2016, Here I Come!

A new year is upon us. Normally a time for evaluation and making new goals in many areas of our life. Not the least for a writer is establishing writing goals.

But I have to be honest. As the lack of activity on this blog and my output the last couple of years have shown, the grand writing goals of 2014 and 2015 never materialized. Never really got off the ground. At the end of 2013, I had finished a year in which I had consistently put out a story a month here, as well as other hopefully interesting content. In addition, I had been added to the blogging staff at Speculative Faith.

In addition to those blogs, I had started a blog for my infidelity site and book that had come out that year: healinginfidelity.blogspot.com, at which I had been posting multiple articles a month on different subjects related to that topic, and had plans to write a follow-up book, “Healing Infidelity Through Faith.” I think I had written a couple of chapters on that book, but intended to also re-purpose some my blog articles for it as well.

I had also started a blog to track my journey with Parkinson's Disease in 2013—rickspdjourney.blogspot.com. I made no commitments to keep a schedule with it, as it primarily was a means for family and friends to find out how I was doing and to have some record of how the disease has progressed and what things I've done to deal with it.

So at the beginning of 2014, I had committed to keeping up four blogs, two of them with at least once a month postings and one with weekly postings. Of those four blogs, however, I only kept up with two of them: the Speculative Faith once a week blog post and the occasional post on my PD blog. The other two, including this blog, fell by the wayside.

On top of that, I had several writing projects I had hoped to accomplish in 2014.

The first story in a new fantasy series had been accepted by a publisher, and they had requested some significant editing/rewriting. I knew that would take some time to do, but as it ended up, I totally bombed on getting that done. As of now, I still haven't touched it. I'm sure by now the publisher has given up on me and is no longer interested in publishing that book. So if I get around to straightening that story up, I'll probably have to self-publish it.

I had started a episode-story I planned to make a book out of about a woman who gets involved with a rebellion group against a corrupt government in a planetary system. I did get one more story/chapter written during 2014, but that was it. I've not returned to it since then.

I was also in the middle of writing the fourth book in my Virtual Chronicles series: Reality Game. I had written about seven chapters during 2013 National Novel Writing Month in November before real-life forced me to give up on finishing NaNO that month. So I had hopes of finishing that book by summer of 2014 and have it published by that fall. As it happened, I did nothing on it that year, and only succeeding in writing one or two more chapter this year. So still a long ways to go. Motivation-wise, it probably didn't help that book three in that series has had zero sales other than one person at my church, and so far I don't think he ever got around to actually reading it, even though he's been a big fan of the series. I'm only aware of one person who has read the book: the person who helped me edit it. So it is hard to get rid of the feeling that I'm wasting my time writing it. But I'd hate to never end the series correctly. Who knows? Someday it could become popular and people will be unhappy that book four never saw the light of day. So I still want to finish it.

I also had two publishing projects. A collection of my poetry and another anthology featuring the short stories I'd written during 2013. The only progress I've made since then is to run the poetry through my local critique group I'm a part of. The poetry book should be a quick project. All I've got to do is edit the poems and format the book and ebook. Then it would be ready to be published once I figured out a good title and cover for it. I probably still need to work on the short stories to get them ready.

So as you can see, I had big plans for 2014, which aside from some successes, failed to materialize, especially on the novel and publishing fronts. At the end of 2014, feeling that outside pressures of life were going to make it even harder, I resigned from my blogging position at Speculative Faith. I had hoped it would allow me to write here more and get some writing done, but as is obvious by now, that didn't happen either. The only blog I've kept halfway up with this year is my PD blog. My only accomplishments this year were writing another chapter in my Reality Game book, helping my writers' club to publish an anthology of our club's stories and poems, and writing a couple of short stories and a couple of poems. Meanwhile, all those projects still sit waiting for me to do them.

So first I should evaluate why after a good year in 2013 on the writing front, I've bombed since then. Not to make excuses, but to evaluate what happened that caused those results so I can determine for 2016 whether or not they were still a factor, and if so, how could I change things to accomplish my goals.

One potential reason was fallout from the infidelity issues of 2011. When I discovered that, my writing came to a screeching halt on May 11, 2013. Naturally my focus turned nearly 100% to dealing with that trauma. But I had hoped that after a few months, I'd get back to it. That didn't happen in any big way until the end of 2012. When I had a pretty good year in 2013, I felt the dry spell from those events were over. But perhaps they returned.

I think in retrospect there were two reasons it caused such a long dry spell in the first place, aside from the immediate trauma of the whole thing, which grew manageable after 3-6 months. One was the adjustments I made to my schedule to spend more time with my wife. The natural results of that meant I had less time for writing than before. Still, that should explain why I slowed down, not why I stopped writing

The other reason I've struggled from that is the fear I won't find a balance, but slip back into the same mode as before. I had treated my writing like a second job, putting in eight to nine hours a day in addition to my full-time job. That in essence meant I spent precious little time with my wife. I was engrossed in my own writing world, and I avoided even holiday activities like handing out candy on Halloween or decorating the Christmas tree, etc. If I could get out of doing anything to have more time to write, I did. I was driven to write, so much that I saw other activities as leeches on my writing time, and would only do what I had to do, often begrudgingly.

While that dynamic didn't cause my wife to cheat, it certainly made it more tempting than it otherwise would have been. Plus, I feel due to that, I didn't pay as much attention to warning signs as I should have, and therefore I was totally blindsided when I discovered the truth. The result of that was a lack of motivation to return to writing, fearing it had a part to play in the resulting events, and certainly wasn't conducive to a good marriage or family life either. But could I get back into writing without sinking into it again?

The first reason needs to stay. I'm unwilling to short-change my wife and kids' time with me for the good of my writing goals. But can I find a balance and still maintain a drive and motivation to write? That seems to be the tricky part. So one issue is when I had a great 2013, and set some lofty goals for 2014, my inner motivation/drive to write shut down because it appeared I was taking on too much that would require cutting into time with my wife and kids. So I backed off in fear that I couldn't find the correct balance, that I was doing it again.

That lack of motivation and drive to write seems to be at the heart of this last two-year dry spell. There have been several times this past year when I've thought, “I could get some writing done on . . .” insert the project. But I wouldn't feel like doing it, opting for a more passive activity.

I believe the route to fixing that is the following. One, set realistic goals given the amount of time I can validly give to my writing life. Two, make soft deadlines, not hard ones. If I don't meet a goal's deadline, no big deal. I've not “failed.” Just reset expectations. Two, set a time aside, preferably daily, when I do writing tasks, then keep it within that time. When time is up, I stop writing and move onto other things. That way I don't have to worry that I'll allow writing tasks to suck away time from other priorities. Three, prioritize my writing tasks. If a blog post would prevent me from making enough headway with a novel, then time with the novel wins out. If I can accomplish all my goals, great, but I need to know which ones to sacrifice first in order to accomplish the most important ones.

I think the above is key to regaining the motivation to write. When my brain no longer perceives it as a threat to my marital success, then I won't be afraid of wanting to write. That is done by giving my writing life not just goals, but boundaries.

But other practical issues have played into the dry spells. Primarily, the progression of my Parkinson's Disease. It has played a part on two or three fronts. One, it is well known that PD can affect one's motivation to do things, both due to depression (which I don't think I've had much of to this point) but also because the neurotransmitter that is being reduced, dopamine, is not only responsible for smooth movements, but also motivation for various activities. That has obviously added to the lack of motivation on the writing front. The only way to deal with that is to know it is there, and know once I start writing, I enjoy it. So do it anyway. If PD is helping to drive the lack of motivation to write, there's not much I can directly do about that other than what I'm already doing.

But it has also taken away even more time from me. In that my typing speed has been cut in half. So the amount of writing I used to be able to do in three hours now takes six hours, thanks to PD. It may even be more than half by this point. For example, I've been working on this post for three hours. I've done 1931 words at this point, which is 643 words an hour. I'm actually having a good day today, but pre-PD, I could do more than a 1000 words an hour.

One potential solution to this is to transition toward using Dragon Speak more. I have it set up on my Windows 10 Surface tablet, and it seems to work pretty well now. I need to see if I can become proficient in using it, as it could eventually get my word count back up. I need to start using it more so I can become comfortable with it.

You'd think a guy out of work would have more time for this, but there have been several reasons that's not as true. One, since March of this year, in an effort to slow down the PD train, I exercise around 9 hours a week. Add to that 6 hours of driving time a week to get to the classes. I spend around 5 hours a week doing the bookkeeping for my wife's business. I help out on her jobs around 2-3 hours a week on average. It used to be more, but as my PD has progressed, I'm not able to help out as much. Back in 2014, I was doing a lot of jobs with her. This year that has gradually dropped as I've gotten worse.

Plus, that's another issue with PD: fatigue. There are times I crash and need to take a nap. My energy level is not what it used to be when I could get four hours of sleep a night and do fine the next day at work and writing when I came home. Add onto that several pressing issues on my to-do list that have been hanging over me most of this year, and it is easy to see why I've had little time for writing.

At one point, I counted the hours I had put into writing when I had a full-time job and what I was able to do now. Back then it was 8-9 hours. Now, I'd do good to find 3-6 hours a day. That's about enough time to write a blog post like this one.

The good news is that toward the end of this year, I've made some good progress on dealing with several financial issues that have been hanging over my head this year. They all required a lot of paperwork, but I've recently slogged through them all and much of it has been resolved or is well into the process of being resolved. That means I no longer have to focus on them and they shouldn't be sucking attention away from writing so much. And if one of them pans out, could significantly improve our financial situation.

So I feel I'm in a good spot now to take another stab at setting some writing goals for 2016, and see if I can find that balance while regaining my drive to do it. So here is my plan.

Primary soft writing goals for 2016:

• Finish Reality Game, and get it published in time for Christmas. Hopefully end the series with it so I can move onto some other projects waiting to be done.


• Work on getting a non-fiction book written: Healing Infidelity Through Faith. Maybe get it published this year, but I'm not going to list it as a goal.


• Work on finishing my small devotional book on the Parables of Christ. Not only for a writing goal, but to motivate me to spend more time in the Word.

Secondary soft writing goals for 2016:

• Publish my poetry collection.


• Write one short story a month to be posted here on this blog.


• Write one article a month for my infidelity blog.


• Continue to write post on my PD blog as I'm able and have the time.

Mid-year, I'll evaluate where I'm at, and either keep it the same, add on goals, or reduce expectations accordingly. Also I'll try to block off time in the afternoons to get writing tasks done, when I'm able to do so. Additionally, I'll work on using Dragon Speak more to improve my writing word count, so I can use the little time I have more productively.

So that's where I'm at. Thanks for following me this far. I hope to have some improvement in 2016 in regards to writing and publishing. Making no promises, but time will tell whether my plan works or not.

Reality Game - Day 58

I'll keep this short, as I need to get to bed, but wanted to update my readers.

I've worked on the novel three days in a row. Thanks to getting an extra hour Sunday morning, and starting around 12:30 am on writing, in 5.5 hours I wrote 2265 words.

This morning, less time. Started writing at 3 am, and ended 3 hours later at 6 am. Wrote 1447 words in that time.

I also decided I might as well do NaNo officially, though I don't know if I'll hit the 50K mark or not. I know there are commitments that will get in the way. Like tonight, I'll need to write a article for my Tuesday column at SpecFaith blog. That usually takes  a good hunk of the night, so not sure if I'll get any writing done on the novel. If I do, it won't likely be enough to keep me caught up..

But at least at the moment I'm on track to make 50K. Since I type so slow now, I have to find around 5 hours a day on the novel, at least 4, to stay on track. We'll see how it goes. For now, a decent start and the novel is progressing along though I'm still not sure where it is all going. Or how they are going to get out of the mess I'm putting them all in.

I asked for prayers for Natalie last time. Now all four of them need it. Jeremy, Mickey, Bridget and Natalie if you want to pray by name. :)

Here's the summary:

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Day 1: 444 words
Day 14: 456 words
Day 18: 687 words
Day 20: 1041 words
Day 33: 652 words
Day 56: 1162 words
Day 57: 2265 words
Day 58: 1447 words

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Novel total: 9925 words

Reality Game - Day 56

Been a while since I've worked on the novel. Just so much going on. But I wanted to commemorate the first day of National Novel Writing Month. I'm not officially doing NaNo this year, but I'm still going to make an attempt to do as much as possible on this novel, amidst my other commitments. Maybe it will inspire me to get this done so I can point to one major accomplishment this year.

Anyhow, woke up this "morning" at 1:30 pm. Did morning routine, checked email, snail mail, couple of forums. Then helped my wife get Halloween decorations up in the yard. Then fixed dinner, as it was my night (stir fry pizza). Then sat with her handing out candy until after 9 pm. After hauling in the electrical decorations, I messed around for a while. Then she went to bed and I did a little bookkeeping on her business. Then around 2:30 am, I sat down with some candy to work on the novel.

Typed until a little before 5 am after getting my bearings on the story. During that 2.25 hours, got 1162 words written. So sat down to type this up. A little more progress. We'll see if the NaNo spirit will inspire me.

I'm writing more into the dark than usual on this one. Vague idea where it is going, but no idea where it will end up. Last scene I wrote, I've already got one of the characters  into some hot water that I'm not sure how she'll get out of it. Pray for Natalie. No telling how this will turn out.

You know you're a writer when you ask people to pray for your characters. lol.

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Day 1: 444 words
Day 14: 456 words
Day 18: 687 words
Day 20: 1041 words
Day 33: 652 words
Day 56: 1162 words

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Novel total: 6213 words

Reality Game - Day 33

I've done some writing since the last post. I wrote  a blog post for my infidelity blog, and one for SpecFaith (which went live yesterday). As most readers of this blog are aware, I finished writing and editing my short story for the anthology.  Posted that on the blog Monday. Additionally, I rewrote the first devotional to my Christmas book. It was too esoteric for kids and most adults. So I took a different approach.

So despite lots of other things going on, have got a decent amount of writing done.

Tonight, I returned to the novel. Didn't get a lot of time in on it. Added another 652 words in almost one and a half hours. Decided I needed to get the bookkeeping done and get to bed. So I'm keeping this short. Hopefully have more to report in the days ahead.

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Day 1: 444 words
Day 14: 456 words
Day 18: 687 words
Day 20: 1041 words
Day 33: 652 words

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Novel total: 5051 words

Reality Game - Day 20

More progress on the novel, though I just remembered that I should have been working on a short story for our Writers' Club anthology. Deadline, October 1st. I planned on submitting an original short story, one or two previously published ones, and maybe a few poems. I pretty much have one week left to pull all that together.

This Tuesday was a little weird for me. Last night I wrote my blog article for Spec Faith. Started it later than planned, so was up until almost 8 am getting it done. I knew I'd at least need to sleep until 2 pm. When my alarm went off, I could tell my body wasn't ready to go. I had a critique group meeting starting at 2:30. Thought maybe I'd go after pulling myself together. Better late than none, but I just couldn't motivate myself.

I ate some breakfast and checked email. By the time I started to think about printing out a section to take to critique, it was getting to be 4:30. Since it ends at 5, not much point. So still feeling groggy, I spent some time on the infidelity forum. My body demanded more rest, so took an hour nap until 7 pm.

Wife came home after I pulled myself out of bed. We realized we never bought the fish for me to fry, so we ended up going to grab some BBQ at a local place called Holy Smokes. Very tender and delicious. A ton better than what I subjected Grace to in Dallas last year. We watched "Yesterday's Enterprise" while we ate, a popular episode o f ST TNG. We'd finished going through the Firefly series (boy, sure wish there were more, just enough to whet your appetite), so I picked back up on Extant, a science fiction series I've been picking at here and there.

Finished that. Had a Skype call with my daughter in Mississippi. Watched a few YouTube videos as I didn't feel like doing much of anything. Briefly considered just going to bed early and actually having a morning before work in the afternoon because I didn't feel in the mood to do anything.

But by the time I got my wife to bed and did the bookkeeping for her business (light today), it was nearing 12:30 am. I saw I could have a good night to get some writing done. So I took my meds, answered some more threads on the infidelity forum, then by 2 am I was sitting down at my computer with prunes, cashews, and a hot cup of peach tea.

Typed away for an hour and a half and got in 1000 words. Not too shabby, all things considered. Not as fast as I used to type, but faster than I've been of late. Better than the 600 in an hour and a half I did last time. That finished out Chapter 2. I have vague idea where this is going, but not sure yet how it will develop. These stories tend to have plenty of plot twists and turns in them, and I'm focusing on the relationship dynamics more too. Especially after what happened in the last book, Virtual Game. Spoilers!

So decided by the time I wrote this blog, I'd be ready for bed. Getting close to 4:30 now, so I'll get some decent sleep before the alarm wakes me at noon. So at least this strange day involved making more progress on the novel. But I'll probably have to take a break the  next few days to get that short story written, compile my submissions, write part two of my infidelity blog post on trust, and try to take over the world. So getting words in on the novel may not happen until later this week. We'll see how it pans out. Wednesday, however, is more cleaning work. All afternoon and don't usually get back until around 8 to 9 pm.

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Day 1: 444 words
Day 14: 456 words
Day 18: 687 words
Day 20: 1041 words

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Novel total: 4399 words

Reality Game - Day 18

Bottom line, I'm probably not going to make my original goal of finishing this novel by the end of the month. But I've not given up. Work, writer's club, my weekly SpecFaith blog, Infidelity blog and discussion participation, left me little time. Not to mention all the little "must get done" tasks like fixing a flat, special church services, getting the car registered, etc. You know the drill. Then there is simply a lack of energy issues at times too.

That said, I have made some progress. One positive is I saw my neurologist last Monday, and she upped my dose. That has made typing a little easier and speedier. Not as fast as I was before Parkinson's set in, but faster and with less mistakes than I have been of late.

Last week I put in another 456 words on the novel. Until tonight, that is all I'd done on it since 9/4. I was up late last night writing a blog post for my infidelity blog, around 1000 words. Realized the subject was too big, so labeled it part 1. Planning on part 2 this coming week.

So last night I hit the sack around 5:30 am, and woke up at 7 am. We headed off to church. Came home shortly after 2 pm. Then went back to sleep after checking email and responding to one message from my infidelity group. Woke up around 7 pm. Relaxed. Watched some videos on YouTube while my youngest son (20) finished up dinner. We ate while watching the latest Dr. Who episode and an episode of Star Trek TNG from season 3. Then my wife and I pulled it together, and went grocery shopping by 10:30 pm. Returned home shortly after midnight, then put groceries away, made sure trash was out, put her cleaning supplies back in the van (she gets up early on Mondays to clean a car dealership's office before it opens). Once we settled down, she went to bed around 1:30 or 1:45. Don't recall which.

That is all a pretty normal Sunday for me. Sometimes I get more sleep on Saturday night than an hour and a half, but rarely a whole lot. If I get in three hours, I'm doing good. I catch up  during my extended Sunday afternoon nap.

So after checking on the infidelity forum and responding to a couple of people, I returned to the kitchen to clean the griddle and my smoothie cup. Stocked up on raw cashews and prunes, then retired to my computer to see if I could get in some writing while my meds were in full bloom.

Started on that around 3:30 and wrote until around 5 am. During that time, got in 687 words. Crazy. I remember getting in that many during a 30 minute timed writing challenge during Nano in previous years. Now it takes me three times as long. Even with the upped meds and making it easier to type, it isn't back to normal. I'll just keep writing anyway.

So now I'm taking time to write this blog, then I'll head off to bed to wake up around noon. Monday night I'll need to write my SpecFaith blog post, which usually takes most of the night as well. It usually ends up being close to 1000 words. I'll keep plugging away at this novel until it is done.

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Day 1: 444 words
Day 14: 456 words
Day 18: 687 words

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Novel total: 3358 words

Reality Game: Day 1

I've been slow to get started back on this book. Will take some doing to finish it by the end of the month. We'll see how it goes. Lots of stuff going on in my life right now. But figured I'd document the progress both for accountability and encouragement.

Didn't get to writing until around 3:15 am. Woke at noon, then started a vegetable and shrimp stew in the crock pot. Then it was off to clean a house and a business with my wife. Arrived back home around 9:30 pm. Ate dinner while watching an episode of Star Trek, TNG. Season 3, Episode 1. After a some task and getting my wife to sleep, I did the cleaning business bookkeeping. That brought me up to 3:15 when I opened up my manuscript and the database.

Spent a little time reacquainting myself with the story. Had written 1771 words on the first chapter last November before shifting gears to something else. In my outline, I don't have anything written for the climax. I recall the general direction I was taking this, but obviously there is much left to discover.

By way of reminder, I generally create an outline of the major plot points for a novel. It helps me to have a clue where I'm going, but I like to fill in the details as I write. So I don't do a scene by scene outline. That evolves as the story progresses. But I find having the major plot points and any sub-plots tying into it helpful so I'm not wandering in the novel wilderness much. But rarely has one of my outlined climaxes happened exactly as I had envisioned it.

The only exception to that are my episodic novels like Reality's Dawn. I had a general progression in my head, but didn't know what each story was going to be about until I sat down to write it, or how it would resolve. My science fiction novel, Revolution, is such a novel as well. I've written five chapters/episodes on that one. Hope to do more on it by next year.

For normal novels, I've only written one by the seat of my pants fully. My first novel which remains unpublished. I'm about 2/3rd of the way done on a rewrite of it. All the rest I had the major plot points mapped out before I dug in to writing it.

This time I decided to forgo finishing the outline and see where the story takes me. I know some of the direction I had intended to go and the main conflicts and plot twist I was going to throw into the mix. No idea how they'll get out of the hot water I'm going to put them into, though.

So around 3:30, after getting my bearings, I started writing. Getting back into the characters came easy enough. Spent one hour and ten minutes, until 4:40, to write 444 words. For my Parkinson's slowed hands, not too bad actually. As you can tell, this isn't going to be Mr. Speedy. I need to find more time to work on it if I'm going to finish it this month.

But it is past my bedtime, so I'm calling it a night, writing this blog, and heading to bed by 5:30. Ha. The funny thing is I've written more words on this blog post than I did on the story. But I finished chapter 1, got back into writing it, and it is great to be back at it. We'll see if I can make more progress in the days to come.

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Day 1: 444 word

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Novel total: 2215 words