I'll be back

Hi everyone.

This makes me really sad, but I've decided to officially put TCoML on hiatus. I've last posted an update in October, and simply put, haven't had time to come back here since.

Honestly, this is a great position for me to be in, since my life is finally sorting itself out. (So be prepared to see me back here real soon.) The only problem is that, since October, everything has pretty much been happening all at once.

So, given how little time I have an how many things I still need to do, I've decided to put TCoML on a shelf for a few weeks in order to clear up my schedule as much as possible.

That said, I've missed writing here. And I do have so much to tell you all. For now, though, I just can't. I'll try and make this hiatus as short as possible.

For now, though, I'm going to focus on getting my writing blog, The Five Year Project, back on track. It's been in a bit of a decline over the past two years and I really want to pick it back up. The way I see it, this is a matter of me finding my stride.

To do that, I'm going to have to end up cutting back some and build things up to a pace I'm happy and comfortable with. In short, I'd love if you stopped by there and said hi every now and then. (I'll also let everyone there know once I'm back to posting here as well.)

I hope all of you are having a wonderful year so far!

Misha

Please Pray

Hey all!

I was hoping to write a bit more of an interesting post, but today we've reached the make-or-break point in business negotiations, which means we're right in the balance between having another crap three or four months and actually seeing our problems solved.

Obviously, we're hoping these negotiations swing in the latter direction, so please pray that they go well.

In the meantime, I'm in for the most stressful wait of my life.

Misha

Monday Musings

Sorry for not posting on Friday. It was a long day, which went largely wasted, but was still just completely exhausting.

In fact, I've spent a whole weekend and I'm still not feeling completely up to scratch. I've been productive, though. I've been writing (mostly because it gives me a positive outlet for some very negative feelings), but the truth is, I think the last quarter slump has hit me.

You know the one. Where things are going along just fine, but suddenly, just as the last quarter of the year arrives, you're exhausted.

For now, I'm trying to stave off the exhaustion as best I can. Heck knows that I have so much to do still. (Getting my blogs back on some sort of track is just one of them.)

But yeah, unfortunately, I'm just not in the head space to be profound today.

So instead, I want to know: How are you doing?

Progress for Quarter 3

Wow. I can't believe it's the end of September already. The next time I do this post, it will be at the end of the year. 

Before I start, though, just want to say sorry for my absence this month. I was stuck without internet for most of it and simply couldn't get onto Blogger, let alone post anything. 

But here I am, so let's see how I did so far. 

The comments in blue are from Quarter 1. Quarter 2's comments are in blue italics. Quarter 3's comments are in blue bold.

Writing:

I want to finish as many of the following as possible:

(For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to list my projects by the Acronyms I use for them, since that’s what I use on my year planners as well. Also, I haven’t gotten around to revealing some titles yet, and now seems like the wrong time.)

Publish:

Wo6C1
Currently busy with final proofreading and copy-edits. 
Final submissions made. I'm waiting for proof copies so that I can OK the paperbacks.
Published. Some loose ends to tie up. 

Wo6C2
Currently busy with final proofreading and copy-edits.
Ditto.
Ditto.

BvB1
Currently busy with penultimate round of copy-edits.
I'll be getting into prepping for publishing in this quarter. I just need to recover from the first two a bit.
Am in the process of editing this for publishing before the end of the year. 

ES1
Rewrite complete. Awaiting revisions.
I've gone through the book and there's not all that much to revise, so I'll be getting in some critiques soon. I might even do it in July/August.
Ended up not being able to get critiques in yet due to a variety of factors from my life. I am planning to get started this coming month, but obviously, publishing has been postponed until next year.

My Untethered Realms Anthology Short Story.
In for edits.
Feed-back is in. I need to submit for proof-reads at the end of July.
Done. The anthology will be out at the end of October.

Publishing Edits (possibly for publishing in 2015):

Wo6C3
Rewrite Prepped. Had to draft the whole thing again, which is why it's a bit behind. 
I've managed a chapter.
Had a huge spurt of productivity and am currently in serious rewrite mode. I'm hoping to see rewrites completed next month.


BvB2
Rough draft in progress. 
Haven't touched this since May. I've literally put everything except my two books for publishing aside.
Haven't touched this, but am planning to start after finishing rewrites.

Revisions and Rough Edits

O1
Rewrite in progress. This is a bit ahead of schedule. 
Now solidly behind schedule.
Rewrites are done. I'm giving myself a short breather for this before revising and sending to CPs. 

VD
Still awaiting rewrite. 
And still waiting.
And waiting... (Seriously, though, I'm hoping to at least start rewriting before the end of the year.)

Rewrites:

Wo6C4
Postponed drafting this until next year, because editing Wo6C1 and 2 kept necessitating me re-drafting Wo6C3, which wasted time. 
No change.
Still no change, although I've been figuring a lot of things out while rewriting Wo6C3, so I'm excited to get to this baby. That said, the time wasted from repeated re-drafts taught me a lesson, so I now have a strict no-rough-draft-sequels-until-previous-books'-edits-are-done policy. Which means the rough draft for this only has a hope of being started somewhere toward the middle of next year.

SS1
Awaiting rewrite.
No change.
I've decided to move the rewrite to early next year after another project cropped up and stole my attention. I will get to it. Just not as soon as I'd anticipated.

P
Rough draft complete, but I'm not happy with it, so I'm putting some thought into my concept and plot before drafting it again. 
I'll be doing this concept work this quarter, hopefully.
The concept still hasn't fallen into place, so I've decided to put this onto the back-burner, which means I'll probably have a chance of looking at this again in the next two years or so.

MDtS
Awaiting rewrite.
No change.
Still no change, but I'm trying to see if/when I can squeeze this in early next year.

Rough Drafts (The ones I do by hand):

DD
Postponed as the concept still doesn't thrill me enough to actually work on it. So I'll probably get around to this one at some point in the next five years. (Yes, I am serious, and yes, I do have all these things scheduled. In fact, my current schedule runs until March of 2020 now.)

ES2
Postponed due to that no drafts while still editing previous book policy. I'll get to it before June next year.

CdW
Drafts will start in January, but I am currently working on the concept and research.

HM
Postponed this until 2017, so that I can have the whole of next year for research. I might need more time for research, though, since it's something that requires intensive information that can only be found at the other side of the country.

StW
Haven't started with any of these yet. 
Still haven't started.
This has been on my to-write list since January, but the other projects higher up on this list has simply taken up too much time. I'm hoping to at least write a little bit of it before the year is out.

Reading

I want to read 75 books next year.
18 so far. 
26 so far. I'm way behind because I didn't have time to read much in these past three months.
33 so far. It's a bit depressing, but then, I can't complain because my writing has been remarkably productive. (My choices for spending free time are usually between writing, reading or anything else. Writing has won most often this quarter.)
The minimum amounts of which must consist of:

5 books or plays in a language other than English.
1 so far.
2 so far.
Currently reading my third for the year.

5 plays by Shakespeare
1 so far.
Still only one.
Two so far.

5 classics other than Shakespeare, of which one must be Chaucer.
2 so far. Neither Chaucer. 
Still only 2.
Am now on my fourth, but still not Chaucer.

5 non-fiction titles.
4 so far.
Still 4, with the fifth in progress.
I'm still on that fifth book, although it could be more, given that some of my blogging friends' books were non-fiction.

5 books by some of my blogging friends.
None yet. Siiiiigh. 
Busy with my seventh.
10 so far.

Social Media:

I seriously need to sort out my Social Media stuff. I haven’t been near active enough last year. What this entails, though, is something I still need to wrap my head around.

Mostly, I'm working on getting back to blogging regularly, visiting blogs and getting out and about on Wattpad. Taking little steps that add up to some sort of whole. 

I've fallen off the wagon a bit the last two weeks while I finalized my publishing submissions, but otherwise, I think I've been doing quite well. Especially on Wattpad, where my main "books" have been ranking on or off for some months.

I've been doing great for about two months, and then the internet disconnection this month screwed everything up. Now I'll have to start again.

Life:

Help my family build our own house. (Yep, brick by brick.)
This is side-lined for now, since we actually found another house to live in. 
No longer relevant. Long, sordid story.
But I will say: Thank HEAVENS.

Sort out some sort of business that I can do on my own terms. (SO over trusting people to help me when they only help themselves at my cost.)
Working on this. Time will tell what pans out, though. 
I'm in fact now working on two businesses, both of which seem to be doing well, although it's hard to be 100% sure when they're so young.
It's still a bit early to tell, but I think that in about two weeks I can call this one done.

Seriously. I need to get back to singing.
Nothing on this front yet. Life's still a bit rough. 
Still nothing. I'm hoping to still get to this as my life continues to settle back down.
Holy cow. How is it already September?! Rough year. Hopefully I can still pull something together before this year is out.

Also, I really really want to paint this year. Other than the above-mentioned house’s walls.
Haven't started one yet, but am busy with some other crafty stuff. 
Nothing new to report here.
I started a painting, but had to stop, because we might have to move soon, and moving a huge canvas covered in wet oil paint is no one's idea of fun.

Then, I want to continue with my more healthy diet, since it makes me feel good and gives me a lot more energy. (Useful when I’ll be lugging lots of bricks around.)
Yeah this is a bit harder than I thought. Still trying, though.
This I've done almost immediately after my last stock-taking post. 
Er. Yes and no... I'm trying, but it's not easy when you have to pull in your belt and healthy food is EXPENSIVE.

Last of all, and probably most importantly, I need to get past all the stuff that’s happened this year, so that I can get through 2015 with as little contamination as possible.
Working on this, but it's also pretty dang difficult. 
I seem to be getting there, but sometimes, I get reminded of it, and then I have to chill out all over again.
I feel like I've made some real progress here. Plus, this past quarter has seen my faith in humanity restored on multiple occasions.


Overall: I've been making some progress, especially with regards to publishing and my life. I think that especially my businesses are part of the reason why I'm a behind on my writing/editing goals, since my previously free time has largely gone into work. Which isn't a bad thing either. 

Overall: I've had to shift a lot of goals around to later, but I am still getting a lot of things done this year that'll serve as a great foundation for the next. 

Did you set goals for 2015? How are you doing? 

Perceptions

Recently, I started re-reading The Three Musketeers. The last time I read it, it was abridged and I was in grade 10. The other time I read it, I was... gosh I don't know... ten? And it was unabridged. 

This time, I'm reading it unabridged in French. 

It's slow going. (Because I have to stop frequently to check that I'm translating correctly, and the book is huge.) 

I'm now at the scene where D'Artagnan meets Rocheford. I stopped just after D'Artagnan challenged Rocheford. 

And you know what's the one thing that's still sticking in my mind two days later?

D'Artagnan is being a bit of an asshole. 

It's strange, because in neither of the two previous readings did I feel this way. In fact, he was always one of my favorite characters out there. (Although Athos beats him by a mile.) 

Part of me wonders if I was just so young the first time that I simply decided that he was older (at eighteen) and therefore had to be right and just in his outrage.

However, I have a very good memory for books I've read (so much so that I can translate most of what I've read so far simply because I remembered the English unabridged wording from the first time I read the book.) 

I don't remember this, though: 

Rocheford, when confronted for laughing at D'Artagnan's horse, pointing out that he doesn't laugh often, but that he does reserve the right to laugh when it pleases him. 

D'Artagnan says something along the lines of "Yes, but you should not laugh when it displeases me." (Which I took to mean: It's rude to laugh when it's upsetting to other people.)

Rocheford's response to the eighteen year old kid who already threatened him by pulling a foot-long section of his rapier out? "Truly sir? Okay. Fair enough." 

And then he walks away. 

D'Artagnan is the one who further instigates the fight between and Rocheford. 

I don't remember ever reading something like this. Or seeing some version of this in any of the (many) movie versions I've seen. So much so that I think that either something is lost in the translation to English, or the editors in English have left this scene out. (Although I could be wrong and I just missed this scene twice.) 

My point? 

I couldn't help thinking, as I mulled this difference over, that this beautifully illustrates how tricky perceptions can be. Not only in reading, but in life as well. We have our perceptions manipulated all the time. (Having more stuff will make us happy. This is what "beautiful" looks like. Oh, so this is the hero of the story, but we can't have the complexity of him being a bit of an asshole, so let's take this bit out.) 

Whether we like it or not, we make judgments (e.g. D'Artagnan = good, Rocheford = Bad) and those further form perceptions, not only in ourselves, but in the people who are being judged. 

Such as poor people who are judged for being poor, without us even knowing the people. And then they, believing these perceptions, act according to the roles we've given them. 

It's definitely something to be mindful of. 

Does it mean that D'Artagnan's douche move will mean I don't like him anymore? Well... no. I might actually like him a bit more for his imperfection. But it is nice to get a clear view of him now.