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.

ROW80 Round 8: 3rd Update

Surprisingly enough, I have actually been quite productive this week. Really, it is surprising, because a) I've still been in a lot of pain with my knee injury, b) I bought a new book to read and c) I bought a new Nintendo DS game (I wasn't going to because I didn't want to distract myself and I thought I should save my money for knee-related expenses, but they had it on sale at work and I got some extra work from uni so I had to buy it :D). Any of these things on their own would usually be enough to have me procrastinating til the cows come home (MOOOOOO!), but somehow I'm managed to ration both my reading and game-playing time and mark just under two thirds of the assignments that were submitted last week. I am hoping to get all of them finished by Friday night, as that is when all the assignments for my other subject are due, so I'll have to get started on those ones next :) And, after my two classes on Friday, the semester is over, so I'll have a lot more free time, which I am sorely looking forward to.

Also, I somehow got myself nominated for a Teaching Excellence Award, which was pretty cool and definitely helped make a crappy week less crappy. I most likely won't win since I'm sure there are other academics out there who are more experienced and/or have more nominations than me, but it is a nice confidence boost. Even though I don't have much chance of actually winning, I'm still going to fill in the application (there are a bunch of forms to fill out) just on the off chance it was a slow year for nominations, because the award money could help me pay for knee specialist consultations/MRIs/surgery etc.

On the writing front; I didn't write anything today because I was marking, but I did get in a few hundred words on my main work in progress on Monday and Tuesday night. It sucks that I am unable to go to my normal part time job because of my knee, but I suppose it does give me a little extra time for writing (on the whole, I'd rather be able to walk without the use of a cane and earn money, though). One of my sidelined WiPs (a steampunk fantasy) has also been rattling around in my head again lately, seemingly vying for my attention to be my NaNoWriMo project. At this stage I'm still planning to work on Dark and Silent Waters for NaNo, but I may still dabble in the steampunk one if my muse takes me in that direction. Provided I have finished my first lot of marking, I am going to set aside Saturday as a creative day, where I will do nothing but draw, paint and/or work on my novel (either actually writing it or fixing up the outline, both need doing).

I think Judgemental Dog approves (sort of) of my game-playing and book-reading:

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ROW80 Round 8: 2nd Update

This week has been a bit of a wreck... Literally. On my way to uni on Monday, my train was delayed because of an accident on the line, and the replacement bus I was on got hit by a truck, resulting in a concussion and dislocated knee for me (it wasn't a hard impact, but it was enough to jolt the bus and make me lose my footing, dislocating my knee as I tried to stop myself falling and then hitting my head as I fell anyway :(  ) I still managed to get to my class, though, as well as taking my class on Tuesday morning, but by the time I got home I was in so much pain that I had to take some of my strongest painkillers, which made me kind of fuzzy-headed and reduced my mental capacity to that of a brain-damaged goldfish. Plus the concussion meant that the slightest little thing reduced me to state of incoherent rage and despair, so I thought it best to just step away from the computer lol To be fair, I've had a problem with that knee for a good ten years - this is probably the 7th time I've dislocated it since the original karate injury - and it's got so weak and unstable that someone just has to fart next to it and that will blow it out of alignment, but I was hoping to be able to put off going to the specialist for another few months...

I spent most of yesterday and this morning alternating between staring vacantly at my screen and catching up on various admin tasks for uni, though I did squeeze in an hour or so of writing yesterday and half an hour this morning, which produced about 700 words and 300 words respectively, so at least I've made the weekly limit I'd set for myself. Rex keeps nudging his leash and then standing beside me and staring at me with guilt lasers in his eyes, but unfortunately the goal of walking him twice weekly will be on hold for a while; even with my walking stick, I'm not capable of much more than an awkward, shuffling power-waddle, so I wouldn't be able to keep up with an impatient German Shepherd :) The rest of today will be spent formatting a sample exam for students, and after that, it will all just be a blur of assignment marking.

And there's a new Nintendo DS game out today that I really want (Pokemon Black 2) and because I'll be spending money on physio, I won't be able to buy it for ages >:( I know I probably won't have time to play it anyway, but still... Bugger #firstworldproblems haha

Judgemental Dog seems to have let the power go to his head:

 See how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 8: 1st Update

Well, it's been a hectic first week of this ROW80 round. It feels like I spent most of the time either at uni or marking uni assignments. Luckily there are only two weeks left of semester, so even though I'll have assignments to mark, I won't have classes, which will free up some time (and energy). After I'd finished marking assignments, I ended up on YouTube (the great procrastination tool of the Internet) and, as usual, found myself watching music videos that bore no relation to whatever I'd gone there for originally. One of those videos was this one:

Yes, I know it's full of 90s pop-music terri-bad (though that black sequined outfit is equal parts bizarre and epic), but strangely enough it got me thinking about my novel (normally I'd feel that gothic/symphonic metal matches the plot better, but apparently my brain has other ideas). Leaving aside the video's laughably awful 'plot' (eg. I'm pretty sure the life support machine would work better if it was actually attached to the dude in some way haha), the characters almost echo the three key players in Dark and Silent Waters; we have the bat-shit insane evil lady/ruler of death who is determined to steal the soul of an innocent man, with his life depending on the strength and determination of the woman who loves him. I also like the 'monologue' from the Death character, which sounds like something the antagonist of DASW would say, if she were in the habit of bursting into 90s pop songs.

In other news, Rex is still on his medication for his bowel disease, but he seems to be responding pretty well, his dose has been lowered to three times a week instead of once daily. He is his normal happy, bouncy self, even if he's starting to slow down a bit with age, and we're hoping that this round of medication will knock his disease out entirely, though more realistically - as the vet says - we'll probably have to keep him on a low dose for the rest of his life.

Anyway, goal progress so far:

• Write 500 words on Wednesdays and Thursdays: Didn't write on Wednesday or Thursday because I was marking assignments and I had to do preparation work for my Friday classes. My old man deciding to renovate the kitchen (and being as noisy and disruptive about it as humanly possible) has delayed me a bit, as it is impossible to concentrate with him hammering and pulling things apart and swearing every five minutes. (update: managed to write about 300 words today, better than nothing)
• Come up with PhD idea: Sort of. Have been discussing it with lecturer and have been throwing a few concepts around, but still haven't really settled on one. Really need to sort this out quickly. Have started putting together a vague document for my research proposal.
• Do 1 painting/drawing each week: No artwork done, but I have done another colour chart for some new pastels I got, which will be used in a review on my other blog.
• Keep up to date with assignment marking: Yep :) Have marked all submitted assignments to date. This week my students are all doing presentations, which means less preparation work, but both subjects have large assignments due at the end of this week and next week, so after that I will be snowed under with marking.
• Keep up to date with research assistant duties: So far yes, though admittedly there hasn't been that much to do at this stage.
• Walk Rex twice a week: He got a walk on Wednesday but not on Thursday; my knee injuries were playing up and I thought that being dragged along by an impatient German Shepherd probably wouldn't help :D

Judgemental Dog lays on the guilt trip:

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ROW80 Round 8: Goals and Musings

I can predict with almost 100% certainty that I will get off to a pretty slow start this Round, but I'm hoping to get a lot more done in the second half. Next week will be a bit better since the students for both subjects are doing presentations, which means I don't have nearly as much preparation work to do for classes, but at the end of the week, both subjects also have (large) written assignments due, so the week or two after that will be consumed by marking (kill me now haha), as well as bits and pieces for the usability testing I'm helping out with as a research assistant (which should be good experience for when I'm doing my PhD). After that, things should get easier.

Anyway, my goals will be broken up for the first and second parts of the round, ie. The first month, when I'm still busy with uni stuff, and the remaining months, when things should hopefully have settled down with uni (though it will be getting busier at my retail job).

So, Part 1 Goals (Oct 1-Oct 26):

• Write 500 words on Wednesdays and Thursdays
• Come up with PhD ideas (must be done before mid October if I'm to have time to submit a decent research proposal)
• Do 1 painting/drawing each week (doesn't have to be a finished piece, can just be a sketch)
• Keep up to date with assignment marking
• Keep up to date with research assistant duties
• Walk Rex twice a week

Part 2 Goals (Oct 27-Dec 20):

• Write 500 words every day
• Do 3 paintings/drawings each week (again, can just be sketches)
• NaNoWriMo (?) If I do this, I'm going to 'cheat' and work on my novel in progress, Dark and Silent Waters, instead of starting a new novel like we're supposed to. I just feel like that's a better use of my writing time and energy.
• Walk Rex every weekday

I was hoping to come into this round refreshed and relaxed, but that hasn't happened... Last week was the mid-semester break when I was hoping to have time to myself (which is something I really need; I can only tolerate a certain amount of human interaction and I have long since exhausted my supply for now), but as usual, the more I wanted to be left alone, the more people kept getting in my face. I also learned the important lesson of "Do Not Post Opinions On The Internet That Are Different To Other People's". Not that it will stop me - I don't see why I should respect other people's opinions if they think I don't have the right to my own - but it was interesting (and a little amusing) to see some of the reactions I got. Ah well... I suppose it keeps me from being bored, though it would have been nice to just kick back a bit :)

Also, I managed to get one more drawing done since the last Round (yep, just one... Family and academia keep getting in my way):

As always, my faithful companion Judgemental Dog will be overseeing my writing antics :)

See what other ROW80ers are up to here.

ROW80 Round 7: Final Update

I've missed the last several check-ins but I was at least able to make the final one :) I finally finished my marking after another bout of illness set me back a whole week, and I have about a week and a half before my next assignments come in. Next week is the semester break so I will finally have time to relax and do more writing and painting. I haven't done any writing or painting since last check-in apart from late last night and this evening, when I managed to squeeze in a few hundred extra words for my novel. I had one of those awesome moments where I was aimlessly browsing YouTube and stumbled across a music video that provided some much needed creative inspiration, so I've been hurriedly jotting down notes for scenes that I'll be able to write later.

I'm also contemplating whether or not I'll do NaNoWriMo this year (I know it's more than a month away, but still...). I do like the idea of just doing nothing but writing for a month (in my case it will be a bit less than a month, as I'll still have exam marking etc to do in early November), but I'm not sure it really suits the way I write. NaNoWriMo is mainly about just letting yourself go and writing and not editing, even if it's rubbish, and I can't really make myself do that; I would rather go a bit slower and try to concentrate more on quality than quantity. I did NaNoWrimo in 2010 and got 50,000 words, but I only ended up keeping about 12,000. I'd rather write slower and just get, say, 20,000 words and be able to keep a larger percentage of it. Plus, technically for NaNoWriMo you have to start a completely new novel and I'd rather keep working on Dark and Silent Waters (I have other story ideas/fragments but DASW is the one that I really care about, really want to see finished). Eh, I'll probably end up NaNo-ing anyway, if for no other reason than it will give me an excuse to consume insane amounts of chocolate and energy drinks without feeling guilty :D

Anyway, I'm off to try to do a quick drawing before going to bed. One day of uni tomorrow and then holidays :)

(edit to update: finally managed to get some art done :D This is my first soft pastel drawing, a pear drawn in Faber-Castell and Rembrandt pastels)

Judgemental Dog has his priorities right:

Find out how the other ROW80ers went this round. See you next round!

ROW80 Round 7: 10th Update

Well, I'm finally starting to feel reasonably healthy again, just in time for the nice spring weather :) (it seems weird looking out the window and not seeing black clouds and torrential rain). Fairly short update this week; I wrote 500 words on Friday and Saturday and have finished one batch of marking, though now I have a second lot to keep me busy. My students for both subjects don't have assignments due til the end of semester now, so hopefully the next few weeks will be a bit quieter, giving me more time for writing and painting.

I've also dug out my folder with all my papers in it from last year for my Honours thesis. I'm hoping that going through it will give me some ideas for my PhD thesis. The deadline for applying for a scholarship is at the end of October, which is a while away, but I'm wary of time getting away from me; plus, once I come up with my idea, I still need to write it up properly as a research proposal. I've also decided that if I do get a scholarship, I'm going to get myself a tablet PC. I know I don't need one, but I have been wanting one for a while, and it would be pretty handy to take to uni, instead of my bulky laptop or big folders of paper. Haven't decided what type I'll get, though... Any suggestions?

Words of wisdom from Judgemental Dog:

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