Wow, how on Earth is August almost over? I swear I was just cursing Rump’s position in the White House… wait. I’m still doing that. Then how has so much time passed? I don’t know, but here’s a general update on what has been going on in my life, partially swiped from my phone on my way home from the eclipse.
tl;dr Things are good overall (minus the world being what it is right now) and no really how on Earth is Nano so close? Cue screaming.
Work. This is the part that people care about when they ask what’s new. But I got a new full-time job! One where I have to work in an office and everything! I started in mid-July and like it so far. It’s a very small company with only two other people working full-time (and that includes the founder), and the environment is casual, so it’s a good fit overall so far. I’m still doing occasional freelance work, but I am not working 60-hour weeks. I do find myself doing a lot of the freelance work on weekends, which can be exhausting and which cuts into the time spent doing well, everything else. I’m definitely giving up the extra work in November because I have to sleep sometime. (Trust me. I’ve done 300k while working full-time and the result is not pretty in any way.)
NaNo. Cue my freaking out over how NaNo is two months away. NaNo stuff deserves its own post, but the short version is I won Camp NaNo in April and July, have more ideas for my third drafts, and started fundraising for this year’s Night of Writing Dangerously. (That’s a link to my fundraising page if you’re so inclined.) I’m also updating Wikiwrimo in preparation for the site relaunch, and there is a lot to update and not much time to do it. Hey, at least I finished the biggest project early–2016 region and ML updates.
Non-NaNo writing. Hoooo boy, I definitely haven’t done much of this. Even my paper journal has suffered, which is a problem when I have more going on and rely on the journal as stress relief. Unfortunately there’s not much I can do to use my time more efficiently here.
Reading. I reached my 2017 goal of 100 books read just before starting the new job and it’s a good thing I did. My listening has declined only a little since starting the new job, but my reading has taken a huge hit. To give you an idea, I didn’t finish reading an entire book for two weeks after starting the new job. Considering my fiction TBR list is longer and I have a really hard time listening to nonfiction, this is a problem.
Running. This one took a hit for a few weeks after starting the new job. Once I got a running pack, I started running to work a few days a week. Three miles, only a few minutes longer to run than to take the bus, and a shower in the building? Yes, please. Unintended consequences of run commuting: I use the work shower almost as much as I use the shower at home, and thanks to being out of town for the eclipse there was a space of over a week where I didn’t use my home shower at all. Whoops.
Travel. I’ve been to a few new places this year: Asheville, NC (for a VIP beer tour at New Belgium), Athens, GA (okay, this isn’t new, but I hadn’t been there in years, so I’m counting it), and Charleston, SC (for the eclipse). I got to see almost all of the partial eclipse, but a storm and clouds rolled in just as totality was about to happen. Even funnier: this was at an atheist convention. I’m also planning to go to San Francisco for NOWD in November and nudge nudge my fundraising link is here.
Social. Hahahahaha. I went to Momocon and a fountain pen social group sometime in the spring but besides that I haven’t been too great at socializing.
Anything else? I think that covers the big stuff, but ask away!