{"id":1225,"date":"2022-01-16T19:54:51","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T02:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/?p=1225"},"modified":"2022-01-16T20:01:30","modified_gmt":"2022-01-17T03:01:30","slug":"covid-19-and-new-years-resolutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/covid-19-and-new-years-resolutions\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 and New Year\u2019s Resolutions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m late to the game on the whole New Year\u2019s Resolutions thing, but I have a good excuse. With this most recent variant, the probability of catching the virus went up a substantial amount. Going by numbers in my city, it appears to be about a 20%-25% jump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But more on that in a minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Story Time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For Christmas, we packed our bags, put the puppers up with a boarder, and hopped a flight (with a couple lay-overs) to Houston. Now that we\u2019re east coasters, there are no direct flights, so we still have to transit through Calgary. It seems we still can\u2019t escape that city!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Good ‘ol Calgary Airport<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With our pre-flight COVID-19 negative tests secured, we took the plunge. Christmas Eve was spent cooking and wrapping last minute gifts. Christmas Day was spent with my not-so-little<\/em> little bro & his family, tearing into gifts, eating way too much food, and polishing off several bottles of champagne. This was a Christmas we have missed for two years. Thanks, \u2018rona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All was going well, until one morning I woke up with a scratch in my throat and a cough. I thought nothing of it. Our pre-flight tests were all negative, and we hadn\u2019t been anywhere other than my parents house after arriving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day came to take our COVID tests in order to get back to Canada. And who should test positive? Me! Long-story-short, I had to stay back for a week (with a wicked stuffy nose) before being able to come home. You might think that was a perfect time to write, but when you\u2019re suddenly away from your family, it\u2019s super stressful. So, very littler writing was had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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D’oh!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Luckily about 10 days later, my PCR came back negative, and I rescheduled my flight home. I\u2019ve been home for a week now, being a good little girl and sticking close to home unless I need to walk Mochi. It took me a few days to calm down and catch up to the fact that I was actually home before I could start writing again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From the plane – Mt. Rainier, an active volcano in Washington state.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What I did for 2021<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This year, I\u2019m going to do things a bit differently. For 2021, I tried to stick to the mantra \u201cWrite Every Day.\u201d Long-story-short, I couldn\u2019t stick to that for more than a few weeks at a time. My anxiety would flare up to the point where thinking about opening a document to write triggered panic attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My goals changed at the beginning quarter of the year to hit an easy target: 5,000 words a week. That seemed to work pretty well, and there were weeks where I blew my target out of the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NaNoWriMo rolled around and I told myself to commit. Write every day in November, even if it\u2019s junk, even if it\u2019s gibberish. Just write. I didn\u2019t have to stick to a single project, I could write whatever the heck I wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it worked! I slammed back NaNo in about 20 days. As December started, I was able to keep the momentum going. I think I had found my magic bullet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resolutions for 2022<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This year, starting in February, I\u2019m aiming for 10,000 words a week. That\u2019s only 2,000 words a day for 5 of the 7 days. At my writing speed (or word vomit speed) I can crank out 2,000 words in about an hour. That\u2019s not a big commitment at all. This is me writing while the evening news runs in the background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here’s a random nature photo. r\/FairytaleAsFu*k<\/a> is quaking.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I am also going to try to keep a separate writing journal aside from my bullet journal. I\u2019m able to stick to my bullet journal, but the contents are all over the place. I\u2019m going to separate writing completely, and leave my bullet journal for day-to-day and personal goals only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that works out perfectly. For Christmas, my journaling-writer mum got me one of her favourite planner notebooks to try out. It\u2019s called the Go Girl Planner<\/a> , available also on Amazon<\/a>. It\u2019s built with three sections: Month-at-a-glance, week-at-a-glance, and free-form bullet journaling for jotting down ideas, maps, and anything else that comes about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My Go Girl classic horizontal weekly planner<\/a> I got for Christmas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I set up my month-at-a-glance for now with things that are happening through the month. Come February, I will shift to only writing-related items, such as social media, targets for self-edits, and planning out timelines for my writing projects. More on that in another post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My week-at-a-glance will be used to record and track specific goals that week. For instance, now that I\u2019ve finished the first draft of my fourth novel in the Rose Cross Academy<\/a> series, I need to self-edit the manuscript before sending it to my editor for her to chop to pieces. I will see if giving myself a goal every day or every other day to self-edit a chapter will help me through the process, or if I need less structured goals such as \u2018self-edit 10 chapters this week.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing Goals for 2022<\/h2>\n\n\n\n