Whoa, May was a busy month! I’m feeling good about my progress: 21k words written, two beta reads delivered, and 6 goals met. 
Of all the books I read this month, I think my favourite was the fantasy novel Heir to the North by Stephen Poore, which delivered some really fresh twists on traditional tropes, and the writing craft book 5,000 Words Per Hour by Chris Fox (which is a freebie from his mailing list). 5K Per Hour really surprised me… it’s such a simple method, and can basically be summed up as ‘do writing sprints’, but here’s something about his system that I loved:
He tracks editing sprints and writing sprints separately. And what really made it click for me was hearing other writers over on the ‘20 Books to 50K‘ Facebook group talk about their editing goals, with a few writers tracking similar ways to Chris: aiming for editing 1,000 words an hour in the early edits, and 3,000 words per hour later when the draft is more polished.
I love this! I’ve previously tracked editing page count, but that one can be flaky because I chop and change so much that the page count can go down as much as it goes up. But having solid goals of ‘I will edit at least 1k an hour’ is really helping me out of my editing hole.
So this month, I’m going to keep going with timed writing sprints and timed intervals (using my beloved Tomighty timer app, though I might try and use the Android app Forest for this purpose too and see how that goes).
Let’s go! Onwards to this month’s goal of 30k words and a finished draft!
Gaming
I’m still playing Mystic Messenger. This month’s route: the traumatic backstory for the sunniest boy of the group, and the K-drama behind the rich catmum and corporate heir. The rich corporate cat-fancier’s route was… weird, and definitely as far from my cuppa tea as you can get. But now I’m moving towards the end of adorable hacker/secret agent 707’s route, so it’s going to be a fun way to start the month.
Life, the Universe and Everything
It’s peak cherry blossom season here in Scotland, and I have been LOVING IT. This is one of my favourite times of the year: not too hot yet, not too many midges, and I get to live my best anime life with cherry blossoms everywhere around.
I lost my exercise groove a bit towards the start of the year, but I got it back this month with my spinning routine and skating routine! June is looking trickier, unfortunately, with a change in skating times, a bit of work travel, and some troubling knee pains that I’m going to try and address with strength training… but I’m going to hang in there and do my best.
I finally got the hang of one-foot glides in roller derby! Feeling super good about that. And there was a new members intake yesterday so I got to meet some awesome new skaters, who all had great skills straight off the bat. I’m looking forward to seeing them again at other sessions.
Dave helped clean up Forres river! He was amazing, and I watched from the banks because I was too chicken to brave the river. He was awesome.
Food food food
Okay, so, time for me to fess up: despite having weight loss goals for every month this year, I’ve not been meeting them. I’ve been fairly lax about my food choices over the last months, buying in too much white chocolate, alcohol and ice cream (…which isn’t a problem in itself, it’s more the speed at which I make both things disappear).
So we’re both getting back into the healthy meal game, as well as the meal-prepping game. May was a month of slowly getting back into the flow of eating healthy and not keeping too many temptations in, and that’ll continue into June.
Dungeons ‘n Doggos
It’s weird thinking that I only had my first Dungeons & Dragons game this April, because we’ve been having games weekly recently and it’s become a regular part of my life. I’m really loving it: in Campaign 1 (‘Murderhobos’) my traumatised teen warlock is still fumbling around to find her place in the world, while in Campaign 2 (‘The Trio Not Terrible/TNT’) I’m playing an awkward half-orc fighter gal who’s also a WERESHARK.
I’ve been keeping her shark form under wraps for a couple of weeks and I finally got to unleash her last Friday. YESSSSS SHARK POWERS ACTIVATE.
That’s about it for May recap! It wasn’t all sunshine and cherry blossoms, mind: work was incredibly busy and complex, and I had a few moments of overwhelming frustration at my stalled Roller Derby progress and stalled weight loss.
My elderly neighbours also had an accident late in the month which lead to a very stressful Bank Holiday night, most-midnight… I won’t go into details, but if you ever have a chance to learn first-aider skills, please take it. This is the second occasion where my office first-aider course has helped me in the middle of a terrifying and unexpected situation outside of work.
My Goals for June
Next month: MORE WORDS! Let’s go!
I also neglected my in-progress reading pile a bit a LOT so I’m going to spend a chunk of time this month getting through all the awesome books I’m in the middle of.
My goals:
- Write 30k
- Finish Divide draft. I’ll be using timed sprints to get this done.
- Be ready to quick-draft Leviathan book over CampNaNo in July.
- Beta Read #1 – for J
- Beta Read #2 – for T
- Roller Derby: Figure out crossovers.
- Health: Work on quad muscles, hips and glutes using Strong Curves strength training.
- Health: Lose five pounds.
- Create art
- Read 6 books, focusing on finishing my in-progress reads.