We’ve moved host and had a make-over. I also began recording Writing Vlogs this year, which you can find on Youtube here.

See you on the other side!

“Anyone can love a thing ‘because’. That’s as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something ‘despite’: to know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.” 
– Patrick Rothfuss 

February was interesting. We began by celebrating 5 years of marriage with pancakes and pizza (as you do) and I took some time to reflect on my writing journey, and where I’d like to take it this year.

March came around quicker than I expected, so here’s a merged reflection again. One of the things about a worldwide pandemic + year-long-set-of-lockdowns is that my sense of time has definitely become less clear. 

Happy April.  

~

Writing Life

Continuing on from January’s Reflection Post, I’m continuing to track my written words.

For February, I managed 4,696 words, split between personal reflection essays, medium posts, TFG and my nonfiction book. 

In March, I reached 6,875, including two fiction projects, the nonfiction book, medium posts and a couple of letters to my MP. I also submitted the first 10-pages of a completed trilogy manuscript, after editing it, which boosted this month’s wordcount.

VLOGGING

In Case You Missed It: I decided to vlog monthly on my writing progress, partly to keep myself accountable but also to show a bit of the reality behind writing life.

~

Reflections on the Journey

i. Read 12 books: – 0/12. This is a main aim for April – finish one darn book. I’ve made progress on my current stories, but not finished any of them! 

ii. Edit The Felled Gods: I did not do this much – focusing on another story in March to submit the first 10 pages for an event. But I edited words of fiction, so I’m okay with this. 

iii. Track my wordcount: I’m getting into the groove of this, and in 6 months have tracked 93,078 words. Holy Shit. After the last few years of dropping below 100,000 words across 12 months and being frustrated, there is something so comforting in knowing that if I just count the words I write for my non-fiction projects, that I almost hit that in 6 months… it’s reassuring for me, as a writer and over-achiever. #MilWordy.

iv. Focus on Health: I stopped yoga in February, but have journalled most days. Intuitive eating is still happening, although i’ve eaten more Easter Eggs this month than usual. Movement and Meditation are definitely my focuses for April. 

v. Connect with my Community: After the explosion of socialising in January, I did step back from this to be an introvert again. Having said this, in March I was expected in the office one day a week at work, and even had a coffee date with a colleague in my lunch break!  

I’m still publishing my weekly podcast episodes, opened a trial of my community,  and wrote 2 newsletters.

~

Smoke and Ember

We’ve had weird weather again, with a heatwave on Monday-Tuesday and next Monday we’re expecting snow. The cats do not understand, and their moulting fur doesn’t either! But both are well, seemingly still friendly with each other for now, and cut as ever.  

~

This Website Space

I want to note that WordPress has removed my ability to add plugins so I have the block editor that has never ever been as god as the classic one from 2013, and means I can’t control how my posts look anymore. So if this post doesn’t look right, that’s why.

I’ll also be moving my site over the next month and hopefully this won’t effect you – but if something goes missing or a link breaks, it’s because I’m shifting over to take back control of my own site again. 

~

How was your first quarter of 2021?

“Winter fights valiantly to hold the land. The earth and the sky are grey, leaden, and heavy with the cold. But here and there, scattered like jewels in the sodden grass, the first slender tips of daffodils start up toward the growing Sun. Something in us stirs as well, as life pulses unseen beneath the still-slumbering ground.”

– Michelle Morgan

We’re at the end of January 2021. *exhales*

As you read this, actively relax your shoulders. Pull them down with your hands if needed. Let them sink under their weight. And exhale…

Grand. I feel like a lot of us needed that.

~

Life Updates

I began a new 9-5 dayjob and two weeks in, I am LOVING it. The team are great, it uses all of my best skills, and management appear to be ~human~ in terms of expectations and admitting faults as needed.

I’ve been working my way through a 30-day yoga challenge. I managed 24 days before realising I needed to give my body a break, and will pick up the other 6 days next week!

Erm… we got a replacement vacuum cleaner? Things haven’t been especially busy.
Quarantine life, amiright?

Okay, on to the writing.

~

The Writing

I mentioned in September that I was doing ‘MilWordy’ which essentially, for me, is just “track everything you write fiction and nonfiction.”

I haven’t been great at this goal, but every day is a fresh start to get an accurate wordcount for the day. So in the interest of continuity, here are the stats I did make note of.

September: 9,203 words. 66 of which were fiction.
October: Of the 10 days I tracked, 2,322 words, 230 of which were fiction.
November: 54,057 words. 50,018 of which were fiction. [NaNoWriMo]
December: 9,492 words. 758 of which were fiction.
January: 6,433 words. 1,211 of which were fiction. Also, I started a non-fiction book manuscript, which I wrote 1,482 new words for (and a solid 2k of notes written over the last 10 years).

NEW PROJECT

I finally, actually, fully decided to write my non-fiction book. It’s been swirling around my head since I began my neuroscience degree in 2011 and noticed all the threads other self-help books weren’t connecting. I decided that 2021 is going to be the year for this book to get drafted.

The current ‘brief’ is that it will be a ‘self-help-y guide’ merged with my academic background and therapy tools merged alongside experience and spirit (which science is slowly understanding, piece by piece) to help people finally unearth the power inside them.

But it’s only 3,000 words so far, so we shall see what it looks like even at the end of the first rough draft. 

VLOGGING

I also decided last night, on a whim, to try to do a writing vlog every month. As this was a last minute thing, I did just natter about my projects for 10 minutes, but plan to film clips throughout February of my writing for the next one. If you want to support me, like and leave a comment on the video here.

~

Reflections on the Journey

i. Read 12 books: – 0/12 however I’m 18% into The Women Who Run With The Wolves, which I keep highlighting whole paragraphs of. So I’m okay with that taking a while. I’m also reading through my WIP which is taking up reading time but won’t ‘officially count’ for my Goodreads count as the book is still in edits. 

ii. Edit The Felled Gods: I didn’t even plan this transition but as above. Reading and note-taking on the plot is in progress. All of my fiction words from December and January’s MILWORDY totals are for this story.

iii. Track my wordcount: I’m getting into the groove of this, and in 5 months have tracked ____ words. #MilWordy.

iv. Focus on Health: I’m near the end of a daily yoga challenge, and have journalled every single day in January. Some days were more ‘in-depth’ than others, but for showing up and building the habits up slowly, this is a huge win. I’ve also been very on-track with intuitive eating since I began my new job, and I feel content continuing this plan into February.

v. Connect with my Community: January was a hugely social month for me. I began a new dayjob, including meeting 20+ members of a team. I also took specific ‘date time’ with my husband at least twice a week, and socialised via video call with six different people, including one person whose voice I hadn’t heard since we met in Ireland in 2009. I also continued to write a monthly Medium post, am still publishing my weekly podcast episodes, and wrote 2 newsletters. I also added a random vlog to Youtube last night, too. I’m expecting a dip in February but, a brilliant start to the year.

~

Smoke and Ember

The cats are both well, although got very confused when I went back to a dayjob after a couple of weeks without traditional sleep and waking routines. Thursday night Smoke just did not let either of us sleep and was so confused about our shifts, bless him. 

As usual in the winter, they are ‘cuddly as’ with each other and I’m getting lots of photos of them close together, which is lovely to see before Spring comes and they get all territorial again. 

~

How are you finding 2021 so far?

Part of me want’s to leave that there and just jump to 2021, but 2020 was a big year for my personal development – mostly in the last 3 months of the year, but it all counts.

Also, I wrote 51,822 new words of fiction, which is about 600 words more than last year. 

Reflecting on 2020:

i. Read 12 books: – TICK! 12/12. I finished reading Crystal Magic last night, which brings my total to 12/12. While many people had a lot of free time this year, I was a keyworker and spent most evenings going to bed at 7pm for a solid 6 months. I also flitted back toward fiction near the end of the year, which was a good reminder of how much longer non-fiction (and especially non-fiction I’m then integrating lessons from / completing workbook exercises around) take me.

ii. Edit The Felled Gods: Ahahahahahahahahahahaha Hahahahahahahahaha. No.  I did not complete this. I think I’ve read and at least skim-edited around.. 40% of the book (jumping to the bits I knew needed most work and ignoring the “eh” sections!) So, in summary, I did work on edits for this book in November & December, and even submitted it for a contest. So… not a ‘zero’ on this goal, despite 2020 being the year it was. But I had plans for full edits, new reads, and even tentative publication ideas so this feels very far from my January 2020 goal!

iii. Track my wordcount: – Yes? I say this with a tentative question mark at the end. I did track my writing this year, and in September began an attempt to also track my non-fiction writing for MilWordy.

iv. Wellbeing Comes First: – Yes? This is hard to measure. I did work on my wellbeing, and December this year my wellbeing is probably the best it’s been for a couple of years. So I am going to tick this off, although there were definitely some low points throughout this year (although.. I think we all kind of had that in parts… world-wide pandemic, ya know)

v. Weekly Connection: – Yes? This was hard for me to measure again, since we were locked down (and I’m currently in tier 4 lockdown as I type this), but I definitely had a lot more sociable time online. I made a point of Zoom-calls with friends, met a friend in person (socially distanced!) for the first time in 8 years, and played games online with friends around the country.

~

This Year’s TA-DA List – I:

– Celebrated 13 years with O.H.
– Celebrated our 4-year wedding anniversary.
– Survived the 2020 Pandemic.
– Left my job, got a new one, and rested in between(!)
– Was a guest on podcasts chatting about wellbeing, education, identity crises & self-developmenton 3 podcasts [linked below]
– Made a new opt-in quiz and roadmap, and began to prep membership community [get on my email list for first dibs and more details]
– Started my own Podcast
– Completed a L4 NVQ
– Did a Coursera course in the Science of Wellbeing from Yale University
– Re-arranged our mortgage #adulting
– Joined a scrapbooking community that gave me social contact, nerdy stationary chats & my voice back.
– Saw my 2-year-old niece twice during safe times.
– Continued to support our local cat cafe [twice during safe times].
– Completed NaNoWriMo for the 11th time. And won it. For the 11th time. 

Publications This Year:

• I did not have any fiction published in 2020, but here’s my Medium link as I wrote 28 articles this year. This one even got featured on Medium’s Front Page.
• Follow Your Curiosity – Podcast Ep #31 [Feb 2020]
• The Freedom Network Live –Ep #170ish [5Feb2020]
• The Positive Mama – Episode #17 Self-Care Chat [30Dec2020]

~

Welcome In, 2021

I have to laugh.

For the Jan 2019 post I said “So I survived 2018.”
In the Jan 2020 post I began with “*and exhale*”
And Jan 2021? Let’s not jinx anything, okay.

My word for 2021 is Wild. I have plans for how I want to feel at the end of 2021, and let’s just leave the journey to the gods, shall we?

~

Intentions for 2021:

Time for this annual list again.

i. Read 12 books: – I have yet to do this 2 years in a row. So i’m sticking with 12, but with a quiet stretch goal of more (maybe 16? Doable but not too ambitious?). We shall see. 12 is my official one, since we don’t know how this year will go.

ii. Edit The Felled Gods: So I had a revelation about my identity as a writer in 2020, and thus: here we go. I’d like to edit and finish the next draft of this story, ready for exploring publication in 2022.

iii. Track my wordcount: Again, I have no specific wordcount aim this year, but I am tracking my wordcount through #MilWordy.

iv. Focus on Health: I have a few ‘sub-goals’ that focus on intuitive eating, regular movement, journalling & meditation. In short, my plan is to vaguely look at incorporating into my life including: read more, meditate, exercise weekly again, craft regularly, journal daily… But really, it’s a balance, and who knows what 2021 will actually look like.

v. Connect with my Community: This goal takes the form of monthly Medium posts, weekly podcast episodes, continuing my newsletter. Along with virtual social connections to refill my well each month.

~

May 2021 be ever in our favour.

~

How are you approaching 2021?

My first two reviews can be found here (part 1) and here (part 2).

8 down, 4 to go for my goal of 12… Let’s see how we did.  

~

November :: Manifesting Money: How to Master & Apply Abundance Mindset in your Life – Amanda Rose

4 Stars

I do not normally read books about money but I needed a break from the self-development reads I’d picked up lately, and didn’t feel I can pick back up the dystopian novel I am in the middle of reading…

I have a fairly good grasp of the Law of Attraction and the theories behind it, and figured this was a short, simple book that would be a good reminder of the importance of mindset.

Overall, this is exactly what it was for me. A reminder of the power of attention, or framing things in my head, and of taking small actions. All in all, useful for where I was at in my mindset. 

I will say that this is an overview with basic concepts, and that the last 14% (22 pages on Kindle) is literally a list of adverts for other things. I’ve seen recommendation lists in self-help books – this wasn’t that. This was “hey go but this now and read my other books” without any attempt to put the resources into a chapter themselves, no real links to what each thing would help with from the book. Essentially: I didn’t even read these pages because as far as I can see, they aren’t part of the book I just read. 

[Again, to be clear, the resources might be useful and relevant – but they weren’t included inside this book. They were tacked on to the end with a picture of the product per page and not integrated into any kind of prose.]

~

November :: Insurgent (Divergent Book 2)  – Veronica Roth

4 Stars

Goodreads tells me I began reading this 2 weeks after I finished Divergent: nearly 2 years ago.

I loved the first book in the series, and began the sequel without hesitation. The pacing and plot kept me moving, and I wanted to learn more about this world, and these people. I wanted to see how the main characters would move next.

Yet, I put this book down for 18 months. I only read one fiction book last year, and one in February of this year. I finally brought myself back to finish this one this month, and although I will read book 3, I definitely feel it was missing the… glue? Of the first. The character development is not clear like it was in book one, and I have to agree with other readers: the Tris and Four we knew in book one quite suddenly change. 

As someone with experience of trauma, I did feel that the aspects showing post-trauma responses held some water. As I have a Neuroscience degree, the little details about the brain chemistry and serum were vaguely interesting (and made more sense than when some fiction try to use science to explain things (Yes, I’m looking at you, 2012).)

I still feel the overall story concept is well crafted, the characters largely kept to their personalities (with some pause around the fact we had a big shift between the last few pages of book 1 and first 100 pages of book 2), and I will read the final instalment.

However, it was harder to get through, more complex to keep track of why people were doing things, and it definitely lost a lot of the structure the first book’s plot held. 

I would rate this book 4 stars, dropping one for the issues mentioned above, but also aware that middle books are hard (I’ve written a trilogy – Book 2 is HARD), that it did move us between the point at the end of book one to a point for book 3 to begin, and that I see people who do go on, praise the third book.

~

December :: Inner Demons – Sarra Cannon 

5 Stars

I originally read the first book in this series back in Feb 2014 as it was free and I’d just bought my kindle (second hand from ebay – and I’m still using it today!) and wanted to explore the fantasy fiction books I didn’t already know about.

I picked this up 5 days ago, and devoured the last 70% just in the past 12 hours. Having had 6.5 years between books, I think the beginning was a bit slower as I tried to remember the events of the first, but I didn’t have to look back to the previous book once: even after that time. The characters and key events were easily reminded through Sarra’s writing, and I won’t be leaving it too long before starting the next in the series.

Due to the time difference, I can’t comment in detail comparatively, but I can say this is a strong sequel, building on and improving the previous instalment.  

I have to say I’m loving Sarra’s Youtube channel (Heart Breathings) for understanding her craft and the process, and the first 3 books in this series are free – so I’d say if you’ve not given her a chance, it’s definitely worth a read. 

~

December :: Crystal Magic – Madeline Freeman     

4 Stars

I feel that moving from Sarra Cannon’s book straight to this one is partly why I found myself struggling with this book. I’ve tried to maintain impartial, and mostly I’ve dropped a star because I’d have liked a bit more dimension to the main characters, Krystal’s ‘teenage’ behaviour [especially after her experiences] wasn’t actually very realistic to me, and the plot was fairly standard until kind of cliff-hanger ending which felt a bit ‘last minute, quick finish the book now’.

But I finished it, there were some nice moments, the writing isn’t bad, and if you’ve not read many YA fantasy books you’ll likely enjoy it. 

~

So we’re at the end of 2020: Tell me about your favourite books of this year and most anticipated of next!

I haven’t been consistent here since Jan 2019. I haven’t been a WRITER (in my own eyes) since before then. This is clear from my weekly posts dropping down to 18 in 2019, and only 8 this year.

But I am a Reinventor by nature: I craft my life, created my identity, and follow my inner fire. And at my heart, I’m still a writer underneath it all.  But I had, at least in my actions and my thoughts, given up on this piece of myself.

Unbecoming a Writer

I have 16 novels.

To just give you the context, of those 16, 13 are “complete” drafts. Of those 16, 10 are “viable” for the future. Interestingly, the 3 unfinished are in that viable category, alongside my trilogy (all 3 books are completed drafts but need edits), and 4 stand-alone stories.

Aside from those ‘challenge’ NaNoWriMo projects I do not plan to continue working on (i.e. they were dead by the end or I never planned to revisit them), the last long-term creative writing projects I worked on out of joy and the pull to write… were in 2016. Looking at my annual writing stats, I fell off the wagon by the end of 2017.

I began Skeletal in 2016. It’s only 10k done. I wrote the final book of my trilogy in November 2016. I then wrote and had published two short stories in anthologies.

And then aside from the odd moment I picked up The Felled Gods (first drafted in 2014) because I sent it to a beta reader who was interested.

A summary of my annual wordcounts:
2009    50,138                         2010    55,300

2011    50,131                         2012    80,052

2013    81,210                         2014    150,263

2015    104,912                       2016    90,244

2017    100,002                       2018    62,001

2019    51173                          My 11 yr total:  875,426       

I had planned not to do NaNo this year. It would be my 11^th year. The last 4 years have left me with 50,000 words of rubbish I’ve hated by the end. I’ve felt good about “ticking the box” but I’m not Being a Writer in them.

I haven’t been a writer in so long.

And yet, somewhere at the end of November 2020 I felt the spark to want to work on stories again. I’ve taken a couple of weeks off between day-job transitions and (thanks to my life coach for stopping me from throwing myself into DO ALL THE THINGS) am taking my own damn advice.

The Importance of Reflection
I started my self-development business as a baby idea in 2017 while burnt out and depressed. In hindsight, this took the place of my writing time, of my creativity outlet, and although I love the work and am still working on things (having reinvented it to work for me and be clearer for those seeking support), it’s the first week of December and I’m feeling the GAP in my path.

If you’ve known me a while, or follow me on the biz side, you know I identify one of the massive issues with self help is Not Pausing to Reflect.

Like I’ve apparently not truly done for 5 years, hah.
>_>
<_<
#HumanBeing #NotPerfect

Post-Reflection

I’d love to say I took my own worksheets, realised the block, worked through it in my planner and decided to become a writer again. That’s what the reinvention teacher part of me wants to say happened. That this was obvious and simple and I just fixed the problem.

In reality, I had to force myself to finish reading a fiction book (my 3^rd fiction book in 2 damn years: again, really might have noticed the signs of writerly-avoidance if I’d paid attention but hindsight is grand and all that) and then spent 4 damn hours crying on the sofa as I grieved for the part of my identity that I no longer share.

Thankfully, she’s still here, and just making the decision to let her write again (without any steps beyond that) has reignited the fire in me in a matter of days.

Moving Forward

So for December my current plan is to just let myself write and read, whenever and whatever. I want to explore how just making that decision impacted my wellbeing and sense of identity, even before I opened up my manuscript and story binder.

Because my biggest reinvention story was in shaping my life as a writer. 

Want to watch my journey as I reintegrate writing into my life? Here are the best places to connect with me:

My Personal Reinvention Podcast

The Reinvent Your Life Newsletter

My Medium Articles

I worked full-time the whole way through all lockdowns so this is my first 10-days-off-in-a-row since my honeymoon in 2016.
But I’m aware a lot of people have had time-off this year with the pandemic:

Have you had any revelations this year?

So… I told myself I wouldn’t do NaNoWriMo this year…

And then 9pm of October 31st happened. I thought about a novel I began in 2013 and have not touched since May 2013…

Well, it’s the second week of November, and I’m 12,000 words in… So that went well!

Rather than write a long post about it, I thought I’d share a link to my podcast as I talk about balancing this project against my logical brain and the creative whims, alongside a ton of stupid real-world commitments!

Since WordPress is having serious issues, the link to listen to this episode directly is here.

If you want to know more about my adventures in writing on the podcast, make sure to comment with a question in the comments!

If you missed the first 4 books (in the first 3 months: been a while since I was that far ahead!), please click here. Hilariously, I’m already behind again *smirk* Of course. 

Still. I caught up, and here are my next 4 book reviews of 2020. 

~

July :: Untamed – Glennon Doyle

5 Stars

Well. I began this book in March, and it’s taken 4 months to read and fully digest it. In my Kindle edition, I’ve made 228 Highlight(s) & 20 Note(s).

This book is a life-saver, a game-changer. This is kind of the book I want to write.

I hadn’t heard of Glennon before March, and the interview I saw spoke such deep truths to my soul, I had to get the book immediately. In every single chapter she manages to kick my feet out from underneath me about what I thought/believed/know about being human. In a good way; but I definitely took a few days off in between reading sessions to fully process the realisations and shifted perceptions.

I have multiple degrees in psychology, neuroscience and am trained to teach CBT techniques: and this book was even more powerful around that sense of power I have within me. This book is not going to be for everyone, and that makes me so frustrated, because I’ve done nothing but recommend it since the day I started, to almost everyone I meet.

Read this book. Pick up the free sample on kindle and let yourself feel the truth of Glennon’s words. We are all god damn cheetahs, and ‘we need to save ourselves because we need to save the world.’

This book is all the therapy and academia and understanding I’ve sought.

~

July :: Unf**k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life – Gary John Bishop

2 Stars

This book was, to quote his own words, “peppered with interpretation.”

I review books beginning at 5 stars, and then dropping them down for severe issues. I began by ignoring the grammatical issues, the lack of original ideas, and tried to ignore the tone of this book.

It looks from other reviews that the audiobook is worth listening to; perhaps the Scottish accent helps get the tone across better?

I appreciate I am a self-help book reader turned mental health practitioner and thus have more knowledge than most about this kind of topic. Therefore, I don’t expect them to have ideas that are new to me: but value things I can see would be useful for the people I’ve helped (and my past self).

But considering the title, this book just seemed to miss the mark. I swung between bored, tired and frustrated. I read books with swearing, and have recently read some incredible motivating books for getting up and making a change. This came across as judgemental, privileged and downright confused. I could have summarised the first 34% in about a page and been a hell of a lot clearer.

I’ve never read a “hey, change your life” book that was so… tiring to read. It felt like he himself was exhausted and bored as he was writing it. So lacking in motivation.

Thankfully, it didn’t get any worse past 50% and at 82% we finally got our first exercise that would help the reader. Finally.
One review here commented on his explaining CBT, but he doesn’t really: he quotes a technique’s name without explaining the main step of doing it. And then, at 87% through he suddenly goes from this dreary “you should be better” to shouting in capital letters with exclamation points.

I’ve sat here trying desperately to keep it at 3 stars instead of 2. But this feels like a rushed, unclear collection of thoughts, from only one privileged viewpoint, ‘peppering in’ fancy language and in some cases mis-quoting concepts… And that’s without the grammatical and spelling mistakes. Multiple sentences even lacked a verb.

But it turns out, this is my first ever 2-star review: the lowest I’ve given. There was a good 5% that I felt would be helpful to know, between 82-87% through. So I’d recommend reading that if you don’t know about expectation shortfalls.

~

August :: Quiet Power Strategy – Tara Gentile

5 Stars

I actually picked the book up because I write and speak about our ‘everyday superpowers’ – that we have a lot of capability once you know how the mind, brain and body work… we’re just never taught it. If I had to give it another label, it would be a “quiet power” so… that’s really what drew me to it.

I have been following Tara for years on and off, including her Creative Live classes, so I knew what to expect from her tone and grounded approach. I have to admit I’ve not read many business books, and I did feel a bit “wait, should I be taking notes, will there be a clear worksheet to go through these aspects (there is one you can download form her website) but for the content, the ease of read, and the lack of patronising assumptions, I’m giving it 5 stars.

Tara’s personally and voice really comes through, the concepts are simple but also actionable and written with examples and in such a way that it’s okay for you to have not known or consciously focused on them before. She speaks for a whole chapter about how we are not taught how to discern what we want and what decisions to make as a psychological practitioner teaching people to reinvent themselves from their roots: I am so there and this is needed and I just love that it’s mentioned let alone explained and explored in a business book.

If you are struggling with decision-making, with following your gut, with taking steps forward… in anything in your life -> this is definitely worth a read.

~

September :: You 2.0: Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You – Master the Art of Personal Transformation – Ayodeji Awosika

5 Stars

I picked this book up because it mentions reinventing yourself – as CEO of Rooted Reinvention, it seemed I should take a look. The author speaks from personal experience, and came across as genuinely sharing his experiences.

I don’t agree with everything he says, and some of the ideas may come across as easier said than done. As always I have real issues with the “it takes 66 days to make a habit” that is supposedly based on research… (The problem with having a Masters in Cognitive Neuroscience is I know the limitations of that research) But the prompts, downloadable examples, and general principles are useful.

But as a guide to personal reinvention, it covers all the basics techniques I’d recommend. Again, it’s not a field guide for when you get stuck and ‘how to’ do each step in much detail, but for those people looking for a place to start, I’d say it’s definitely a good place to start

Especially comparing it with other self-help books, I’d say this had a more thorough blueprint and also acknowledged some of the difficulties readers may come up against too.

~

How is your 2020 reading challenge going?

September is already in full-swing and I still haven’t quite processed this year so far. But one thing which has shifted in the past few months is my focus on writing and creativity.

If you’re new to me, hi, I’m K.R. Green and from 2009-2019 I wrote at least 50,000 words of new fiction a year. I even managed 100k and 150k for a few of those years. But my focus has shifted, my energy has drained, and my process just needed to evolve with me. 

As of 31st August 2020, I have a grand total of 1,034 words under my belt for the year. Not quite on track for the 8,334 a month I need for my usual goals… no?

As I explained in my last post, I discovered a video by Kate Cavanagh about “MILWORDY” → that is to write a million words in a year… But rather than just counting fiction, she is counting ALL writing – fiction drafts, short stories and freelance creative nonfiction, personal essays, outlines and re-writes.

Because although I’ve not written any fiction since April, I have written an entire ebook, medium articles, and captured “mini-stories” in July. 

So… It’s September 11th, and… I have 741 words. Of non-fiction.

So let’s put this out into the world. I’m going to follow the #Milwordy format using Kate’s definition… I’m not necessarily aiming for any specific number, but looking to track my written work to explore just how creative I am, even during the times I would brush off as “got no real writing done.”

What I Will Include:

• Creative nonfiction (Essays / Freelance projects / Medium articles / Newsletters / Blog posts) [yes, hi, counting  these words today for today’s total!]

• Draft/outline/revision of fiction (novels, short stories) as per my usual parameters: new words count, removed words do not affect it.

• I am on the fence about including “podcast prep”in this. Sometimes I write notes and sometimes I just riff off a topic (kind of the reason I want to try podcasting is because it doesn’t need perfect grammar and over-thinking like written work).

But upon reflection, I’m going to “allow” myself to include those numbers if I want to. Nothing lost, I guess. It’s definitely still creative writing.

A podcast, you ask?

—> Yes, I very slyly started a podcast to “see if i like it” on September 1st. If I make it to mid-october and am still doing it / feel I can actually commit, I’ll be announcing it /sharing etc. I do not want to start a project I’ve debated for over 2 years , tell the world then find out I hate it and need to publicly cancel it. But if you’re reading this and you want to know my thoughts on personal reinvention, wellbeing and stress-management… here’s the link. 

How are you spending September?

Have you heard of Milwordy? 

What do you count in your wordcounts?

Equally, my own version of a “sort of bullet journal thing” has been much harder to work on, as I’ve been scrap-booking daily. And since I’ve let the daily pages slide, I’m finding my groove with my weekly spreads, and feeling that they are more use for me. Which is worth noting.

I’m not going to draw too many conclusions from one set of events during the Coronavirus pandemic, when our worlds are already getting turned upside-down, but I did find the timing interesting in hindsight.

Noticing Creativity in Projects

At the beginning of the year I was writing fiction, planning fiction submissions, still blogging regularly, and completing weekly spreads fairly often.  As each ‘slot’ of mental energy is taken up, I need to free one more by removing something. What I’m noticing is this concept of where I’ve been creative, and how there is always a ‘creative project’ in my project slots.

For example, over the last 6 weeks I’ve actually completed a course in making an ecourse (yes, really) and thus I am this week launching my first ecourse in… yep – Finishing Projects.

And although I frame it around life-projects like reinventing yourself or reaching a goal, I learned a lot of the skills through writing nearly 900,000 words of fresh fiction (not including original drafts or middle drafts rewrites) in ten years.

This ecourse is something that I haven’t felt ‘counts’ as writing but began as an ebook – if that isn’t writing, I don’t know what is. Equally, I wrote video scripts and made worksheets, send beta copies and gathered feedback… I’ve done a lot of writing for this project, and also have used a lot of my creative muscles to give it structure and ensure my personality at least shows up in my voice.

That has been a creative outlet even as I saw it as a practical one.

I’m also feeling that even writing this post is so much easier and the words are pretty much flowing in a way I’ve not had in a while – partly I think because I’ve been pretty much only writing articles for medium, and the more “blog” style posts are really where I have all my long-term experience. After all, I originally began blogging in 2004; and only writing articles in 2017.

Types and Forms of Creativity

So another thing to consider is that creative voice from multiple forms of writing – not just fiction in the fantasy genre.

Kate Cavanaugh, a writer I follow on youtube, is preparing from September 1st for a “MILWORDY” – that is to write a million words in a year. But the thing that felt novel to me was that she is counting ALL writing – fiction novel drafts, short stories and freelance creative nonfiction, personal essays, drafts and re-writes.

Although I began this post thinking that I’ve been creative in “non-writing” formats, but even if I focus back in on my writing as a creative force, I’ve still written (and published) 11 medium articles, goodness knows how many draft articles, wrote most of a 53-page ebook, have responded to client emails with mini essays including reference links, and in July I captured 34 mini stories; writing at least a sentence of “this is a story I want to expand on one day” on 22 of the 31 days of July.

I don’t know why this concept seems like such a revelation, but especially as I’ve completed & won #NaNoWriMo ten times now and am not sure about continuing with the challenge… #Milwordy is another concept that might help me keep on top of writing but also allow me to split my focus between multiple large-scale projects including nonfiction.

How do you define and re-ignite your creativity?