2024-W17 EOW Report

Highlights This Week

• After another disappointing failed attempt at writing or doing any fiction work after work, dinner, etc. Monday night, I decided that “first thing in the morning” is the only way I can do this, even if it’s 30m before a gym day appointment at 5AM. It worked. My energy is fresh, I can get 30m in. I set a timer and I go. So with gym days, that means waking up at 4AM, not dawdling and at desk by 420AM. Get 30m in, leave house at 450AM.
• It’s moving ever so slowly, but the Garage Fiction Podcast intro script has gone through two edits. Olivia and I have talked about book breakdowns (not reviews, but dissection and analysis of books) as our paywalled stuff. We have a list of award winners on both the genre and literary side.
• Overall, energy levels waver between engaged, exhausted, and elated… and I’m realizing that the last few couple of years, I’ve been running on automation and routine. Well rested? Yes. Relaxed? Sure. But in this foggy haze where a lot of emotion was simply suppressed to “get through the days”. Losing that one client and landing this new one has been a much needed catalyst.

Project Status Dashboard

The following are ongoing fiction writing projects broken down to what stage they’re in. Legend in footnote¹.

As mentioned above, getting my 30m reps in first thing in the morning has helped tremendously. prj: SAVED was (technically revised, since feedback was given), but I’m moving it to “edited” since version 2 is going to the Prime Cohort for a second review on Wednesday.

EOW Time Tracking

In this section, I track daily actions (axn) and emotions (emo), aiming for just 30 minutes of fiction work a day. If time permits, more is done. AXN emoji legend in footnote².

STREAK COUNT: 5 Days

Four Thousand Weeks

Did more 1on1 Zooms with key players at the new job. I think I’ve met most team members I need to now. Meeting rhythm should slow down, but I’ve been assigned 8 CWs to do 1on1s with. But I am starting to carve out deep work time to do proactive quadrant two activities. On the home side, the wife is still incredibily upset that I didn’t proactively get out of the last client despite my complaints and feels defeated that we won’t get a proper summer vacation this year, this year being the last summer before the eldest graduates. It’s like the hourglass ran out of grains and now it’s just an abyss now. I don’t know. I really don’t know. Let’s say I’d been more proactive several months back and landed new clients, maybe retainers. It’s all hypothetical if I would’ve – not just replaced, because that’s insufficient with inflation, but increased the income by another 25%. Yes, I understand that time is running/has ran out for certain life stages. Yes, I don’t feel it as much as she does. I just don’t know.

Book Reading

• Finished two novellas: Premee Mohamed’s And What Can We Offer You Tonight (2021) and C.L. Polk’s Even Though I Knew the End (2022). Comments on the former here, no comments on latter. Story was engrossing enough that I didn’t take notes. I probably should go back to. P. Djèlí Clark’s Ring Shout (2020) is up next.
• Started Sense and Sensibility (1811). Gonna knock off all six Austen novels this year, dammit. Knocked off one more chapter of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005). At the 71% mark for The Great Courses: The Age Of Henry VIII (2003).
• Finally pulled the trigger for Libro.fm because there was a sale for Canadian Independent Bookstore Day. Got 3 credits instead of 2 for subscribing monthly. But what really triggered it was that Timothy Egan’s “The Worst Hard Time” (2005) was for sale at $6.49.

Archive of all EOW reports here