Jupiter Does More of the Same

[Jupiter]

Hey nerds, I'm back with the rebels for another challenge. I think this one is going to be pretty much the same as the last, just adding an extra goal or two. Things have been rough so my only real goal is to maintain what I'm already doing. Anyway, here we go:

 

Fitness:

- Strength training 2 sets 1x week (1 set 10 pound dumbbell, 1 set 8 pound dumbbell)  

- Yoga between 10 and 30 minutes 2x a week

 

Nutrition:

- Fruit 1x 3-4 days a week

- Veggies 1x 3-4 days a week

 

Intellectual:

- Revise 1-2 pages a day, 5 days a week

 

Misc:

- Read 30 minutes a day

- Cook 2x a week

- Meditate 3-5 minutes 1x a week

 

So yeah, the only real change is adding meditation once a week. I'm hoping it will help with the stress at work, because it is seriously wearing me down. I also have a few writerly non-goals, mainly finishing my novella outline and finishing/sending another short story before the submission window closes in two weeks. If I'm able to do them, great, if not, I'm not going to get torn up about it. As long as I'm working on something right now, I'm fine with it. 

 

That's all I've got. Happy challenge.  

[Jupiter]

The three day weekend was definitely not long enough. I was bombarded by emails at work today and I had to redo a bunch of stuff in my files for other people. And of course every single thing was urgent and had to be done asap. Then my supervisor tried to help me on a file that I had already done, because a co-worker assumed I hadn't done it and went around me instead of just asking me. So my supervisor changed things and I had to spend extra time changing it all back, after redoing that part of the file twice already. Everyone otherwise demanded my attention for one thing or another, whether it was me explaining things to them that they didn't understand, or reminding them several times that yes, I finished their stuff, because they didn't read any of my previous emails. After all that I ended up only getting maybe 2 of my files done all day. 

 

Ugh. Just...ugh. Okay, venting over now. 

 

On the bright side I got in a serving of fruit and veggies, and I worked on my short story after work. And I found a yoga video that focuses specifically on wrist pain, so I'm going to try it tomorrow and see if that helps. 

 

Also received a rejection on my flash fiction story (my second one). Getting another rejection hurt, but the editor actually gave me some feedback, too, which they rarely have time for, so I was pleasantly surprised and grateful at the same time. I didn't like what he had to say at first, LOL, but after thinking on it for a couple of hours yesterday I realized that he was right. I made some tweaks and I think it's better now. I plan to send it out later this week to another magazine and try my luck.  

[Harriet]

52 minutes ago, Jupiter said:

The three day weekend was definitely not long enough. I was bombarded by emails at work today and I had to redo a bunch of stuff in my files for other people. And of course every single thing was urgent and had to be done asap. Then my supervisor tried to help me on a file that I had already done, because a co-worker assumed I hadn't done it and went around me instead of just asking me. So my supervisor changed things and I had to spend extra time changing it all back, after redoing that part of the file twice already. Everyone otherwise demanded my attention for one thing or another, whether it was me explaining things to them that they didn't understand, or reminding them several times that yes, I finished their stuff, because they didn't read any of my previous emails. After all that I ended up only getting maybe 2 of my files done all day. 

 

After reading that, I'm done with your colleagues, too. Sounds frustrating.

 

52 minutes ago, Jupiter said:

Also received a rejection on my flash fiction story (my second one). Getting another rejection hurt, but the editor actually gave me some feedback, too, which they rarely have time for, so I was pleasantly surprised and grateful at the same time. I didn't like what he had to say at first, LOL, but after thinking on it for a couple of hours yesterday I realized that he was right. I made some tweaks and I think it's better now. I plan to send it out later this week to another magazine and try my luck.  

 

Oh, this is great, actually. Accurate feedback that can help improve your work is a good outcome. 

[Waanie]

Following . 

 

It sounds like there's some tiny progress in your work in the sense that your supervisor actually intended to help you, but yeah, it still sounds bad. Do you have a list of how much time you're spending on other people's work/mistakes instead of your own? Especially seeing the review they gave you a month ago, your manager and supervisor should be confronted with these facts the next time they tell you that you don't do enough.

 

Anyway, I like your goals, and that they are very gradually becomming harder over the challenges. The steps might seem small, but they're there  consistently .

[Chesire]

Following!

 

Much like Waanie, I've noticed your forward progress in your challenges.  Awesome work!

 

As for the rest of the crap....  I think if you beat someone with a keyboard, it would be a reasonable action. 

[Jittersthe.Clown]

6 hours ago, Waanie said:

It sounds like there's some tiny progress in your work in the sense that your supervisor actually intended to help you, but yeah, it still sounds bad. Do you have a list of how much time you're spending on other people's work/mistakes instead of your own? Especially seeing the review they gave you a month ago, your manager and supervisor should be confronted with these facts the next time they tell you that you don't do enough.

I would add to find a way to log when you're working on other people's stuff. Concrete facts help. 

I'm following along. Good luck and kick some butt!

[FatboySuave]

Following! 

And congrats on the rejection! It just means you're one rejection closer to getting published, lol! I gave up on my writerly ambitions before even getting to the rejection phase. It takes a lot of courage to submit your work to strangers and let them judge you. I admire that a lot! 

[Renate]

Following! Real quick. Apparently, in his book On writing. A memoir of the craft, Stephen King wrote:

 

"If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write." 

 

Just read this and thought of your guilt-free reading recently.  Now I go back to my own endeavours :')

[Bean Sidhe]

Following

Sorry work has been so difficult of late. I know its very frustrating when you are trying, but no one really understands what  you are doing. Hopefully the yoga video helps and remember you are doing something, so you are already better off than if you do nothing.

My hope this challenge is to not disappear as much. we will see.

[Jupiter]

On 9/8/2020 at 9:20 PM, Harriet said:

After reading that, I'm done with your colleagues, too. Sounds frustrating.

 

Very. It doesn't happen every day, but it seems to happen more often than it should these days. 

 

On 9/8/2020 at 9:20 PM, Harriet said:

Oh, this is great, actually. Accurate feedback that can help improve your work is a good outcome. 

 

Oh yeah, definitely. Good editorial feedback is gold. 

 

On 9/9/2020 at 5:06 AM, Waanie said:

Following . 

 

It sounds like there's some tiny progress in your work in the sense that your supervisor actually intended to help you, but yeah, it still sounds bad. Do you have a list of how much time you're spending on other people's work/mistakes instead of your own? Especially seeing the review they gave you a month ago, your manager and supervisor should be confronted with these facts the next time they tell you that you don't do enough.

 

Eh, making a bunch of changes and redoing things is all technically part of my job on top of my other work so to them it's not considered extra. They only count the amount of files I do and the time it takes to do them. They don't really take everything else into account.

 

That is a good idea though. It would be interesting to keep track of everything and see how much extra stuff I do and how long it really takes me to do it. Maybe I'll make a list anyway and see what it looks like. 

 

On 9/9/2020 at 5:06 AM, Waanie said:

Anyway, I like your goals, and that they are very gradually becomming harder over the challenges. The steps might seem small, but they're there  consistently .

 

Thanks!  

 

[Jupiter]

On 9/9/2020 at 5:30 AM, Chesire said:

Following!

 

Much like Waanie, I've noticed your forward progress in your challenges.  Awesome work!

 

As for the rest of the crap....  I think if you beat someone with a keyboard, it would be a reasonable action. 

 

Thanks! And LOL!  

 

On 9/9/2020 at 11:43 AM, Jittersthe.Clown said:

I would add to find a way to log when you're working on other people's stuff. Concrete facts help. 

I'm following along. Good luck and kick some butt!

 

True. 

 

Thanks!  

 

On 9/9/2020 at 8:00 PM, FatboySuave said:

Following! 

And congrats on the rejection! It just means you're one rejection closer to getting published, lol! I gave up on my writerly ambitions before even getting to the rejection phase. It takes a lot of courage to submit your work to strangers and let them judge you. I admire that a lot! 

 

LOL, well hopefully. And thanks!  

 

Maybe you should give your writerly ambitions another shot? 

[Jupiter]

On 9/10/2020 at 3:58 AM, Aθena said:

Following! Real quick. Apparently, in his book On writing. A memoir of the craft, Stephen King wrote:

 

"If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write." 

 

Just read this and thought of your guilt-free reading recently.  Now I go back to my own endeavours :')

 

Oh very true! I read his book a long time ago, maybe I need to read it again.  

 

On 9/10/2020 at 4:56 AM, Bean Sidhe said:

Following

Sorry work has been so difficult of late. I know its very frustrating when you are trying, but no one really understands what  you are doing. Hopefully the yoga video helps and remember you are doing something, so you are already better off than if you do nothing.

My hope this challenge is to not disappear as much. we will see.

 

Yeah, it's definitely frustrating. Anyway, the yoga video did help, I could definitely tell the difference in how my wrist felt. And thanks.  

 

Crossing my fingers for you. And just remember we're here for you if you need us.  

[juliebarkley]

On 9/9/2020 at 11:00 PM, FatboySuave said:

It takes a lot of courage to submit your work to strangers and let them judge you.

Just wanted to second this.

[Jupiter]

Busy couple of days. Work has been fairly quiet since Tuesday, but hectic like normal. Still, I have 3 days' worth of emails that I haven't gotten to yet so I expect Monday to be crazy. Anyway, Wednesday did yoga for twenty minutes focusing on my wrist. I think it helped, so I may use it again next week. Had a serving of fruit and veggies, and wrote for about 30 minutes on the new short story. It was an interesting scene and I liked it, but it still felt like pulling teeth. I'm trying to figure out a way to write better first drafts so I don't have to constantly rewrite everything, and I'm not sure I'm entirely successful so far. When I wrote expecting a bad first draft, I could get in 1000 words in 30 to 40 minutes. With a couple of hours I could do more. Now I can barely do 300 or 400 words at a time because I'm trying to consider them more carefully. Which is soooo slooooow. But I figure maybe if I front-load more of the work then I won't have to do so much on the back end (aka, less rewriting, because rewriting over and over again is such a pain). In the meantime, adjusting to the new process is a bit frustrating. Anyway, afterwards I did D&D with a couple of people from the forums and some of their friends. This was our...third session? I'm not much of a gamer, but I'm actually having a lot of fun. And I have been sorely in need of fun. 

 

Thursday I was so tired I didn't do anything (except mess with my computer, because tech problems). I don't know what is up with me, but I've been waking up in the middle of the night every night for the last two-ish weeks, and Thursday is when it finally really hit me. I had this whole list of things I wanted to do and I just had no brain power to do anything except watch a few shows that I missed earlier in the week. 

 

Today was a little better. No writing, and no fruit or veggies, but I did do 10 minutes of yoga and I started reading a new book, which I think is helping my brain recover a bit. Hopefully I can get more done tomorrow. 

[Jupiter]

25 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

Just wanted to second this.

 

Thanks!  

[Jupiter]

Quick week zero recap:

 

Fitness:

- Strength training 2 sets: 1/1 

- Yoga between 10 and 30 minutes 2x a week: 3/2

 

Nutrition:

- Fruit 1x 3-4 days a week: 3/4

- Veggies 1x 3-4 days a week: 3/4

 

Intellectual:

- Revise 1-2 pages a day, 5 days a week: 4/5

 

Misc:

- Read 30 minutes a day: 4/7

- Cook 2x a week: 1/2

- Meditate 3-5 minutes 1x a week: 0/1

 

Not as good as I was hoping, but not bad either. 

[FatboySuave]

On 9/11/2020 at 9:09 PM, Jupiter said:

I'm trying to figure out a way to write better first drafts so I don't have to constantly rewrite everything, and I'm not sure I'm entirely successful so far. When I wrote expecting a bad first draft, I could get in 1000 words in 30 to 40 minutes. With a couple of hours I could do more. Now I can barely do 300 or 400 words at a time because I'm trying to consider them more carefully. Which is soooo slooooow. But I figure maybe if I front-load more of the work then I won't have to do so much on the back end (aka, less rewriting, because rewriting over and over again is such a pain).

I'm jealous of your ability to write so much in a short amount of time on your first draft. I'm no expert (this is just my opinion), but I don't think you should change that practice. I personally believe you should just write to write on your first draft. Just let your words flow onto the page without any filters. THEN the revision comes in later to clean things up. I don't think many writers expect a good draft on their first go. You asked about my writerly ambitions, and I stopped for several reasons. Long story short: I fell out of love with writing (outside of journalism). I found that I just couldn't bring myself to writing on my own time. It felt like a chore. I lost the ability to just write. That's why I envy your ability to write 1,000 words in 30-40 minutes. Here's a movie scene that I love love love that puts it really well: 
 

 

[Harriet]

On 9/12/2020 at 5:09 AM, Jupiter said:

 I'm trying to figure out a way to write better first drafts so I don't have to constantly rewrite everything, and I'm not sure I'm entirely successful so far. When I wrote expecting a bad first draft, I could get in 1000 words in 30 to 40 minutes. With a couple of hours I could do more. Now I can barely do 300 or 400 words at a time because I'm trying to consider them more carefully. Which is soooo slooooow. But I figure maybe if I front-load more of the work then I won't have to do so much on the back end (aka, less rewriting, because rewriting over and over again is such a pain).

 

1 hour ago, FatboySuave said:

 I don't think you should change that practice. I personally believe you should just write to write on your first draft. Just let your words flow onto the page without any filters. THEN the revision comes in later to clean things up. I don't think many writers expect a good draft on their first go.

 

Most of the advice I've seen/heard is that the first draft should be about getting your 'internal editor' out of the way, suspending critique and perfectionism, and just getting some words out. According to the writers I've read or heard from, that first creative flow can be really crippled by self-consciousness or worries about quality, so it's better to separate creation from editing. But it can't hurt to try different methods. It will be interesting to see if you adjust to this style and find it easier in time. 

[Jupiter]

7 hours ago, FatboySuave said:

I'm jealous of your ability to write so much in a short amount of time on your first draft. I'm no expert (this is just my opinion), but I don't think you should change that practice. I personally believe you should just write to write on your first draft. Just let your words flow onto the page without any filters. THEN the revision comes in later to clean things up. I don't think many writers expect a good draft on their first go. 

 

Well, I don't expect to get the writing perfect on the first try. What I'm really aiming for is to write with purpose, if that makes sense. Basically planning ahead, and slowing down and thinking about each scene and what I want it to do and where I need the story to go. I don't expect it to be perfect. I know I'll have to revise and do some rewriting to clean it up and I know that some things will change. But I don't want to have to rewrite every single piece over and over again. That's pretty much what happened with this novel that I've been working on forever. I pounded out around 110k words in roughly 3 months and then I ended up throwing it out and rewriting it 3 or 4 times over the course of a few years because something wasn't right about it and I couldn't figure out what. Finally at some point this year I had to take a break from it because I was burned out and it just made me so miserable. That's why I want to try a different approach, to see if I can hopefully avoid that in the future. 

 

7 hours ago, FatboySuave said:

You asked about my writerly ambitions, and I stopped for several reasons. Long story short: I fell out of love with writing (outside of journalism). I found that I just couldn't bring myself to writing on my own time. It felt like a chore. I lost the ability to just write. That's why I envy your ability to write 1,000 words in 30-40 minutes.

 

Ah, okay. I'm sorry.  Maybe you'll be able to get back to it someday? And to be fair, most of those words usually get deleted and rewritten, so I mean, it's not always the best way. Maybe you just need to find a different way that works for you? 

 

5 hours ago, Harriet said:

Most of the advice I've seen/heard is that the first draft should be about getting your 'internal editor' out of the way, suspending critique and perfectionism, and just getting some words out. According to the writers I've read or heard from, that first creative flow can be really crippled by self-consciousness or worries about quality, so it's better to separate creation from editing. But it can't hurt to try different methods. It will be interesting to see if you adjust to this style and find it easier in time. 

 

I've heard different authors say different things, so I guess it just depends. I'm not really aiming for perfection anyway, just...better. And true. It may or may not work, but I just wanted to try it.  

 

[Jupiter]

So today was the official start of week 1. Not a bad start. Here's what I did:

 

- Cleaned part of the house.

- Meditated for 4 minutes. 

- Wrote for an hour on the new short story. Just need a couple hundred more words I think and I'll be finished with the first draft.

- Revised/rewrote around a page and a half of the other short story. I think I'm about halfway through now. 

- Had a serving of fruit.

- Cooked dinner - breaded butterfly shrimp with frozen veggies and rice, though I burned the shrimp a little bit. 

- Shredded papers. The dreaded shred pile is finally getting smaller. 

- Read for an hour. 

 

I meant to get more done (I wanted to do some yoga and work on my novella outline a little bit) but I ran out of steam. Still, all in all, not a bad day. Why can't I do this every day? 

[Waanie]

That's a great first day indeed .

 

7 hours ago, Jupiter said:

Why can't I do this every day?

I often ask myself the same thing. It could be so many things though, and it's very personal. Do you often feel more productive on Sundays than other days?

 

[Jittersthe.Clown]

9 hours ago, Jupiter said:

Why can't I do this every day? 

I once heard or read that motivation is kind of crap. Motivation is fleeting and will leave and then what are you left with? Instead, focus on building dedication. Dedication will be the habits you form to do the things. Get up and do them. Put this into your routines like the dishes. Keep at it. 

 

[Jupiter]

16 hours ago, Waanie said:

That's a great first day indeed .

 

Thanks!  

 

16 hours ago, Waanie said:

I often ask myself the same thing. It could be so many things though, and it's very personal. Do you often feel more productive on Sundays than other days?

 

I feel like I do, yeah, but that may be because that's the start of my week. Like, I start out strong at the beginning and then my energy dwindles until I have nothing by the end. It takes me a day or two to recover at the end of the week and then by Sunday I've bounced back. That seems to be the cycle I'm stuck in right now.  

 

14 hours ago, Jittersthe.Clown said:

I once heard or read that motivation is kind of crap. Motivation is fleeting and will leave and then what are you left with? Instead, focus on building dedication. Dedication will be the habits you form to do the things. Get up and do them. Put this into your routines like the dishes. Keep at it. 

 

 

You're assuming I actually do the dishes, LOL (I do). But yeah, that makes sense. I used to be better about it and then it kind of fell to the wayside. I need to get that back again. Thanks.  

[Jupiter]

Work today was...rough. A bunch of stupid little things and tech issues because they changed part of our process, which then broke the system and took up half my day. Why do they need to change processes that are perfectly fine as is? Ugh. Anyway, after work I put that aggravation to good use and it got me through my strength training routine. I even did a couple extra reps with the 10 pound dumbbell on the dumbbell deadlifts and single arm overhead press, and I added a couple extra seconds on my planks. Then I tried to write on the new short story for 30 minutes. I had a little trouble with it, I think because one, I wasn't in the best frame of mind to write, and two, because I was worrying too much about staying within word count. The place I want to submit to only takes 4000 word stories and it looks like mine will go past that. Which actually is fine, because I feel like the last half of the story is a little rushed anyway, so that'll give me more room to flesh it out a bit when I revise. I wrote out a couple of plot points today for the ending and I'll start on them tomorrow. Also worked on the other short story, and that was easier. Rewrote about a page and a half. Stress ate a lot of sugar today because of work, so that's not good, but at least I had a serving of leftover veggies with dinner. And now I think I'm going straight to bed, because I'm worn out. 

[WhiteGhost]

A little late getting over here but following along for this one