Checking in 66: 02.19.2023

New Steps

I am still plugging away at Forge and Vine, but I feel like the story has gotten a little lost among the weeds. I’m struggling to find the path and it makes getting my butt in the chair harder. I don’t like to force it, because it is very obvious when I do. The quality of my writing plummets when I am not in the right headspace for it. The thing is, if I want to be a professional about this, at some point I’m going to have to bite the bullet and just get something on the page. I’m trying hard to stick to my April 1st publishing date. If I don’t get the scenes it needs written, let alone all the editing etc., I am not going to make it. In fact, I am hitting the point where I don’t think I’m going to make it anyway. I just don’t want to be in another situation where I end up delaying a dozen times before I get it published.

In the spirit of being more professional: This weekend I’m going to sit down and make a plan. I will have a set period for brainstorming. I might even make on outline <gasp>. I will make a list of the scenes I still need to write, and maybe do a little re-arranging in the current manuscript incorporating the scene list to help with flow. I also want to give myself a concrete schedule for writing for the next couple weeks. Where, when, what medium, and how long I’m going to write and which scene I’m going to work on. At least I will have something new on the page I can work on during the revision process. I would love to have the draft complete by March 1st, which would give me a full month to go through the editing process.

I will take any good vibes you want to send my way. Thank you in advance.

The Breakdown

I usually read several books each month, but I typically stick to one or two genres. Primarily contemporary and paranormal romance. I also try to read at least one non-fiction book a month, but that sometimes doesn’t happen. To help force me out of my comfort zone a little, both for genre and socially, I recently joined a couple of book clubs. This section is probably going to focus on those books going forward.

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

Genre: Mexican gothic/horror

Set in the 1800s, Beatriz marries a wealthy landowner, Rodolfo, in order to escape the trajectory that life has dealt her. When she arrives at Hacienda San Isidro, she is determined to make a home for herself. Almost immediately weird things begin happening. Rumors about Rodolfo’s dead first wife and the odd behavior of other members of the household lead her to believe there is more going on under the surface than there appears.

I am about halfway through this one right now. It took me a long time to settle into the story. Because it is set in Mexico, there is an abundant use of local terminology which I keep having to look up that just throws me right out of it. Now that I’ve learned some of the terms and we have gotten farther into the mystery of the house, I’m able to lose myself a little more. The reviews say that a lot of people have nightmares from this book, but so far, I’m not seeing why.

Dark Witch by Nora Roberts

Genre: Paranormal Romance (I know, I know. It wasn’t my fault! That just happened to be the book they were reading. Besides, it’s witches, not werewolves and vampires, which is my usual.)

Iona grew up on stories her Irish grandmother told her about the Dark witch of Mayo, Ireland. She claimed they were distant cousins, and the interesting gifts Iona has seemed to support that claim. Never having felt like she belonged, Iona upends her life by quitting her job, selling everything she owns and moving to Ireland to reconnect with her heritage. Once she meets the current dark witch Branna and her brother Connor, it becomes obvious that her grandmother’s tales of the Dark witch were more than fiction, and she has inherited her family legacy. But that legacy comes with an enemy and the three must band together to banish it once and for all.

The book begins several hundred years ago with the story of the original dark witch and how the family legacy began. It then jumps forward in time to modern day to Iona’s story. This is the first book in the trilogy, which I believe each focus on a different member of the triad.

So far, I am really enjoying this story. The person I believe is the love interest has just been introduced, so I imagine it will get saucier from here. Looking forward to how this one unfolds.

Living Life

One of the things I want to get control of this year is my health. So far, knock on wood, I haven’t had any major health issues, and I would like to do what I can to keep it that way. I have done a lot of research over the years, so I know what I have to do, but I have a hard time getting started. I needed a little help to get me going.

I’ve started using an app called Lifesum. It is a wellness app that has a food diary, exercise log, and weight tracker. There are also options for daily goals you can add to your dashboard. I, for example, track daily water and vegetable servings. You can synch it with a smart device. I have mine synched with my Fitbit. You can fill out the food diary either by typing in the description of the food or by scanning the UPC and then selecting the quantity. If you are looking for a little direction or inspiration, it offers multiple meal plan options you can choose from depending on your preferences and dietary restrictions. The meal plans include breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack and it allows you to swap recipes if it has one you don’t like. It lets you choose between options that are close to the same macronutrient profile and calories per serving as the original. The recipes for each are available on the app, and it gives you a grocery list you can check off. To track those meals, you simply check it, and it will input it for you. I am utilizing this meal plan starting tomorrow!

Overall, I am liking it however, there a few things I would like to see them improve. All the recipes are for four servings, which you can’t change. The grocery list pulls the ingredients straight from the recipes’ list and does not combine them so a little math is necessary for the total of what you will need. I also noticed that if you swap the recipes out from the original plan, the grocery list does not change. I don’t know if that was just a glitch, or it hadn’t had time to update or if it is truly a static list.

As a new subscriber I got 50% off the first year, at $25 it was pretty cheap. I don’t know if it has a free version or not because when I downloaded it and signed up it didn’t give me the option to not pay. Even with those things, so far, I’m liking it a lot better than the other apps I’ve tried in the past. I’m hoping the meal plan will help me get out of my eating rut and some bad habits I’ve fallen into.

A couple big goals the next few months. I have the capability. I don’t doubt that, but my execution often has room for improvement. I will keep you all posted on my progress.

Thanks for reading. I hope everything is going well with you and yours.

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