Thursday, May 1, 2014

ROW 80 Round 2 Update #2

I’ve missed about three check-ins now, I think, and now I’m late with this one, but I don’t really have much to report. Our show opened last week - by the end of our Sunday evening performance, we’d been at the theater every day for 14 days straight. But it’s such a beautiful show. It’s been a real privilege to work with this amazingly talented and dedicated group of people. However, I haven’t been getting any writing done. Still, I’m planning to dive into Story A Day month today. Les Mis runs for two more weeks, so we’ll see if I can do a better job than I have been fitting writing into that schedule.

A friend of mine died yesterday morning and I’m still trying to process that. He wasn’t a really close friend, not by any traditional definition - we did a few shows together, and didn’t really hang out outside of that. But I always enjoyed chatting with him when we ran into each other at events, reading his updates on Facebook, and I loved watching him on stage. He was an immensely talented actor and a kind and generous person as well. He was hysterically funny. As evidenced by the tributes filling my Facebook newsfeed, he touched many, many lives. He was one of those people who make a huge impact, even if you only met him once. I feel like there’s a giant hole in the fabric of the universe. I don’t even know how to process it.

Maybe my next update will be more about goals and progress, but I kind of needed to talk about this instead. And I don’t have any writing progress anyway. Wishing you all success in your writing goals and people who enrich your lives, even if they are taken too soon.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

ROW Round 2 - Check-in #1

I'm writing this from Les Mis rehearsal and don't have much to report anyway, so I'll keep this brief.

Writing
1) Write 3 days a week
Epic fail.  I wrote on one day - about 16 words.  Hopefully this week will be better.

2) Catch up on DIY-MFA materials
This is going a little better.  I worked through a few more of the worksheets, but I still have several videos and exercises to complete, and the third batch of materials came out today!  Possibly I can get some done during cue to cue rehearsals this weekend.




Fitness
1) Work out 2 days a week
This I did - Saturday bootcamp and two Oula classes with my friend who's practicing to be certified as an instructor.

2) Try not to eat so much comfort food
Still failing at this.  Will have to try harder this week.

Anyway, I'm off to Thenardier's Inn in a few minutes, so I'll wrap it up.  I hope your goals are going well and you all have a great week!

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

ROW Round 2 Goals - 2014

As you may or may not have noticed, I sat the last round out.  I've been dealing with a fairly severe bout of depression since December.  I had all these plans after NaNoWriMo - I learned a lot about my writing process and I had a lot of ideas for how to move forward.  But somehow I just couldn't get started.  My ideas weren't solidified into manageable goals yet at the beginning of the round, and I said "that's okay, I can start a little late".  And a week went by while I looked at my notes, and tried to form a coherent blog post, and fought with my computer.  And then two, and then three.  I tried two or three times to write a post, but I just ... couldn't.  So I decided to take the round off, and hope I could pull myself together in time for round 2.

The truth is, I'm still incredibly depressed.  I'm hoping that the spring sunshine will help - seasonal affective disorder is definitely a part of the problem, along with holiday blues in December and January and upheaval in my living situation.  But I want to start getting back to my writing.  Maybe if I can get back into it, that will help too. 

So in keeping with Kait's post on being kind to ourselves (how timely was that!), I'm setting pretty light goals this round.  I'm also really busy right now, because I'm involved with a production of Les Miserables in our local theater, so the theater kind of owns my free time for the next six weeks.  I was thinking about doing Story A Day in May this year, but the show doesn't close until May 11th, so I'm not sure that's doable.  We'll see how April goes.

Here are my goals:

1) Write something at least 3 days a week.  Could be work on a WIP, writing exercises, journaling, whatever, as long as I write something.

2) Catch up on the materials for the DIY MFA 101 course I signed up for, and keep working through that program.  (The DIY MFA 101 course is a six-month workshop with a different focus each month - I haven't even finished the January materials yet.  You can find out more about DIY MFA here: http://diymfa.com/)

3) Fitness:
     a) Work out at least 2 days a week.
     b) Try not to eat so much "comfort food"

Anyway, I wish you all a lovely round!