ROW80 2013:3 Goals and 1st Update

Here I am returning to ROW80 after sitting out for the last Round and a half. I know, I know... I crashed and burned back in January and pretty much fell off the face of the earth in ROW80 circles. For the first half of this year, I did very little writing, aside from a few small bursts of intense productivity. Some of that was probably due to increased workload from both jobs, but some was because of the Self Doubt Monster rearing its ugly head. But now I am hoping to change that by starting to write regularly again, even if it's only a small amount. I've written 4,000 words today, probably spurred on by the fact that this is my first full day off in months, but I need to keep that momentum, or at least some of it, if I'm ever going to get this manuscript finished.

So, here are my goals for this round:
Creative Goals 

• Write at least 500 words per week: Yes, this is a pretty small amount; some might say too small. But in light of what will be a much higher work load this year, I'm wary of setting too high a word count in case I can't reach it, which will make me feel all guilty and self-loathy which will probably affect my academic progress in a vicious circle of suckiness. 500 words is probably doable in an hour or two, which shouldn't make me feel too guilty about writing when I should be researching/studying/marking or whatever.
• Do one painting or drawing each week: This is a tentative goal, but I'd like to at least try to re-hone my artistic skills, even if it's just with small sketches.

Academic Goals

• Begin research on PhD topic: I officially started my PhD last Friday. I sort of have a rough idea of what I'm doing for my thesis, but need to refine it and put together background research, as well as clarifying my actual research question. Because I am doing my PhD full time I am expecting my progress in other aspects of life to be be relatively limited due to time/energy constraints.
• Teaching stuff: We finished exam marking earlier this week and the next semester doesn't start til the end of July, so no goals here yet.
• Research assistant stuff: Ongoing work where I'm doing some new graphics for an educational website. Still need to get the necessary software on my computer, though. (actually, need to upgrade computer because this one is on its last legs)

Health Goals

• 20 minutes slow exercise-bike riding per day: My knee is still crap, and it looks like it always will be (at this stage the surgeon has essentially said, "Yes, your knee is buggered, but not quite buggered enough to warrant an operation at this stage"). I'm limited to non-weight-bearing types of exercise but I still need to maintain my fitness somehow. I can at least walk (mostly) normally, though I still have to wear the knee brace and use the walking stick, and slopes give me a lot of grief.

As always, Judgemental Dog will be along for the ride:

To see how other ROW80ers are going, click here.

ROW80 2013 Round 1: 1st Update

This week was fairly uneventful in terms of progress; I managed to stay just ahead in some areas and fall just behind in others. I would have liked to make more progress, but it was a bit of a trying week, so I'm happy with what I did. The dog crashed into me while trying to escape from the vacuum cleaner, so that screwed my knee up a bit (more than it already was), and it seems like my car has decided that this is the year it will go to the great big garage in the sky. It likes to stall when the petrol kicks over to gas, though I have managed to device a series of tapping revs that seems to (barely) prevent it from doing so. I did get a delivery of art supplies from America on Friday, so that made the week a bit better :)

Anyway, goal progress so far:

Creative Goals

• Write at least 250 words per day: Most days I have doubled this for Dark and Silent Waters, and have generally managed as many words on my other untitled project as well.
• Do at least one painting or drawing per week: Nope :( All of our kitchen furniture was moved into the lounge room while we had new lino put down, and since the lounge room is the only place I have room to spread out my art supplies at the best of times, I had nowhere to paint.
• Maintain writing/art blog: One post done, another in progress.

Academic Goals

• NA.

Health Goals

• 10 minutes slow exercise-bike riding per day: Monday and Tuesday only; my Dad moved the exercise bike out of the kitchen while we were getting new floors done, and when I went to the garage to use it, he'd piled heaps of other crap on top of it.
• 30 minutes swimming per week: Nope :( That will earn me a nip from Judgemental Dog...
• Go through one sheet of physio knee exercises per day: Every day except Friday and Saturday (knee was too sore/unstable).
• Only one piece of chocolate and one energy drink per week: On track so far.

So, no actual drawing this week, but to make up for it, here's a photo of my furry art studio supervisor examining my new art supplies (judgementally, of course):

The house is more or less back to normal now, so this week I should actually be able to get some proper drawing done. Though Tuesday is out, since I'll be going in to uni for a meeting with one of my PhD supervisors. Need to try to ask a few questions about my scholarship etc, since the amount of time I'll need off following knee surgery could complicate things.

Judgemental Dog wants everyone to succeed this round:

See how other ROW80ers are doing here.

ROW80 2013 Round 1: Goals and Grievances

Here I am, slinking back into ROW80 with my tail between my legs. Yep. I crashed and burned in Round 4 last year, and I bombed out of NaNoWriMo with only around 11,000 words. I managed to juggle all my academic goals but by the time I did that, I often found myself with no creative energy; as a result, I'd stare at my sketchbook or blank screen on my computer and accomplish nothing but feeling guilty over my lack of progress.

The main problem, however, was my knee. About a month after I'd injured it in the bus/truck accident - it was just starting to get better - I returned to work and was ambling around in my department, minding my own business, when some woman's psychotic kid crashed into my knee full force and caused it to dislocate again. After another two weeks off, I returned to work again, but I am on modified duties and can only work limited hours. I also have to wear a knee brace and I need a walking stick to get around, as my knee still gives out on me at times and cannot be trusted to reliably bear my weight. As someone who used to do karate (I was training for my 2nd Dan Black Belt when I had to quit because of my knee in 2007) and used to be fairly fit in general, this is incredibly frustrating. You don't realise how much you take basic things like the ability to run for granted until you can't do them anymore. I can't even take Rex for a walk.

I have seen a surgeon already, and though I have to wait until I have an MRI at the end of January before I can go back and get a better idea of the costs/procedure etc required, it looks like I am going to require fairly significant surgery on both knees (the right one will be first as it is in much worse condition). Basically, my bones are out of alignment, which means the back of my kneecaps have been wearing the wrong way, my kneecaps are too small and my ligaments are too loose, so there's pretty much nothing to hold everything in place. The surgeon estimates I'll be looking at a recovery time of six months, so organising that around my uni commitments will be fun...

I will be starting my PhD this year and I was lucky enough to qualify for a scholarship, which will be a huge help; however, since both academics I've chosen as my supervisors are on leave for semester one, I probably won't be starting until June. I know I must be crazy to be taking on full-time research - it will cut into my writing and painting time even more - but what is life without some craziness :)

So... Goals.

Though I won't be starting my own studies until mid year, I will most likely be teaching in first semester, which begins in early March. This means that, though the last month of Round 1 will be focused more on academic goals, it will still give me nearly two months before that of just working on my creative goals. I also want to add in some health-related goals. My main desire, though, is to get back to writing regularly. As so often happens, I have fallen out of the habit of doing a small amount of writing every day and have somehow ended up doing a few days with intense word counts (2-3,000) and then going several days or even a week without writing a single word.

Creative Goals

• Write at least 250 words per day (possibly drop this to twice a week once uni starts). The first 250 words must be on Dark and Silent Waters; anything after that can either be on DASW or on my brain poo project (a term coined by one of my writing course friends, "brain poo" essentially refers to doing a 'conscious dump' of ideas, forsaking attempts at elegance in favour of just getting the ideas out of your head and onto paper/screen).
• Do at least one painting or drawing per week. It can be any medium, just as long as I make some sort of artwork. It will most likely be acrylic, watercolour or pastel, since those seem to be what take my fancy at the moment; my coloured pencil collection lies largely abandoned.
• Maintain writing/art blog. I've done a few book reviews and a few art supply reviews, and though I've been updating some of the art supply comparisons, the blog is kind of idle. I already have some posts lined up for more art supply reviews/comparisons, but I want to be more active with my posting.

Academic Goals

• To be determined, but for Round 1 will basically just entail keeping up with class preparation and assignment marking etc., as well as PhD preparation work (maybe).

Health Goals

• 10 minutes slow exercise-bike riding per day, to try to restore cardio fitness.
• 30 minutes swimming per week (twice a week if my knee can take it).
• Go through one sheet of physio knee exercises per day. I have become lax with this recently because of the pain in my knee, but I really need to start trying to at least strengthen the muscles around my knees again, as the stronger it is before I have surgery, the faster (hopefully) I will heal.
• Only one piece of chocolate and one energy drink per week. Being the sugarholic that I am, this will be the hardest, but I look at it this way; it will save me money on energy drinks and chocolate and hopefully on dental bills as well, giving me more to spend on art supplies life expenses.

So there we have it. I will probably update only once a week, unless anything out of the ordinary happens.

And, of course, Judgemental Dog will be beside me every step of the way (especially when there's food involved).

See other ROW80ers' goals here.