Between work on finishing up my NanoNovel (at 76K words and still going), working on some editing for the Wayfinder fanzine, and my father-in-law being in the hospital, I've been going a little crazy.

Obviously I won Nano, and am trying to finish the novel soonly rather than let it just sit as I have too often before.

But before that, because the deadline is really tight, I'm going to try to get some of the Wayfinder stuff edited. If I can get at least one of the pieces edited tonight, maybe I can try to get another 1000 words written on the novel too and get it at least closer to done.

Father-in-law is home from the hospital, which is good. Tomorrow is Living Forgotten Realms at Modern Myths - my hubby and I do that together as a date night, so no editing or writing will happen tomorrow, which means Friday will be dominated by editing for Wayfinder.

Currently catching up at work... morning was emails (over 200 to sort through), now that I've finished that part I'm to action items based on the emails and then work on winter housing for the international students.

Lots to do! (I may come back and linkify some of this later, no time right now)

I crossed the victory line for National Novel Writing Month on Monday at our weekly write-in. The story isn't done, but with almost two weeks left in the month, I expect that I will be able to finish it and maybe even move on to finishing an older project too.

Last night I took a break, watched NCIS, and read a book.

I also hit old insomnia territory, finally laying down sometime past two. I managed an hour or two of fitful sleep somewhere in the night and woke up at the usual time to get to work today. I should be exhausted. I'm not. I know what that means and it's not exactly good. The problem with going up is that inevitably you go back down. If you're really lucky, you hit stable, if you're not the floor of the depression usually drops... significantly.

Writing has been off the last few days, despite my best efforts. None-the-less, I have reached a healthy 32,500 words, and assuming I get another 900 words tonight, which is likely, I'll hit my word count for the day without issue, putting me fully nine days ahead.

I still both love and hate my story line and my character and am wondering what direction it is going in. I'm hoping the characters will tell me soon, since I should in theory be just about 2/3 of the way through.

Anyway, that's it, just writing.

I'm in the midst of National Novel Writing Month and working constantly day in and day out to keep my word count up to snuff.

Okay, that's a wee little lie. I'm actually about five days ahead due to some strategic planning and a well-placed vacation day, despite being unable to work on my writing yesterday. The novel is titled "13th Past Midnight" and it explores a shared world concept created in private by the Were_Cabbages. A few other cabbages are also hard at work on stories integrating the concept, though none of the others are doing so specifically for Nano.

I'm happy, mostly, with the story so far. That means it's either very, very good... or that I'm completely off my gourd. I'm not really sure which. My little brother has also decided to participate in noveling, a pleasant surprise and I hope he's able to follow through with it. As frustrating as Nano can be sometimes, it's also among the most rewarding things that I do for myself, and really only for myself, every year.

I'm doing my best to keep balanced... to eat lunch even in the face of the need to write on workdays, to spend time with my husband (for us this means playing some Dungeons & Dragons together), and try not to obsess about whether the novel is perfect. My inner editor has been banging on my door all week and finally broke through yesterday... not incoincidentally my worst writing day so far... to convince me the book so far sucks.

I'm ignoring it as best I can and keeping going. At 18039 words I'm a mere 300 words from being officially five days ahead of the expected word count, and I still have some writing time this evening to work on it. The story is still flowing and making some progress, so I'm curious to see where it leads me.

[EDIT: PS - I'm perfectly aware that I'm paradoxically saying that I'm happy with the story and convinced it sucks. This is nano and in my experience, perfectly normal.]

I know I'm too stressed when I go out for lunch but don't manage to get lunch. Instead I got a package of Reeses Big Cups. These monstrosities are basically the size of 2 peanut butter cups stacked on top of each other. A package is six individually wrapped pieces. All six pieces are now gone, about a half hour after returning from my lunch-but-not-lunch.

GAH! No wonder I've gained back so much weight! I really envy all those people who claim to enjoy exercise right now.

I'm in the rare state of having a decent idea of what to write for Nano, but not yet being able to start. I worry, as I think most writers do, that I have the ideas now but that they will flee from me on Sunday when the writing begins in earnest.

I had the shortness of breath problem the doctors still haven't been able to pin down again this morning. There's some decent chance that it is weight related and I'm nervous about that, because I really don't want to go on a diet... but I really need to.

I now weigh 380, meaning that I've gained back 82% of the weight I lost five years ago. I know, I know... that puts me WAY ahead of the curve (I should have gained back all of it and gained a couple more pounds on top of it within a year), but all that effort lost. And worst of all, even losing all that weight I couldn't reach my goal of being able to shop at Filenes (okay, it's Macy's now, but you get the point).

Is it so much to want a 38 inch waist? I'm not sure I can bear being hungry all the time... AGAIN. I may have to. I'm concerned that I'm starting to have some sleep apnea issues, and those went away last time I lost the weight. For that matter, most of the shortness of breath went away too.

Anyway, those concerns will have to wait. five days til nano. Soon the writing will begin.

Nano is approaching and I am going in with some nervousness. I've been working with a friend from the WereCabbages on the possibility of doing Nano collaboratively this year, but as with any long distance project, this has some challenges... also, creative projects can be really difficult to do collaboratively... especially projects like nano, where your entire design can go wonky if you get stuck at any point.

Also, my little brother won't be joining me this year... he has a one year old and some other responsibilities that will take him away from it this year.

On that note: I saw the little bro last night - we had a nice dinner at a local restaurant and I finally got to meet the nephew. We had a great time and I wish it was something we could do more often... he's nearby but works an opposite schedule with a different weekend, which makes getting together tough.

I'm playing catchup at work with one of the websites I'm responsible for, which is frustrating. We'll see how that goes, hopefully I'll have a handle on it and be back on schedule next week while my boss is taking vaca and the students are away on fall break.

I had a pretty good day yesterday. Went to a full day seminar on keeping organized, had lunch at the old haunt (BK Page Blvd, where I worked as the senior crew trainer for ... longer than I like to think about), and had a nice dinner with Ron at Pizzaria Uno. After dessert we came home and watched the end of Season 8 of smallville.

All in all a pretty decent day. Now if I can just keep that momentum going...

I'm a little disgusted with myself today. I know I've been struggling with some issues of depression, but I didn't think I'd let it get this bad. And then I stepped on the scale this morning.

380 pounds.

I've been worse before. But this marks the point where I've regained a full 100 pounds of the massive weight loss that I achieved just five years ago.

There are a lot of culprits. Lack of vigilance, coping strategies for depression that are focused on food, a total lack of exercise for the past year... these are things that are all individually understandable, but taken together... I mean, I knew I had gained weight, but this means that I've basically gained another 40 pounds.

Just feeling a little frustrated at the moment.

Thankfully it isn't the flu, but I've been out of work for most of the past two weeks with some strange cold/flu like illness. Doctors can't say for certain whether it's viral or bacterial, but they were unsure enough to give me a course of antibiotics, which they tend to be a bit reluctant to do. I'm in good company, seems everyone is getting sick, but it's frustrating. I've been back to work for a few days and I'm only just getting back on my feet. My inbox is starting to look almost feasible and I'm getting, slowly, caught up.

I'd normally spend a lot of the time sick on the computer, but this time I stuck to watching Designing Women on DVD and reading the Complete Chronicles of Conan. I'm still feeling a bit wiped out, but it's getting better. At least now it's just a little rawness in the throat and lack of energy.

August is a crazy time for me. With the last preparations for incoming students at full tilt, escaping at all is a minor miracle. Escaping for a second vacation, even a short one, is usually impossible.

This year, thanks to a peculiarly late start of classes, I was able to manage it and flew off to Indiana with Ron to attend GenCon. I had hoped to post about my adventures there... I had a lot of fun, mingled with the Paizo crowd, played some games, picked up the new Pathfinder RPG (essentially 3.5 D&D with some "smoothing" fixes to make play run a little easier and fix some aspects of 3.5 that sometimes stopped the game for many players -- like grappling), and got to have the usual fun at the WereCabbage "Are you a Werewolf" dinner.

Unfortunately when I got back the craziness of arrival had hit a fever pitch and there was little time for anything. I hope to remedy that and post a little more often, but I've said that a lot, so I won't trust it unless I actually do it.

Anyway, the craziness isn't over and until it is, probably another week or two, I'll remain pretty quiet.

Okay, so I'm thinking about running an online game, probably 4e. As much as I'd love to use my favorite virtual table top for this, I don't think I'm going to get anyone to spring for lite licenses for Fantasy Grounds II, so I'll probably end up using something java based and free.

Any suggestions? I hear MapTool is pretty good so any comments from someone who has used it, or can suggest something else, would be welcome.

And I'm missing it already. While I was ready to come home, mostly that was because I missed the puppies. I could have used a longer holiday from work. There really isn't a good time for me to take one of those, I'm afraid. At any rate, puppies have been recovered and even managed to get through their stay boarded at our vet with no adverse circumstances... a rare and happy occasion.

Now for the sad part. My mom, trying to be helpful, filled up my gas tank while she had my car. I'm afraid she's not used to new fangled cars and she failed to close the gas cap securely. Anyone with a fairly modern car knows what this means: my check engine light is on. In all probability this is due to the improperly secured gas cap... but it will cost me about $140 to extinguish the light and be sure. GAH! Why are vacations always more expensive than they are supposed to be?

Okay, I know I've been a bit incommunicado lately. My apologies. I normally at least keep up with reading livejournal, and I confess I haven't been doing that either. Between economic stress and the usual busy time that accompanies the end of the semester for most anyone working in higher ed, I've been crazy and busy and frustrated.

My puppies recently had their checkup and while Dulcy is having a rather disgusting ongoing problem with yeast buildup in her ears (yeah, she's on medicine for it, but it's still gross), they are otherwise healthy.

The hubby is stressed and that is making me stressed. Mostly economic pressures, which normally don't phase him much. Unfortunately most of my ways to deal with that additional external stress are not particularly healthy and involve eating large quantities of things that, frankly, I should not be eating. At least easter is over so the temptation of Reeses eggs is gone for the time being.

Right now I am trying to focus on the fact that in June I will be departing, briefly, for a vacation to Bermuda. It's not Bermuda itself that makes me happy, but the break. While I took several longish mini-vacations last year, I didn't manage to achieve any full fledged take a week off vacations, and I'm feeling the need for one. The cruise was expensive, but we used our credit card points and knocked the price down significantly.

Obviously some of my goals have been impacted both by the stress, some illness, and general lack of follow through. I'm trying to get things back in line, though it may have to wait post cruise, when I'll need to lose even more weight anyway.

Being on day 3 of my diet, I can officially say, diets suck. We had two birthdays in the office, which means I've spent the early part of the week surrounded by cake.

Yesterday was cheesecake, which is not really my thing. Today was a regular yellow cake with whipped icing. Fortunately the cake was rather small, and so were the pieces (I had an already small piece cut in half).

I am still struggling with portion sizes at dinner though, which is harder since dinner is not usually pre-packaged in the way my lunches are.

It's also Easter season ... which means Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs.

EVIL. they are my superhero weakness.

Feh.

I haven't really said much about my goals this year. And with the illness over january, I really haven't thought about it too much.

At the same time, I am approaching five years since I initially went on my diet... and I've gained over half the weight back again. It makes me very sad...

So I'm doing the whole diet thing again. I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to do it. But I really need to get control over this thing again.

My real problem is that I'm addicted to food... and like most addictions in order to avoid overdoing it, I need to not eat. PROBLEM... I have to eat to live. Makes for a contradiction. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what to do. The chicken patties that were the mainstay of my dieting last time around are no longer available, so I'm going to have to come up with an alternate strategy... preferably a massive one with many different possible actions so that I can discard the ones that don't work.

A month from today is the anniversary of going on the diet... so I will give myself that month to come up with a strategy.

Of course diet isn't the only goal. I will try to find my goals from last year and maybe use them as a base to work from. But, as with so many things, it is my failure with the diet that drives so many of my other failures... the inability to keep to it that convinces me that I cannot manage my other goals.

I've finally gotten over the illness... just a little rasp left in my lungs and a pile twice my size of work to catch up on at the office. I'm doing okay catching up, but I regret the loss of time at work. I missed slow time when I could have gotten fully caught up... instead I'm further behind.

Anyway, it'll all be fine. In positive news, it looks like my request for time to attend GenCon will go through.

Yeah, that's right, I've been miserably sick since wednesday. Woke up midweek with the same stomach mess my husband had over the weekend, and it developed into a nasty respiratory blech. And now the stomach thing has returned and the respiratory mess is still here.

Feh. I hate being sick.

Health/Weight:

* Lose 120 pounds [FAILED] - I ended the year some 15-20 pounds heavier, despite several attempts to get myself in gear
* Start Exercising [FAILED] - despite several tries to return to a regular exercise schedule, I never quite managed it.
* Go to the Doctor [YEARLY] - went. Two CAT scans, an electrocardiogram, a MIBI Stress test, and a cystoscopy later, I am pronounced mostly healthy but in need of losing 130 pounds (gradually, though hopefully at least 30 of it in the next year). I also managed to have, after five years, a yearly physical. Doctors have a way of making you hate life though.
* Go to the Dentist [TWICE YEARLY] - I didn't make it back to the dentist in 2008. I'd like to say that it was the need to take care of the heart issues, and that was part of it, but more, I think, is that I am expecting scraping and planing, a horrible and painful procedure, and I just don't want to go through it again.

Writing:

* Be published in a printed gaming book from a respected company [DONE] - GM Gems, by Goodman Games was released February 12th. I am credited both for an article and as a Project Developer. Also credited in PC Pearls (also by Goodman Games) which was released around GenCon
* Learn 4e of D&D [IN PROGRESS] - I can't say that even half a year playing a new game system really teaches you the intricacies, but I still have a 4e game going.
* Get Published in the Kobold Quarterly [ONGOING] - I have a submission for KQ under consideration... the next thing is to come up with something else to submit.
* Submit to the WotC Open Call for speculative fiction [COMPLETED] - My submission this year was rejected in record time. But in all fairness to myself... I DID submit. Note that the Discoveries line at WotC has been discontinued, so this is no longer an option going forward. [I guess I can pull this one out for this year.]
* Finish draft of Sensuality: Depraved [still no new progress] - Currently at 38k words - and no new progress.
* Finish draft of Nano2007 [still no new progress] - Currently at 50k+ (reviewing during September to do some editing work during October)
* Rewrite Nano2006 [still no new progress] - First 10 chapters have been revised. (yes, that means I've done a significant amount on something... I mean really, you don't think I slacked off THAT badly, do you?)... depending on progress of Nano2007, may work on this also during October.
* Rewrite Nano2005 [still no new progress] - since this is a really bad story to read in my current frame of mind, I'm delaying working on it. I should see if I can reclaim one of my manuscript copies from the folks who have borrowed it though, since it would help to have a copy to read ... I suppose I could read the computer file, but it really just isn't the same. (and all guilty parties still haven't completed reading it. I'll need to print a new copy to review it properly).
* Get serious about posting to my blogs [WEEKLY] - this went well for a while, but fell apart later on. I ended up with posts about every other week. Now to reboot and do better this year.
* Participate (and win) in Nano2008 [WON] - well, I hit 50k, but I'm afraid the novel isn't done.
* Take a weeks vacation just to write [YEARLY] - I managed this for 2008, I'll need to discuss with my supervisor possibilities for this year... it may be harder this year due to some staffing changes at work.

Personal:

* Go to GenCon [COMPLETED] - And it was fun! Got to have dinner with the cabbages, chill a bit with Wolfgang Baur over dinner, play some "Are you a Werewolf" and meet a good friend from City of Heroes in person. All in all a good trip! ... and I'm hoping to go again this year, but again, the staffing changes at work may defeat me here.
* Do some layout and design - both print and web [ONGOING] - No new progress.
* Get a handle on CSS [ONGOING] - Still working on ways to measure progress here.
* Spend more time with Ron and the Puppies [ONGOING] - Well, I managed some of this.
* Start corresponding again [MONTHLY] - I continued writing letters, though I didn't manage monthly letters. It was more like quarterly. Maybe that isn't bad though.
* Get a handle on Finances [MONTHLY] - FAILED. And this should really be the easiest one too.
* Clean that Miserable Office [ONGOING] - PARTLY SUCCEEDED -- I did clean up, and restructured a lot of the remaining mess... but there is still a remaining mess.
* Reach level 50 on Midnight Hurricane [COMPLETED] - Midnight Hurricane has reached level 50! Access to Kheldian ATs has been achieved!

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The gist: I failed at more of my goals than I succeeded at. I need to review these and come up for new ones for this year... as well as figure out a way to really quantify and measure my progress towards the goals. I'd really sorta like to succeed at them, and it's frustrating.

As for health, I have several follow-ups with my physicians in the next two months, so that one will be taken care of... but with it goes the inevitable difficult part - the weight.

With writing... clearly I need to dedicate more structured time to this. When I do, as during nano, I tend to succeed. So I think I need to figure out why what I do during nano works and try to replicate it outside of nano -- or find some other structure for (1) finishing and (2) revising.

With my personal goals, I think I had several categories of things in this group, and I succeeded at some and failed miserably at others. While I think I was helped in the goals I had by having them, the ability to quantify and measure my progress, so helpful with my writing, doesn't seem to have helped me here. I think some were simply overly hopeful (when struggling with your writing, adding several letters a month doesn't help), and others were expensive and harder to do as a result (GenCon). The easiest was getting my CoH character to 50, a goal I put in because I wanted some of my goals to be fun. Curiously, I finished the goals I consider fun... but failed at almost all the others. And some of it is clearly point of view... many of the writing items were far easier than nano, yet I finished nano but not the others. I'll need to mull this over a bit.

Part 2 coming: planning goals for 2009

So I've spent the last several days incommunicado... I blame the weather. Here in New England we've been hit by a series of storms that culminated in three days of non-stop snow that dumped over a foot of the white stuff in my yard. With no sign of a heat up in sight, I'd say there's no danger of looking out on Christmas morning to find a bare brown lawn... instead I'll be looking at more and more of that white stuff.

There's something special about a white Christmas... but I'm afraid my puppies just don't see it. They're unhappy about the cold and the wet and they would be much happier if spring would come so that they could go out and run in the yard. No chance of that... they're currently confined to a narrow path plowed around the magnolia tree in the yard, and a small shoveled space under a tree in the front yard.

I'm not done with my Christmas shopping and I confess, I'm having trouble getting in the mood. I want to be able to be happy about the holiday, but I'm really just not in the Christmas spirit. We decorated the tree this weekend, and it looks nice... it always does, but no amount of Christmas music, not even Morris the Moose from an old children's LP from my childhood, seems to make a dent in my dour mood.

At least I'm on vacation soon... only one more day of work after today and I'm off for a week.