Goal Updates for the Week

Happy Sunday everyone! This past week has been nothing short of crazy and action-packed. Sunday evening the family and I went to see Lacuna Coil at the Aladdin Theater in Portland. They put on an amazing show, playing all of the fan favorites from their albums. I danced hard. As a result, it took me days to recover.

Tuesday I took my first mid-term test. I think I did well, but I won't know until Tuesday. Here's hoping.

Thursday was my son's birthday. He asked me to keep it low-key, and I did my best to comply. But I'm mom. You know? I'm so proud of him. The whole day I reflected on all the proud mama moments over the years. What can I say, I'm a bit of a sap ;)

This was also my first week of being healthy - finally. No flu, no cold, and no fuzzy head feeling. Good thing, too, because all of the assignments got harder and I have two tests coming up to study for. I'm really not a fan of tests. But I want to do well in all my classes, that is one of my many goals.

And speaking of goals...

My goals for round two are:
1) Polish my steampunk novel so it is ready to send to an agent. At this time the first 30 pages are deep-edited and polished. So, another ten pages from last week. It's a slow process, but works for me.

2) Complete rough draft of steampunk WIP#2. This is a longer term goal, but I did spend time working on this, finally. I managed about 3k.

3) Blog at least 3 times a week. This is another long term goal. I'm looking at around the second week of May to start this. I have two different themed days I'd like to make into regular weekly posts, in addition to the Sunday goal update. I might start with just the one before committing to both.

4) Exercise 3 - 4 times a week. This week, even with the concert where I definitely boogied for hours, I worked out all five days. I'm walking a lot, lifting weights, doing pilates and yoga. What has been working for me is putting on my workout clothes right when I get up. I put them on, go about my business for about an hour, and then I work out. The idea is that I'd feel pretty silly if I got the clothes on and then didn't workout. I mean come on, what would be the point? So this is going well, and I'm actually looking forward to doing the workouts. I think the warmer weather helps a little bit too.

5) Submit steampunk short story. I plan to submit it this week.

6) Read 30 minutes daily. Yes! Like my writing time each day, I'm a stickler to reading for no less than 30 minutes. I don't seem to have one full half hour to do this, so I break it up into reading with my breakfast and tea, between classes, and while dinner is doing its thing. I'm just finishing North of Beautiful, and then I'm starting Divergent, followed by Clockwork Angel.

My review of Dead Iron is now up at Clockwork Reviews.

School is still a huge time suck, and next week I add a new evening class for 4 weeks, and in a couple weeks I add a morning class on Fridays. So actually, it will become an even bigger time suck. Still, I'm plugging along, staying on track with goals, and keeping a positive attitude. I'll have to take extra time for studying, but no matter what I'm getting in no less than 500 words a day on writing, and continuing on the edits.

I hope everyone else is doing well with their goals! I'll be stopping by other blogs this week to send cheers and cyber incentives :)

Need help to stay motivated? Crave encouragement? If so, join ROW80. All the info is at that link.

And to end my post I'm leaving you with some steampunkery goodness:

A very worthwhile interview with author Theresa Meyers found Here

Fractal Clockwork Project by Brent Thome found Here

Steampunk Notebooks by Diarment. Check out more cool creations by Diarment Here

Always a pleasure to have you stop by!

See you next week :)

Marie Andrews