In Review: February

Since it’s the last day of February and I’m trying to do anything to distract from the fact that we still haven’t heard about Jonathan’s job change, I figured I would briefly review my accomplishments for the month of February.

Travels: Ski trip to Breckenridge Colorado.

Recipes: Two new easy and scrumptious recipes have been added to my arsenal: Greek Pastitsio Casserole and Chicken Tortilla Soup.

Reading: I read 3.5 books this month: The Girls from Ames, The Paris Wife, and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. I’m  currently stuck halfway through Swamplandia! By Karen Russel and I just can’t seem to get hooked. I’ll give it a few more days before giving up, but if I’m still not intrigued, I will move on to March’s reading list of Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and Beach Music by Pat Conroy .

Writing: As for my writing goal of 20,000 words per month, that’s been a pretty colossal failure. I have been writing a blog post every weekday which has helped my word count and my blog, but being as though blog posts average about 400 words per post, this doesn’t keep me on track for such a lofty goal. Plus, it reminds me every day that my life is not that interesting and I have the feeling the continuing to blog at this rate is a bit of a stretch. I don’t know how long I can keep it up, especially since I’m running up against a particularly nasty case of writer’s block.

Once I shake off my funk and start working on some short story/novel/essay ideas I have, I think 20,000 words per month might be more realistic. I just don’t want to start in my current uninspired state of mind. That’s my excuse this week anyhow.  With twelve hours left in the month, I’ve currently written in the ball park of 13,000 words. All in all, I’d call it a pretty good month.

A little inspiration

Recently I was inspired by this blogpost by Chris Gillbeau on how to write 300,000 words a year. Chris is a go-to read for quick inspiration whether it’s in regards to travel, writing, or challenging societal norms. In this particular post, he mostly he encourages his readers to be self-disciplined enough to write 1000 words a day, six days a week.

It made me feel validated for starting a blog as a means to practice writing. Even if it’s terrible and nobody reads it, it is productive as part of a larger goal. So I’ve decided that in addition to my goal of reading two books a month, I will also write 5,000 words a week. Some of my best writing came when I was forced to write due to a deadline or class assignment.

From now on, I will hold myself to the same level of accountability and challenge myself to write more every day. Seriously, if I can make time to watch How I met Your Mother, I can surely carve out 30 minutes to keep my writing muscles toned. And it really is achievable. In this post alone, I’ve contributed 205 more words to my weekly total. Baby steps.