fault. A stranger once told me I should be a writer, after overhearing me tell a friend the story of how Tasha broke my toe.

I lost her to kidney failure on June 2.

It wasn’t completely unexpected; the vet estimated she had three to five years, a little more than three years ago. But less than a month before it happened, you wouldn’t have known she was in less than perfect health.

I’m dealing. Not particularly well perhaps, but it’s getting better. I miss her terribly—I still expect to see her waiting for me when I come home, and I still expect her to meow at me every time I get up from my desk. I still glance toward her favourite spots every time I pass, checking to see if she’s there and aching when I don’t see her. Everything’s just slightly different—so many little routines that have made up my day for the past fifteen years are just… gone, with nothing to replace them. I’m having a hard time getting used to it.

But I’m getting there. Slowly. I’m easing back into writing (again), after nearly a month when I couldn’t really see the point. I’m getting ready to do a photo shoot. I’m slowly figuring out this new version of things.

I was incredibly, incredibly lucky to have Tasha in my life for as long as I did.

It just wasn’t long enough.

It won’t be long, probably just a week or two. You won’t even know I’m away.

For the first time since I started this project I’ve made it a full 100 days without skipping a single one. And I haven’t miscounted this time. Not much of an achievement, I’ll grant you. But I’m only 100 days from the half-way point in this little project, and, given the way things have been going lately, I’ll take what I can get.

To be fair, I have managed some real accomplishments in the past one hundred days. I’ve already mentioned my new workout routine. It’s going really well—I’m still nowhere near where I used to be as far as endurance goes, but it doesn’t feel impossible, either. I’ve made tangible improvements already.

Actually, I think that if that was the only thing I’d accomplished since February, it would have been totally worth it. It’s that good for me.

Still—that only really accounts for a few days. I’d feel guilty if that was all I’d done.

I’ve been easing back into photography. Not as much as I’d like, perhaps, but I’ve picked up the camera, at least, and, more importantly, I’ve finally started tackling the collection of old film that needs to be developed. Somewhere along the line I forgot that I’m actually a pretty good photographer; finally looking at the photos I’ve taken the last few years, and thinking about them objectively, has done a lot for my confidence as a photographer. (Which is a good thing, considering.)

As for writing… I’m finally getting a handle on the whole outlining thing. I’ve figured out a few organizational techniques that seem to work for me. I’ve been spending a lot of time studying the craft of writing, too, and I’m really seeing an improvement in my writing. My plots are getting tighter, my characters are getting stronger, and, in general, I’m happier with what I produce. (That said, I think it’s time to set the writing books aside for a while… I feel like I’m falling back into the old habit of spending more time reading about writing than actually putting words on paper. I don’t know that I actually am, but it’s time for a break regardless.)

There’s been some other stuff, of course—personal, mostly, and occasionally a bit frivolous—but in general, I think I’ve been doing pretty well.

Let’s just hope that I don’t freak myself out over the next hundred days. I’m almost half-way to the end.