Progress Report: Week 5, June 2017

This report is later than it should be, but here you go, anyway. Last week, I continued to work on being more disciplined about my writing, and added walking back into the routine. I also tried to be a bit more pro-active about blogging, prepping a couple more Writing Life entries, writing two poems and two pieces of flash a day, and trying to work through the priority list without dropping the ball on my RPG project. It hasn’t been easy, I can tell you, and I’m afraid Babes suffered for it, but progress was still made.
 

Week 5 Progress

• New words produced: 27,605
• Outlines and Notes: 0
• Works completed: 19 (7 poems, 12 flash fiction)
• Works edited: 1 (Ellie’s novella)
• Covers created: 0
• Works published: 0
• Works submitted: 0
• Competitions Entered: 0
• Bloggery: 880
• University Prep and Assignments: N/A

I looked back over June, which was a bit disjointed as I tried to get myself together, and this is what I found I’d managed:
 

Overall Progress for June 2017

• New words produced: 73,277
• Outlines and Notes: 1,281
• Works completed: (1 YA novel, 30 poems, 17 flash fiction)
• Works edited: 0
• Covers created: 0
• Works published: 0
• Works submitted: 0
• Competitions Entered: 0
• Bloggery: 1,281
• University Prep and Assignments: N/A

Writing News

Last week saw the release of Just a Dinosaur, my dark urban fantasy, maybe science fiction, short story set in the Australian bush.

The legends hinted at some kind of dinosaur. Oliver hoped it was a new species, and he had Nate believing him. Together, they hope to circumvent the prohibitions of intruding on a sacred site, to prove the creature existed—and all without their boss, and Nate’s lover, finding out. What exactly lies behind the legends—and, more importantly, will they be able to reveal it to the world?

While I didn’t manage the two poems and two pieces of flash, early in the week, but worked it out about half-way through. I also increased the flash to three pieces a day in order to bring those projects back on track. The same went for work on Babes; I struggled to fit it in until about Wednesday, when I caught on to doing these little bits and pieces first thing in the morning—otherwise I’d get my teeth into the bigger projects and just not get back to them.

You might have also noticed that I’ve started to put up blog pieces more regularly (and I don’t mean just the entries for Babes, which will stop when that project reaches its completion). It’s something I’ve been trying to do for a while, so I’ve added it into the bits ‘n/ bobs part of the day.

In addition to that, I also managed to complete my 10,000 words, continue Babes, continue a daily walk habit, chase Ellie for her January novella, and write 2 pieces of flash and poetry a day.

June-July Challenge: Babes in London

Last week saw me get this project back on track in spite of the changes I’ve been making to my daily routine. This hasn’t worked so well, with July deadlines now past due, and August deadlines looming, but I started on Act 4 and realised I’d have to complete the Act by July 21 so I could add in the Preparation sections. This week I completed the first flashback scene, and the first modern day interaction scene, adding only about 2,000 words.

Ingress Updates

This week’s Ingress consisted of lots of walking as I focussed on getting back into walking, and writing some consistent hours. Many fields were cast in the early part of this week, and a number of Enlightened agents were kind enough to take them down, again, so I had something to do the next day… they did stop doing this for me, part-way during the week, though, so I was forced to go farther afield as the week progressed – and then I had to stop as Life happened, and the Enlightened really started taking back their ground. <sigh> Well, at least I have something to do for next week.

Here's a shot of the view at one of the locations I was able to visit last week. It's winter here in Oz, so the trees are a bit bare, and the sunshine's deceptive, but it was a beautiful day, nonetheless.

PokemonGo Updates

This week’s PokemonGo continued where last week had left off. I continued exploring the new systems Niantic had put in place, and found I quite liked them. I also discovered just how much fun it was to be able to hatch more than one pokemon at a time—thanks to the limited-use incubators you get when you hit Level 30. I’m wondering how many gyms I need to hold, and for how long, to keep myself in incubators. 10k eggs, and an extra incubator, notwithstanding, I did, however, run out of extra incubators by Thursday. It was a lot of fun while it lasted, though.

Medals earned this week include the bronze level of Berry Master, the silver level of Gym Defender, and the gold level of Johto, thanks to a newly evolved Ursaring.

This week's new addition to the Johto and Kanto pokedexes were both evolutions. Here they are:

 

I was pretty disappointed, however, with not being able to participate in local raids, due to some kind of glitch, which I blogged about earlier. However, Niantic is aware of the problem, and is working on it, as can be found HERE.

Other News

In addition to everything else, I tried to get back into languages, but this is going to be a bit sporadic. I’ve started learning German, but I’m working through the activities in Indonesian, Russian, and French as I go, and this slows things down somewhat--although, it does allow me to consolidate the vocabulary across the four, and allows me to compare differences in grammar as I go.

Priorities for Week 1, July 2017

This week’s priorities are as follows:

• Prepare Ellie’s novella, The Contract for Print-on-Demand via CreateSpace;
• Put Ellie’s novella, The Contract up for pre-order;
• Edit my science fiction-fantasy novel, Freeman’s Choice;
• Format the CreateSpace version for Freeman’s Choice;
• Publish Freeman’s Choice for pre-order, prior to its August release;
• Begin final edit and format for C.M. Simpson: Short Works from 2014 and 2015, Volume 3