Grenwolf

And here we are at Friday! Wolfbond: Having the exercise from the book is a good structure to keep moving me forward. I appreciate both the structure, especially the progressing intensity. Person of Letters: Today's word count = 393. Cumulative word count = 8043. Part of my head is comparing my word count here to what it would be if I were doing NaNoWriMo, and I have to remind myself that I picked a smaller, more sustainable goal so that I wouldn't give up when the NaNoWriMo pace proved unsustainable for me at this time. In any case, it's my weekend!

Another good day! Person of Letters: Today's word count = 517. Cumulative word count = 7650. The more I write, the clearer the future parts of the book become. Wolfbond: Today's check-in was short but solid. On to Friday!

Today was, I think, a good day well spent. I conducted my self-check-in during the first part of a major 2+ hour walk through multiple neighborhoods of my city. I've also started reading a newish book in my field, which is triggering interesting thoughts in the time between writing sessions. Wolfbond: As mentioned, I tried a walking check-in today, and I think it went pretty well! Might not become a regular thing, but I'm glad I gave it a shot. Person of Letters: Today's word count = 562. Cumulative word count = 7133. Not as much as I was initially thinking I might do today, but I'm not too shaken up about it. Now it's time to finish the last two days of the week strong!

Apologies for not updating yesterday--I promise I'm still here! Person of Letters: Yesterday's word count = 257. Today's word count = 443. Cumulative word count = 6571. It's been feeling a little choppy lately, but I'm still plugging away. Wolfbond: Therapy yesterday went well, as did this morning's check-in! The first few exercises in Self-Therapy are about getting to know different parts of your personal psyche, and they've proven helpful focusing conversations with my therapist. We were able to spend some time in therapy yesterday digging into the relationship between a few of those parts, and I've had some following up to do today and for the rest of the week exploring some of what came up. I've got tomorrow off work, so I'm expecting to have a fair bit of time to work on both of these tomorrow. See you then!

Wolfbond: I have started my reread of Self-Therapy and mapped out all of the exercises. I had a solid check-in this morning and am planning another before work starts tomorrow. Person of Letters: Today's word count = 338. Cumulative word count = 5871. Not much else to say today, so I'll see you all tomorrow.

I feel like, as the song goes, I'm back in the saddle again. Person of Letters: Today's word count = 860. Cumulative word count = 5533. I had a quiet night at home this evening and was able to get into a good groove. Huzzah! Wolfbond: While I didn't do my morning check-in as planned, I did spend a good forty-five minutes on one before I started writing. I reflected on the last few days of stress (especially as my job will be directly impacted by the results of this week's elections at both the national and state levels) and how I responded (I'll give myself a C+). I'm looking forward to a couple days of reduced uncertainty and time away from work. Plus, we get Veteran's Day off next week on Wednesday, so that will also be a good mini-break. Still very much planning to start my re-read of my therapy book, this time doing the exercises, tomorrow. And now, a couple hours of relaxation before bed. It feels good to be getting back into the groove!

And I'm back! Taking it easy on the way back into things, but definitely up for continuing this. Wolfbond: Short but good check-in today. I've got a longer one planned for tomorrow morning, and I'll be starting back through the book on Saturday. Person of Letters: Today's word count = 257. Cumulative word count = 4473. Not much, but I at least hit the goal. I hope everyone else is doing well!

...so yesterday, today, and--I'm guessing--tomorrow and the day after have proven/will prove tough to focus on this. I'll see you all on Thursday!

Flipping the update order for variety... Person of Letters: Today's word count = 702. Cumulative word count = 4216. My wife woke up a bit earlier than expected, so I got a later start on this than I'd originally thought. However, a subsequent wifely nap after watching the Supernatural "Monster Movie" episode created the space for writing and this update. Wolfbond: As planned, a lengthier check-in this morning went well. I think it's about time to start in on the exercises from my therapy-accompanying book. (In the interest of brevity, I'll start referring to it by its title, the delightfully straightforward Self-Therapy.) And now, time to have a bit more candy and do some quiet tidying until my wife wakes up and we move on to either The Cabin in the Woods or Trick 'r' Treat...

Keeping things short tonight as we're midway through our mini-marathon of Brooklyn Nine-Nine Halloween episodes. Wolfbond: Again a short check-in this morning that went well, although I'm planning to devote more time to a longer check-in tomorrow morning. Person of Letters: Today's word count = 468. Cumulative word count = 3514. The plan for tomorrow is to try to get my writing done before my wife wakes up so that we can spend the day on Halloween movies and possibly a visit with some friends who we've accepted into our COVID bubble. (So far, we've all stayed clear of the coronavirus.)

Going strong after five days! Wolfbond: A shorter check-in this morning with a couple "boosters" during the day. It's too soon to know for sure, but I feel like I'm getting better at having quick moments of mindful self-awareness. Here's hoping that continued practice helps make that a true trend. Person of Letters: Today's word count = 424. Cumulative word count = 3046. Another day that felt kind of light. On the plus side, I'm moving from more of the throat-clearing introductory parts of the book into the first substantive section, which feels good. I'm thinking this might slow down the word rate a bit while achieving the original goal of keeping my brain working on issues of professional interest. Laghail, thank you again! It's nice to not be writing into a void. My wife, dog, and I live in a one-bedroom apartment with a small den. We recently moved our bed into the den (which doesn't have windows, gets darker, and is farther from street noise compared to the official bedroom) since my wife has started picking up night shifts more consistently at her job. What was the bedroom is now the TV room and where I work while my wife is sleeping. When she's awake and I'm still working, I'll usually pivot to the dining room table we have set up in what was the living/TV space. All told, not a lot to work with, but I think we're doing a lot with what we have. (Also, she recently signed up for NF Prime and we're going to start doing some joint questing work!)

Very quick update tonight! Person of Letters: Today's word count = 330. Cumulative word count = 2622. Wolfbond: I got my mental check-in done before work, and I've noticed a more persistent sense of well-being the last couple days as I've been getting more intentional about this. I also took a minute after one meeting got me particularly worked up to do a supplemental check-in, processing what I was feeling and why. It wound up being a fuller day than expected--thankfully, tomorrow looks like it might be a bit calmer.

All right, three days in! How's it going? Wolfbond: Morning before work continues to be a good time for this. Especially now that it's still cold and dark when we wake up, I can take the dog out for his morning constitutional, then come back inside and snuggle in bed with him as he goes back to sleep. It's turned out to be a nice way to ease into the mental check-in. I've now finished the book that accompanies my therapy and am going to let my brain digest the theory for a few days before starting over and doing the formal exercises in their proper sequence. Person of Letters: Today's word count = 773. Cumulative word count = 2292. Once again, I wasn't able to get to writing until well after work and, today, not until after dinner and pumpkin carving/decorating for the apartment building's competition. Still, I had enough energy to beat yesterday's word count! I am glad I kept my daily minimum for this challenge relatively low; 200 words was much less daunting than a bigger number would have been. A goal of, say, 750 would have made for a harder time starting tonight's writing session, even though I wound up beating it. So, good job a-few-days-ago-Grenwolf!

Thank you so much, Laghail! I work for my state's department of education, with past experience as a teacher, policy researcher, and organizer. I'm working on a book that lays out some of the human truths about schools--both those that undercut so many efforts to improve the education system and those that can help people at every level of society get involved in helping schools get better. To that effect, flipping the order from yesterday... Person of Letters: Today's word count = 517. Cumulative word count = 1519. I wound up not getting to my writing until after dinner and was running a bit low on gas by the time I got there. Still, more than twice the daily goal! Wolfbond: This was quite successful. I was able to spend a couple hours this morning before work reading the book that accompanies my therapy and checking in with myself using the tools from the book. The work I'd been doing between my last therapy session two weeks ago and today's session seems to have paid off. Today was the best session in a couple months, and I'm feeling like I have a clearer sense of my path forward than I've had since I started. And all of that around a work day that included multiple frustrating meetings! Tomorrow morning is pretty empty work-wise, with no meetings until near midday. After that, I won't have the time for a decent writing session until near the end of the workday. Writing will either happen late morning or after work, I think. Thankfully, another pre-work self-check-in is eminently do-able and easy to plan for.

One day in and I'm doing OK with both challenges! Wolfbond: Mental check-in completed. Bonus points for supplementing with reading from the book that my therapist recommended to accompany my therapy. I've got a telehealth appointment with him tomorrow and am looking forward to talking through the last couple weeks with him. Person of Letters: Today's word count = 1002. Cumulative word count = 1002. I work tomorrow and am trying to plan ahead for how to tackle these. Current thought: Mental check-in during the morning before work (plus therapy in the afternoon, but including that runs counter to the spirit of the challenge of checking in on my own). Knock out all obligatory work for the day. Take a break to write before I completely run out of steam. Do non-obligatory work until I've put in my eight hours. If there's still figurative gas in the tank, maybe continue writing after I'm done. Onward!

After a substantial (multi-year) time away, I have respawned! Since the first post I made here, I've been everywhere from 285 to 225 lbs. Right now I'm at around 245, give or take depending on the day, which is up 10-12 lbs from early August or so. We got word this week that we'll be working remotely at least until June, and I've noticed that some of the better habits I established early on in quarantine have...slipped. All told, it was time for a respawn. With that said, before diving into the more physical aspects of all this, I think I need to start by focusing on my mental state. Lately, I've been experiencing higher-than-usual drives to distraction and numbing behaviors including alcohol consumption that's higher than "moderate" but short of "problematic," at least so far. At the surface level, the novelty of the projects I picked up as my workplace adapted to COVID has worn off, and they're at a point where I'm doing a lot less creative/analytical work and a lot more form-processing/customer-service-style work. This is not great for dissuading me from distracting/numbing behaviors. Beneath the surface, though, this is an old pattern repeating itself. Fortunately, I started therapy just before my state went into lockdown and have been able to continue it remotely! I'm now at the point where I've got a reasonable handle on the approach my therapist is taking and a book with exercises to explore. My hope is that prioritizing the mental healing I need to do will (a) decrease the frequency of my distraction seeking and self-numbing and (b) free up the mental energy needed to build better habits during the next few months of less sunlight, colder temperatures, and less-than-interesting work. With all that preamble, I've revamped my epic quest and character bio a bit to better reflect where I am right now. I'm still digging the werewolf/pulp-hero narrative, so I've made all my changes within that broader archetype. For this challenge, I'm sticking to one activity each in two areas: Wolfbond steers into the relationship between the human and wolf sides of my character. This is where much of my mental health and meditation work goes. This challenge's Wolfbond activity: Every day, conduct a mental check-in using the tools and framework from therapy. Stay in contact with my therapist about this is going. (This will be my first attempt at regularly and intentionally bringing therapy work into my day-to-day time outside of formal therapy, and I'll be talking with my therapist about this more on Monday.) Person of Letters gets at the academic/intellectual facets of many pulp heroes. This challenge's Person of Letters activity: In a modification of NaNoWriMo, write at least 200 words every day in the draft of a book I'm attempting in my professional field. I fully expect to exceed the 200 count many days, but I'm trying to keep this reasonable for even the hard days. The important thing for now is to rebuild the regular writing habit and ensure I'm carving out time for the creation and analysis I need but don't get from my job right now. I'll be checking in here every day to share updates. Looking forward to being back on the proverbial horse!

I've let things slip a bit the last couple days on the NaNoWriMo front: no writing on Saturday or Sunday to give my brain a break, and fewer than the necessary daily average of words today. However, I've been doing well with alcohol, working out, and meditating, so that's all progress. And I know I've got some spare time during this coming long weekend that can be used for some NaNo catch up. That's all for tonight, but I'll be back with the usual structure tomorrow!

Stamina 4 out of 4 hearts. Bodyweight exercises! Sanity 6 out of 6 brains. Got a nice 20 minute meditation in and had a good day at work despite several things that would have likely caused greater frustration on other days. Lore Still on track! Current word total: 28,371. Will Maxed out today, but didn't go over. I had two pints of stout at an impromptu happy hour with some co-workers, and a 10oz glass of chocolate Belgian quad (mmm!) with my wife later in the evening after she got back from a call. She's making herself some mac and cheese now. I'll be having some water while we watch Future Man on Hulu. Good night!

Stamina 4 out of 4 hearts. Got my run in this morning, and I was pretty happy with how it went. Sanity 5 out of 6 brains. No meditation again this morning, and some frustration at work. Figuring out how to get better at this needs to become a priority. Lore 1,678 words today. Current total: 26,731. Will No alcohol today, even though for lunch I went to a place near work where I usually get at least one beer. Hooray for intentionally evolving habits! OK, the dog really wants to go out, and I should get to sleep soon.

Stamina 4 out of 4 hearts. I could feel the early signs of progress in my push-ups this morning, which was pretty great. Sanity 4 out of 6 brains. No meditation this morning, and I let a few too many things get my unnecessarily frustrated over the course of the day. Doing better now, though. Lore I didn't get 1,667 words today, but I'm still at where I need to be. Current word count is 25,053. Halfway there! Will My wife and I went out for lunch today and I had a beer, in line with this challenge. And now to spend some time with a book!

And another good day! Stamina 4 out of 4 hearts. Good run this morning, (mostly) good food during the day. Sanity 6 out of 6 brains. Meditation this morning went well, and it was a pretty even-keeled day. I'm getting increasingly comfortable hitting a good productivity groove while working remotely. Lore I am officially ahead of where I need to be with word count! Current word count is 23,830, which is 497 words ahead. Huzzah! Will Another day of no drinking, and it's feeling good! OK, getting sleepy now. See you tomorrow!

Sorry for missing another day's update, but I'm still here! Stamina I got my bodyweight exercises in today. In other news, food choices have been pretty reasonable the last couple days. Sanity I missed Sunday's meditation, which I'm not happy about, but managed to get back on track today. I'm able to work remotely tomorrow morning, which should take some of the pressure off and make it easier to get a meditation session in. Also, this is looking like a reasonably calm week of work for me right now, which is always appreciated. Lore I've done about 2300-2400 words each of yesterday and today, so I'm not exactly where I need to be but continuing to get closer. My current word count stands at 20,764. To be perfectly on track today, I should have made it to 21,666. With the way things are looking, I'm thinking there's a good chance I make it to "par" tomorrow. Will Nothing to drink yesterday or today! And now, bed!

The weekend is going well so far! Stamina I got my bodyweight exercises in on Friday morning and walked to Whole Foods today to get all kinds of healthy goodness. Sanity I missed meditating yesterday, but have otherwise been taking care of myself pretty well mentally. Thor: Ragnarok was lots of fun yesterday, and I've been enjoying lots of downtime... Lore ...which isn't to say I've been totally unproductive. While I didn't write anything yesterday, I put in over 5,300 words of writing today. Current word count is 16,021. If I make it to 20,000 tomorrow (which you may have noted requires fewer words than I wrote today), I'll be fully caught up. My reward for making it to 20,000 is that I get to assemble the Ghostbusters 2016 Ecto 1 and 2 Lego set that I recently bought. Will I had one beer yesterday with my wife after the movie, and I haven't had any alcohol at all today. I've been tempted a couple of times, but there hasn't been anything in the house that I want to drink and I knew I'd be coming here to post about it. Also, when I feel an urge to drink (or to eat excessively) I'm getting better at asking myself why. So far, the answer is usually boredom, which I noted at the beginning of the cycle is a common trigger for me. I'm trying to channel that boredom into writing (or other good things like cleaning), with good success so far. Time to take the dog out and get some reading in before bed. Onward!

Today was better than yesterday, and a great way to head into a long weekend. Stamina 4 out of 4 hearts. I slept better last night, got my treadmill distance in, and got some good walking in today as well. Sanity 5 out of 6 brains. This morning's meditation went well, and work was better on a better night's sleep. I'm definitely looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow, though, as I can tell I'm still catching up a bit. Lore Current NaNoWriMo word count: 10,701, as a result of a little over a thousand words today. This was the biggest casualty of my need to finish catching up on sleep. I'm looking forward to having some more time and mental energy to spend on this over the next three days. Will Two social drinks at a work happy hour (that I organized). Still in bounds for the challenge. Assuming we're both able to be up in time, my wife and I are planning to take advantage of the day off to catch a 12:30 showing of Thor: Ragnarok. Kraka-DOOM!

A bit rougher around the edges today, but not bad. Stamina 3 out of 4 hearts. A rough night's sleep (for unknown reasons) led to some overeating. Morning exercises did get done, however: push-ups, squats, and calf raises. Sanity 4 out of 6 brains. No meditation yet, and there's a good chance I'd fall asleep if I attempted it now. I was able to get in some good leisure reading time, so that's something. The lack of sleep led to some stronger feelings of frustration than normal around some things at work, but nothing too extreme. Mostly I'm looking forward to getting to sleep. Lore Current NaNoWriMo word count: 9642, so over 2100 words today. More progress toward getting back on track. Will Despite all of the above, no drinking today. Pretty proud of that, to be honest. OK, time for some sleep. Good night!