Blaze

I suppose I had a little bit of a break the past week. My back was bothering me and so I had to suspend my strength program. My plan is to go back to Day 8 of the program tomorrow and see how that goes, and then just move forward from there. I have been off and on with my tracking. My plan for this week is to add intermittent fasting to the mix and see how that goes. As for NaNoWriMo - As usually, I got off to a slow start, but today I managed 2,732 words and just topped 10,000. Ideally, I should have twice that word count, but it's doable. I will check in tomorrow after I finish beginner strength work-out to report how that goes. Maybe I just need to lay off the planks and do something else instead for back strength. Any suggestions?

Off to a slow start as usual with NaNoWriMo this year, but as of 11/3 I made 1800 words, And today I hope to do a bunch more - just waiting for a friend to take me to a local cafe where we can sit and ignore each other while we do writing sprints. I completed Day 11 of the challenge yesterday, and I've determined that I'm not going to kill myself on the planks. It was up to 60 seconds yesterday and I managed 40-ish seconds, so that's good. Tracking is the issue. I didn't track at all yesterday, so I guess I'll make that my free day for the week. That means I can't skip tracking today's and Sunday's food. How's your week going?

Aweosme stuff, Blaze! I am Sovalis on the NaNo website if you want to be NaNo buddies on their website! Good luck with your words!! I just sent you a buddy request - on the NaNo site, I'm Kirei.d

Day 9 of the 30 day challenge happened yesterday though I seriously struggled with the plank exercise. My lower back just couldn't take it. So today I opted for a rest day, and I'm going to be careful with the plank moves going forward. I want a stronger core, but I don't want to make it worse in the process of making it better. I tracked Breakfast, Lunch, and at least one snack - both yesterday and today. And even though I know I've gone over my calorie goal both days, tracking is the point for this challenge. Just keep tracking. I cleared my first 1000 words yesterday, and only added another 400 or so today. Though it's a slow start, I still feel pretty good about the whole thing. This first bit is tricky, because my main character doesn't know her own name, so I can't call her anything but 'the woman', but it's working. She should have a name before the end of Chapter Two, which I hope to get to tomorrow.

Pitches are hard. I read somewhere that if you can't simplify it to 15 words or less, it's probably a dud. But I'm not sure that applies when the genre is so unusual. Maybe this? To save her new home from a rogue mage causing drought and destruction, a young woman left for dead in the desert must reclaim her lost memories if she's to master her natural gift as a Stormcracker and fight back with a storm of her own. Also, I had the original song in mind, but now I'm just sitting here thinking about Oreos. Thanks.

I’m also tackling NaNoWriMo again this year. We can help keep each other on track.

It has begun!!!!!

Is anybody else in this pub writing a novel in November?

This is lovely. Autumn is my favorite time of year, and I’ve been enjoying it, right up until it snowed 2 inches last night. Ugh!.I would love the autumn to last just a bit longer. It sounds like I have some things in common with you, like my own laundry basket of doom, and that tendency to put things off by doom scrolling. Way too much doom. You can beat it! Good luck with your Quest!

Today I tracked most of my food, and I completed Day 9 of the Beginner program - which is some kind of freakish streak for me because I have historically given these things up within a week. Pressing forward with it because I desperately need to get stronger, especially my core. As for NaNoWriMo, I've settled on the title. On Sunday I made a couple reference maps of the world and the main location of the story. Yesterday I worked some more on outlining and today I mapped out the Introduction, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action and Conclusion. So even though I've barely spent two weeks on the full concept, I'm actually going into the challenge with a better plan than I have had in quite some time. Let's see about the pitch though.... Stormcracker With no memory of who she is or what she can do. a young woman rescued from the Shatterlands must reclaim her memories and her powers to save her new home from a rogue Stormcracker mage. Or something like that. How about this one? To save her new home from a rogue Stormcracker mage, a young woman left for dead must reclaim her lost memories along with her own special powers. That one's good, not too long. I can't stay up past midnight to right like I used to. But tomorrow it begins!

It takes at least five minutes for my game to load. And if I say I will only play a few minutes, it inevitably turns into a few hours. Sims 4 is dangerous fun.

Good morning! I just completed Day 6, right on schedule, of my 30 day beginner fitness program. Every workout finishes with a plank. Day 1 was only 10 seconds. Today it was 40 seconds and I made it through the whole thing. I just checked, and on the last day it will be a 130 second plank! I have been plotting and planning like mad for my NaNoWriMo story, which now might be called Stormcracker. Or maybe The Steadfast Heart. I'm still deciding on that. The BIG NEWS on this front is that I have discovered the joys of Chat AI for coming up with coherent plot outlines. It's also very good tweeking them with new input from me. I might actually have a decent outline to follow by 12:01am 11/01/23! Tracking has been going well for the whole week. Except for yesterday when I didn't have any food to pack for working in the office and went a bit rogue on diet plan. Having one day off each week from Strength training makes sense, so I guess I'll count that as my one day off this week from tracking/diet.

I'm Lutheran so this weekend my church is doing a big Octoberfest-style Reformation Day Celebration after church, with beer and brats and strudels and what-not. (We're an inner city church so we put on big shindigs for Juneteenth and similar days as well. It's a multicultural church with lots of opportunities to over-indulge.) But lucky for me, I'm out of town this weekend so I won't be tempted by all the goodies. The downside of that is that I'll miss all the polkas too.

Am I late to the party?

Here I am again. I have goals and I thought it would be good to have some accountability to go along with them, so I'm back. This is a simple challenge for me - in theory at least. 1. November is NaNoWriMo so my first goal is to write - even if I don't quite have a handle on my story yet. Power through and get it done one more time. I can't start until 11/1 and must write 50,000 words of a novel by midnight on 11/30. I'll track my daily or weekly totals as I go along. It's going to be some kind of weird Western Fantasy thing, but I'm still lacking a bit on the plot - one week of planning to go, so I can track that as well. I've done some brainstorming the past couple days, and hey, today I actually names for several characters, so that's progress. 2. I'm determined to get into a strength training routine and I have found a Beginners Over 50 30-day Challenge. I started on Monday morning and I did Day 2 just a little while ago. Must keep going and not miss. Each video is less than 20 minutes, and I get Sundays off, so it's not too taxing. Just the right amount I'd say, considering how my arms and abs feel right now. 3. Tracking is also very important. I know that. I want to track at least 2 meals and 1 snack daily. I did that yesterday. Today I tracked almost everything I ate well before I ate it, and there's still time to get the couple snacks I missed. I'm using the MyFitnessPal app for this purpose. So that's it. I track my food. I work out daily. I write like the wind. What do you think?