Good morning, Readers!

Image from webandi on Pixabay.

So at the start of the year, I bought myself two nifty notebooks. One was just a regular daily diary; small and compact, and very pretty to look at, for me to carry around and make notes in regarding my goals and schedules.

The other was a business workbook, because I want to get on top of my creative life and get it to start working for me.

I must confess, I’ve not been very good at keeping up with my goals, particularly as it pertains to trying to make a living from my creativity. There are lots of little things I could be doing, that I ought to be doing, like small bits of promotion that I’m just not doing. I find if I set out the intention to do them, and make it a goal, I’m much more likely to get it done.

It’s how I kept my word count on track before I hit my latest depressive spiral, and it’s helping me both get back on track with my writing and to beta read a manuscript for friends. So, last week I sat down to play catch-up with my business notebook. I was supposed to be updating it every week, but I neglected it after the first week of owning the thing; some three weeks ago.

Happily, I managed to accidentally make one of the goals for the (earn more than $100.00 from my creative efforts), as I recently crossed the payment threshold on Twitch, and earned some grocery money for myself. But that was entirely incidental. I need to focus my intentions more directly.

So, I’m going to try. If I do it long enough it will become a habit, and if it becomes a habit, it will be less of a struggle to keep it up.

The hope is that I will one day be able to maintain a livable income from my creative life, so that I can step away from work that doesn’t light me up and make me happy. I haven’t been very intentional about it before now. Since letting my work out in the wild and hoping for the best hasn’t really worked, I’m going to be a whole lot more proactive about it.

Probably. I hope to be. I still feel terribly squicky about self-promotion, but I’m also fed up with my current situation. Something’s got to give.

Anyway, I’ve been struggling with the very basic stuff, which is not how I wanted to start off my year. But these things take patience (of which I have none, so that’s going to be a fun thing for me) and practice. It’s probably going to be messy for a bit.

Wish me luck!

Good morning, Readers,

Album cover for Ruin by The Amazing Devil

Many of you know how incredibly necessary to my life music is. I'm always keeping out an ear for something new and interesting. I stumbled across this latest obsession quite serendipitously.

A couple of weeks ago, there were a flurry of tweets following the release of the second season of the popular show The Witcher. Of course I've watched it. One of the highlights of the show is Jaskier, the comedic foil to Cavill's straight man, Geralt of Rivia. Perfectly portrayed by Joey Batey, I've long loved his voice as it is revealed on the show. Of the soundtracks to The Witcher, it's Mr. Batey's songs that get the most play on my phone.

Anyway, these flurry of tweets was for a band called The Amazing Devil - fronted by everyone's favourite bard, Joey Batey, and Madeleine Hyland. Intrigued, I looked up their stuff on YouTube, and I immediately fell in love.

As it turns out, they have a brand new album release: Ruin.

I'm no expert, but the best I can guess is that there's a modern folk band. And they're spectacular. Both Joey and Madeleine have remarkable voices that pierce right through the core. The lyrics are stunning. I've cried more than once listening to their music since discovering it last week. It all hits just so.

As for Ruin, there isn't a single song on there that I do not at least like. I really do recommend you listen to the whole album, but there are three that are absolutely standout pieces for me. I've embedded them below.

The first, The Old Witch Sleep and the Good Man Grace​, is the longest of the three and shifts through moods perfectly. This is the song for those times you've reached the absolute limit (note, that I was contemplating putting Blossoms in its place. It really was a toss-up between the two).

Next of the three is Inkpot Gods​, which was my favourite for a flash. It's defiant and affirming and sad, and just... Well, I'll let you see for yourself.

And my absolute favourite, The Calling. It's been on repeat for days. This is the song pulls at the primal part of myself. It has stopped me in my tracks more than once, even though I know it extremely well by this point.

A special mention should go to A Drinking Song for the Socially Anxious for sheer relatability.

It has been a long while since I've been so excited about a new musical discovery, and I just had to share. I highly recommend listening to the whole album. It's really is art.

Right, I have work and stuff to do. I shall see you next week, hopefully.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers

Image by Engin_Akyurt on Pixabay.

I’m writing this at the end of the fasting attempt, because I cannot and will not deal with folks’ opinion on the matter. I’ve researched and decided, and it’s done now, so save it. I decided to experiment a little with a protracted fast; specifically, a seven day water fast (with some changes). I’ve been eating like crap for the past month and a little bit, and I was feeling it. Covid also did a number on my digestion, and it left me struggling a bit. I felt bloated, sluggish and things weren’t working as they should.

I needed a hard reset.

So, after a lot of reading and thinking, I decided to do a seven day water fast.

Sort of. By sort of, I mean that I didn’t give up my caffeine. If I do this again, I think I’ll wean myself off caffeine for a few weeks before the fast, but as it was, I was not confident that I could deal with removing both food and caffeine at the same time. Thankfully, in my research, it was mentioned that black coffee and tea were permissible. It technically isn’t a true water fast, but near enough that the results would likely be the same. So, coffee and tea it was; but only in the morning. I drank water the rest of the time.

Since I’m experimenting here, I figured I’d keep a running journal of the experience. So here it is in full. My attempt at a seven day water fast(ish).

Last Meal: Burger and fries at 3:30pm (thank you, The Works), Saturday Jan 1.
Break Fast: Bone broth and bread at 4:30pm, Saturday Jan 7.

Sunday, 2 Jan, Day 1: Hunger pangs are quite pronounced, starting around midday. Drank water to try and quell them some. It was largely ineffective, but not entirely. Felt cold the whole day, except in the morning, when I could have my coffee. The hot shower in the evening felt fan-frickin-tastic, though.

Monday, 3 Jan, Day 2: This is supposed to be the worst day. And it was. Holy hell hunger pangs can be quite painful. Mind you, they did die down when I hit the times outside my usual eating hours. Water did not help, though I did try to keep up with drinking a lot of water, since I wasn’t getting any from my food at this point.

Tuesday, 4 Jan, Day 3: The hunger pangs disappeared into background noise by day 3. It was no more pressing than the period between breakfast and lunch. Water helped a lot in controlling them. I started to feel a little off and remembered that I needed electrolytes, and so ate a pinch of salt. That fixed it, but gave me a cramp in my left calf that lasted the whole day. Other than that, there was nothing remarkable to note.

Wednesday, 5 Jan, Day 4: This is usually the day that the brain fog and fatigue start to lift. That was not my experience. Mind you, I didn’t really feel any increased brain fog and fatigue. It generally stayed at the level it usually is. Fasting doesn’t cure depression and its symptoms, evidentially. Interestingly, there wasn’t any change in my general mood. The things that usually annoyed me still annoyed me, and not by any greater measure.

Thursday, 6 Jan, Day 5: Nothing really changed. Everything is more or less the same as before. I did find that I was more tired in the evening, and absolutely had to get to bed by 10:30. Also, I began to feel funny again, so went with another pinch of salt. That fixed it within the hour. I got a little bitter that I was denied the clearer mind and increased energy that so many of the case studies promised.

Friday, 7 Jan, Day 6: No alcohol with my Friday night live stream, as I usually do. Man, that was sad. Had green tea instead. It’s less fun. The hunger pangs started to get intense again around the middle of the afternoon, but died down with increased water intake. Very tired after my stream, so I went right to bed.

Saturday, 8 Jan, Day 7: I fucking made it. Broke the fast in the evening at 4:30pm with bone broth with onion and garlic and a piece of bread. My stomach took the reintroduction of food very well, so I followed that up half an hour later with smoked salmon and cream cheese on rice cakes. I gave my stomach another hour to see how it would do, and there were no weird things happening, so I went ahead and had a full dinner - rib steak with parsnips and buttered peas, and a small glass of red wine. It was lovely.

Sunday, 9 Jan: Returned to my regular eating pattern, which this week includes a lot of salmon, apparently. Breakfast was smoked salmon and cream cheese on rice cakes, a nectarine and yogurt, and coffee and milk. Lunch was pan-seared salmon with buttered peas (and holy hell did I do a good job with the salmon) and a small glass of wine. Dinner was salmon and cream cheese again. The smoked salmon was open and I really needed to finish it. That’s alright, I rather like salmon, smoked or otherwise.

The results: I didn’t bother to weigh myself or measure myself. This was not a weight loss thing, so if you came hoping for reporting on that front, I’m sorry. I just wanted a reset on my troubled tummy. So far, so good. The aches and weirdness that prompted me to do this seemed to have been resolved. This morning, after the posting of the blog, I’m introducing tougher to digest foods (oats, nuts etc), so we’ll see how it goes, but I reckon it’ll all be good.

I’m a still a little bitter that the clear mind and increased energy didn’t really happen for me, but the nonsense going on with an abused digestive system seems to have been fixed, so all up, I think it was a success. Would I do it again?

Well, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be, so perhaps I shall make it a yearly thing, depending on what’s going on with my tummy. Perhaps next time I’ll get that clarity and energy (psht).

Good morning, Readers!

Image courtesy of qimono on pixabay.com

I’m not going to recount my New Years resolutions; mostly because I have no idea if I even made any for 2021, and I certainly did not hit them in any case. I made it out of last year alive (as of the writing of this, which is right at the end of 2021. Presumably I didn’t encounter some disaster before this post is scheduled to publish… but I’m not counting it out entirely, to be honest).

That said, while I have the strength to dream about the future as of this minute, I am going to try and set myself some goals for this year that I’m keen to hit. I’ll also add a dream or two that currently look impossible from where I am at present, but I hope to achieve relatively soon (not this year, likely, but soon).

So, here are some actionable goals, according to aspect of my life and insterests.

• Complete all three rounds of editing for The Lioness of Shara Mountain and upload it to the web novel portal.
• Complete the first drafts for all three books of the Avalon series and prepare the first book for submission to the wonderful folks at Renaissance Press. If I manage to get all three books done in their first drafts, then I’ll be able to have each book published every year; meaning readers won’t have to wait too long for the next book, and there’ll be three years when I have at least something published.
• Compete Super Secret Special Project and have it ready to gift to the person I’m writing it for at Christmas.

I think a total of five projects mostly complete by the end of the year is quite ambitious enough. I’ll be happy if I make two of those bullet points, to be honest.

• Monthly Coffee & Creativity live streams.
• Fill a 300 page sketchbook by the end of the year (sketchbook is pre-ordered and shipping sometime this month, so it’s going to have to be roughly a page a day, which will be quite the challenge).
• Create a book cover for The Lioness of Shara Mountain​.

Two of these are very doable. One is going to be tough to maintain. We’ll see how I do.

• Return to martial arts training; and go consistently.
• Strength and flexibility training Monday & Wednesday evenings.
• Return to language learning - French and Welsh to start. Speaking of, anyone want to become language pen pals?
• Return to reading.
• Return to blogging.
• Reestablish Nights at the Round Table​.

My biggest problem with this aspect of my life is consistency. I’m aiming for that this year.

So. There we are. Things that I’m going to attempt to do for 2022. It’s a long list, and quite ambitious, given how little I was capable of in 2021. I’m feeling a little optimistic, though, even if it’s only because I’m currently in slightly less of a depressive funk. I do hope I’ll get at least some of these things marked off my list.

What about you? Are you setting goals this year, or are you just concentrating on making it out of 2022 alive? Because, honestly, I’ll be pretty okay if that’s all I manage. If 2022 is anything like 2021 was, it will be quite the achievement.

Let me know in the comments.

​Ciao!