Scathingly Brilliant Idea Fail X 2

I had a scathingly brilliant idea.

My daily list of things To Do included nine things that I do every day. It seems silly to write them and rewrite them. Especially when my planner features an entire section of habit trackers with a lot of lines. It includes the ability to track weekly or daily.

Hmm, I thought. Maybe I could list these daily items on the habit trackers and just check them off. That would be so much easier. I'd be writing things once a month instead of 28-31 times a month.

Never mind that I never use habit trackers because I forget they exist. This time it's going to work. I'm sure of it.

I got one of my small magnetic clips out to mark the page and I filled in the habit tracker with the things I need to remember to do every day. When I filled out my daily pages for the week, I left those items off the list. This was so much easier!

Until I forgot the habit trackers existed...just like I always do.

I made it about three days before I moved my daily items back to the daily pages.

There was more than my forgetting about the habit trackers at play here. The ones in my planner were big, allowing me to list a lot of items. It became hard to see what I was tracking because there were so many. And because there were so many, my ADHD brain became overwhelmed. I rarely remembered I was using them, and then when I did remember and flipped over, I was spinning. Not great.

Then I had another scathingly brilliant idea. What if I used a four-habits habit tracker? I could paste it on my weekly page. I always turn to my weekly section--it's where I record the weather. :-) This would get four things I do every day off my daily pages.

It's really amazing how a sticker can disappear on a planner page, isn't it?

After two habit tracker failures, I gave up. I'm back to writing my daily items on every daily page. It might be tedious, but at least this way I know I won't forget to do something that needs to be done. And no, I can't remember to meditate even though I do it every day. Yeah. Sigh.

Library Book Jam

I'd finished all my library books and returned them. I checked my hold list and everything seemed as if it were six or seven weeks (or more) before it would be my turn to have the ebook. This would be a great time to read book two in the series I started in May. The third book comes out this month, which means I won't forget all the details.

I also checked out another book at the same time that I thought would be interesting to read afterward. Two books. Two weeks to read. Should be fine.

And then a hold came in. Three books in two weeks? I can still do that. I checked out the book.

I get pinged that another book I'm on hold for has come in. After a brief debate, I decide that I can do it. I'll just have to find a little more time to read than usual.

Then another hold came in. I put it off for a few weeks. Same with the next hold.

In the meantime, I'm still reading the first book.

I get another notification. This is a book I'd already delayed when the hold came in earlier and I didn't have time to read it. I don't want to delay it again, but I have four books to read. I check page counts on all of them, thinking if I bang out the short ones first, I will feel less stressed.

The shortest book is the one I'm already reading. It was 352 pages. All the others were 400+ pages.

The book I delayed once has to be delayed again. I can't add another one TBR and three of the four books I have checked out cannot be extended because there's a waiting list for them.

I feel like an Air Traffic Controller trying to manage O'Hare or the Atlanta Airport. Good grief! What are the odds that all these books would come available early? I'm guessing other readers delayed taking their hold? That's the only thing that makes sense because those books were seriously a long way out when I checked.

I finished the first book last night. It was awesome, but I needed to get up early today and staying up late was not the smartest move I ever made.

Tonight, I start the book that is due next and has four people waiting. I hope it reads fast. 

Fresh Beginnings

Writing the beginning of a book always takes me so much longer than any other part. The way I explain it to people is that it's like building a house. You have to get the foundation down right or everything else you add on top of it will be out of kilter.

Wicked Temptation is no exception. 

I know this happens and I try to be patient with the process, but I'm used to the speed I was writing on the previous book. As I'm heading into the end, my speed picks up.

Going back to starting speed? It's painful.

Book 8 of the Paladin League series is Callum "Baggs" Baggnell and Iona Desmond. Baggs has been around for a few books, so I know him fairly well, and because his heroine was mentioned so much in the previous book, I know Io pretty well, too.

But then I never start writing a book until I know the characters very, very well. It doesn't mean the start of the book will go any faster.

Cal is the hero where it took forever to get his name. I don't get to pick my characters names--they let me know when we have it. There's a reason why Cal was only referred to by his handle for a while. There was a stretch where I thought his name was Callan. It just felt a little off, and after the torturous route we went through to get this name, I was frustrated. And then we got to Callum and it was an ah-ha! moment. I had a name!

Io was easier. She and her sister told me their names right away. Ayla and Iona. The only (brief) debate was whether her name was Ione or Iona. It didn't take long before that was settled.

I'm not sure I ever told the story here about their names.

The plan for the Paladin League series has changed many, many times since I first had Finn and Zo from Wicked Intention come in and talk to me. One of these later plans was an eight book series--two quartets: The Musketeers (Ryder, Finn, Griff, and Kyle) and The Lost Treasure. Only it became clear early on that this would need more books. The Lost Treasure became six books.

And I knew I had a character named Ayla hanging around. She showed up when I heard the name Isla. The two names are pronounced the same, but Ayla made it clear that her name was not spelled Isla.

I have long since given up arguing with my characters about names or spelling of said name. Whatever they want, I roll with. I used to attempt to guide them a different direction, but they always ended up with the name they wanted anyway, so why waste the time and energy?

Surnames are easier for me to get them to change. They're not as stubborn about those.

Once I realized the Paladin League Lost Treasure arc was six books and not four, it became clear that Ayla was on of the heroines. And when I learned she was a twin, I knew who the heroine in the second added book was, too.

But beginning a book is hard and takes me so long to write. I'll just keep getting the foundation down solidly, no matter how slowly it goes.

The Pressure's On

I've been doing more fiction reading this year than I have in a while. Amazing what a library card can do for a person.

The only problem is that the library only allows two-week loans and sometimes I don't have as much time to read as I'd like. Or I'd rather unwind at the end of the day by doing something else.

As an example, I returned a book today that I felt stressed about reading because it was due! I finished the book. I liked the book. But reading isn't supposed to be filled with deadline anxiety. (That's for writing.) Someone was on the wait list for the book, so I couldn't renew it. It was either finish it or get back on the wait list myself.

I have another library book on my eReader, but I have 12 days before that is due, so I can just enjoy it rather than stress read. :-)

And I can't talk about reading without discussing my book journal. I like the opening pages that I created, but the individual book pages don't look cute. I don't know how some people can just put together these outstanding spreads so easily. It must be because I didn't get the artistic gene. It makes me sad because I enjoy having a book journal.

I'm behind on filling in my thoughts on a ton of books. During the May Readathon, I was reading too fast and furiously to fill it in. Afterward, I forgot a lot of details. The biggest problem is all the Jayne Castle (JAK) Harmony books I glommed during the month. I have them all confused in my head and now I need to review them so that I can fill in the notes sections. Of course, I also read these books out of order, so I'm thinking maybe I should just reread all of them and do it right this time.

Only I have library books to get to. I've already delayed holds on multiple books, some of them more than once, because I have other books already checked out. 

Creating My Own Writing Planner: Part Two

I received no compensation of any kind for this post and everything I talk about was purchased at full price with my own money.

I didn't buy extra notes pages at the back of my Erin Condren dashboard planner and I ended up really regretting it because I ran out of space. Fast.

PlanSarahPlan on Etsy sells a blank notes page that can be put down over pages that have things on there you don't need, so I bought that and printed it out on sticker paper and laid it down over the monthly calendars I wasn't using at the front of the planner.

Because this planner is covering more than one year, I decided to put a list of Works In Progress at the front. If I'd realized how tight I was on notes pages, I would have combined this page with the next page, Future Projects. I really didn't need a full page for both of these, but the sticker paper I own is not repositionable, so two pages it is!

 

If this planner works like I hope, I'll know to 1) order an extra section of notes pages and 2) put these two sections on one page.

Every month, I want to set writing goals. There's a blank page next to the monthly notes page, so I added a sticker there.

 

I know this is something I need to figure out how to use. This is definitely a work in progress for me.

And if I'm going to set monthly goals, I should hold myself accountable, right? I need to come up with some review questions for myself.

The final page I have setup and ready to go is Blog Post Brainstorm.

Too often, I come up with ideas for the blog, and forget them because I have nowhere to write them down. Or, even better, I do write them down and then can't figure out where I wrote it. After I took the picture, I drew a line down the center to give myself more space. I'd originally planned to make this a double-page spread, but ran out of notes pages, so I used the second page for something else. There are more brainstorming pages in here for other things, but I didn't take pictures of those.

Honestly, I don't know if this is going to work or not. I'm hopeful because there's something about this layout that gives me structure, but allows me to make it what I want it to be. I hope it does work. I hope I'm excited every time I use this planner.

From next week until the end of 2025 will be all about experimenting, about finding what I need to keep track of beyond word count. I'm going to look through the abandoned author planners I bought and see if there's anything in those that I need to bring into this planner to make it work for me. I need to finish setting everything up this week. It doesn't need to be perfect, I just need to start the test run.

You know I'm going to update. :-)