How was Your Writing Week? And Saying Farewell to a Beloved Pet

I hope you made better progress on your goals last week than I did. On that front, it turned out to be a terrible week for me.

My younger daughter, who'd been living in our basement apartment since June 1, moved back to Seattle. But even as she was clearing her things out, and leaving the basement spiffy-sparkly clean, I discovered some disturbing things about her boyfriend, which I won't go into. Suffice it to say, it derailed me for several days. When emotionally distraught, I take flight. No, not our flying adventures. Flight, as in, I go shopping. It wasn't even interesting shopping. It was Costco grocery shopping, and running errands. Three shopping expeditions, on three separate days.

Then I discovered Friday was World Alzheimer's Day. After deciding to post the remembrance I'd written about my mother, I spent a considerable amount of time that day thinking about her. She passed away in May, although I've been processing the gradual loss of her over the past 16 years.

But also on Friday, we woke up to discover that our favorite pet, Moe, had died. The picture is of her as a puppy. She lived to be 13.5 years old. She was an Akita-Chow mix, and very sweet. She thought she existed to be loved and to give love. Maybe that IS why she existed.

In addition to the emotional upheavals, it was a bad week for writing due to watching my other daughter's children, my grandkids, for a total of eight hours.

And then, another big reason for my writing breakdown was that I was stuck. It felt as if the 25-page gulf between where I was, and the middle, where I had hoped to be by the end of the week, was unbridgeable. As a strategy to get over the divide, I decided I would cast ahead instead, and maybe a larger word total in the scene at the middle could offset a deficient word total in an earlier scene. We'll see. It could be that this is what is meant by a novel being "uneven."

I didn't keep track of time spent writing or blogging last week. My word count grew to 27,850 revised (of 60,000 total), an increase of only 3250 words!

As for reading, I bought a couple of books, both after being recommended on blogs I read. While babysitting a sick grandchild for five hours on Sunday morning, I was able to read about 40% of  Sell your Book like Wildfire. It's incredibly informative, and I plan to use applicable information to improve my overall web presence.

As for jogging, I discovered (after changing the program on my Polar F60) that I could meet the new goals (for a trophy) by jogging only 14 miles instead of 16. I needed only to ramp up my speed, which I was more than eager and ready to do. For the first time since buying the HRM a couple of months ago, I was required to work out in Zone 3 (the most strenuous heart-rate zone). It asked for only 20 minutes' worth. I got in over 30 minutes, no problem. I love experiencing the endorphin high after a good workout.

I was discussing this with my older daughter recently. She was bemoaning how much she hates to exercise, and whenever she thinks about it, she gets glum and uninspired. I told her that if she was exercising hard enough to get the endorphin effect afterwards, she would actually look forward to getting her "fix."


Lastly, I discovered that the Golden Heart contest doesn't open for enrollment until November 15, which means I won't need to produce a manuscript until around the beginning of February. That makes me feel more comfortable, especially as I have not yet written my way out of the bumpy patch, and I fear there could be more to come.

So in a week that held a lot of frustration and even grief for me, this was a piece of good news. I also met with my critique group again for the first time since last spring. It was so nice to see them all again.

How about you? How did you do with your goals last week?