Following this Writing Map // Week 1

The one where I share with you how the first week went

Want to see where this is all coming from. Read about my writing map for Spring here.

Monday, 4/1/24

I’m home today since we were at the ocean on Saturday and we spent Easter with my family yesterday.

After dropping Moochy off at the vet (for blood pressure readings), I took this extra home day to restart my Postcards newsletter and re-think the weekly commitment to monthly. And I completely forgot about potentially working on my Leah novel this afternoon.

But!

Ant and I went for a walk in at the park. It wasn’t three laps (30-ish minutes)—it’s a small park—because it was warm and Ant was hungry. But we did it!

Also! I attended tonight’s Educational Prickle live! It was all about scheduling guilt-free writing time. The hedgie who led this prickle led us through a brain dump, categorizing the brain dump, and then scheduling out those brain dump items into a calendar. It was amazing. I’ve been something similar for years and this felt so validating. I missed a few minutes of it due to a phone call from the vet about the results of Moochy’s blood pressure readings and a med she needs to start taking, so I do want to rewatch it. But it felt to timely with the map I created for myself for the rest of Spring.

Ant made dinner so I could attend the prickle and then after that we did our monthly budget meeting.

. . .

Tuesday, 4/2/24

I made it to my desk 30 minutes early today!

After breakfast and today’s Wordle, I spent the morning putting away laundry from the weekend, washing dishes, cleaning the cats’ water fountain, making more all-purpose cleaner, and then tea.

My plan was to get my newsletter out in those 30 minutes and then…

Well so far, I’ve lost an hour of my scheduled freelance writing course time because I was soooo close to finishing March’s newsletter (that I started yesterday) that I wanted to finish it and send it out. And then I wondered for probably like 20 minutes why the picture I was trying to use as a banner image wasn’t uploading and then realized that it wasn’t in .PNG format. So I uploaded it to Canva—yay, correct format! When I went to upload it again, it was too tall *facepalm* so I sent the newsletter without the banner image because I didn’t want to play with sizes. (That stuff doesn’t come naturally to me.)

11:11am // Okay, the prickle’s opening check-in just ended and I think Alphonse is like 50% placated, so I’m gonna see what I can do in the next 45 minutes!

12:08pm // Well, it’s out in the Medium world! I gotta go get ready for daycare work now, but I’ll officially check-it off as done in the course portal this evening =D

After we were both home from work, we had dinner, finally booked our flights and hotel for a trip we’re taking in May, and then we exercised. It was another eventful evening.

. . .

Wednesday, 4/3/24

I had a couple hours after the daycare shift blocked off for the freelancing course, but I moved it so I could do our weekly grocery trip and FaceTime a friend, but a headache and allergies got the better of me, soooo I rested at home and read the book I was reading at the time.

I felt rested enough (and my headache was gone) to attend Bible Study tonight.

. . .

Thursday, 4/4/24

Freelancing Course work had been put on the schedule for 9am-11am, but I ended up scheduling my oil change for the Rogue in the morning at that time (because it was a bit overdue!) If I had been out already due to the potential of an early-morning walk with a friend that ends around 7am, I would’ve stayed in town and written at Flour Garden or something. However, allergies got the best of me and I needed to sleep in.

But! I did finish the protagonist chapter for the hedgie book club book, and it got the wheels turning on Leah, my main character for my novel.

I’ve been wondering how to proceed with my novel lately and the questions at the end of the chapter really helped it click. Along with a conversation I had with a fellow hedgie last week about not wanting Leah and I to be too similar. So I counted that as a win!

And then, it decided to snow in NorCal! So daycare closed early and I made it home in time for a favorite prickle at 4pm my time and talked this out a bit with the hedgies there.

. . .

Friday, 4/5/24

I woke up to more snow! I took care of the cats and then had to go wander around in it for a bit because—falling snow is just so magical.

I did take my #10thofthemonthspot photo of the plant babies covered in snow, so that was fun! Usually I reserve 8am-10am for blog writing (mainly keeping up-to-date on my current seasonal reads post), but the snow is a delightful distraction and I just love watching it haha so I missed the 8am-9am hour, but I did write with a friend from 9am-10am before needing to get ready for an appointment.

After that appointment I felt kinda blah and fully intended to eat Oreos and start season 2 of Farmer Wants a Wife, but I realized that I was using TV-watching in this moment as a way to wallow and stay in my head about things and keep my distance. So, I turned off the TV and said to myself, “No, you are going to go attend that pitch prickle and see your hedgies.” I chose community over isolation/loneliness #winning and, while it felt hard, it worked! (#duherler LOL) I felt much better during and after that hour. (I mean listening to fellow writers practice their pitch—gold! So fun! Anytime with the hedgies is time well spent.)

I wasn’t necessarily productive afterwards, but I did attend today’s 4pm prickle where I did more character work, Ant and I had dinner with my parents, we dropped a book off for a friend to read, bought milk, and then watched Jungle Cruise for movie night (Ant’s pick). And it was a great day overall.

Writing this to you, late Saturday night, I know that the weird feeling I felt after my doctor appointment—while it was weird—it was a blip in the beautiful gift this day was.

. . .

Saturday, 4/6/24

10:33pm // This was a true Nothing Day. Book Club was cancelled, so I slept in (thanks to allergies waking me up just before 5am), lounged in bed for a little bit. I did get laundry going. Ant and I played Banagrams—he won, but it was close! We made waffles and bacon for dinner—yuuuummm! I finished reading a YA Fantasy novel I found at the library last week—Queen Among the Dead—and now I can start beta-reading a hedgie’s novel and I’m so excited for this!

I also started reading Fairy Tale by Stephen King for the mini book club we’re doing with two of our TN friends. I’m looking forward to it! This is the newest SK book I’ll have ever read.

It felt weird to not really do anything today, but I’m proud of myself for not going into town or purging or cleaning something. So winning all around today I guess haha

How it Went

My intention with sharing the info to come below is to be transparent in to how achieving a goal goes. Sometimes. For me, as an induvial human.

Sometimes it’s great and sometimes it’s a crapshoot. And sometimes, like this first week—certain aspects of the larger goal are great and some aren’t, as you’ll see below. We’re all just humans figuring out how to take the wins with the losses.

Freelance Writing: 7.5 hours
Leah Novel: 2 hours
Walks: 1-3
Knee exercise routine: 1

What actually happened:

Freelance Writing: 45 mins
Lean Novel: 3 hrs, 8 mins
Newsletter: 4 hrs, 10 mins
Blog posts: 2 hrs, 48 mins
Walks: 1
Knee exercises: 1

So, the freelance writing category needs more attention, but I’m super proud of that noveling category.

I’m proud of it overall, really. I haven’t felt like a schedule, a map, a plan—whatever you want to call it—has really had a chance at succeeding in a long time. I’m even prouder of the fact that I’m attempting it and not just calling myself a failure and quitting tonight because I didn’t make the goals I set.

I’m also proud of myself for giving my body time to rest after work when it needed it and not guilting it to do errands or sit at my desk. Allergy season is killer over here, you guys, and I’m holding this all loosely because I can.

I’m excited to see how next week goes.

I hope your week has been productive and restful and filled with joy. Are you working toward a goal that requires it to be broken down into If you feel like sharing , as always, here’s some questions to consider:

How was your week?

Was it productive?
What’s one thing that brought you joy?
How did you rest? And if you didn’t and you’re operating from an empty cup, how will fill your cup back up?

I love anything and everything you choose to share 🙂

I’ll write soon,

Tracy

P.S. If you don’t want to comment on the blog, my email is open: TracyErler[dot]Writer[at]gmail[dot]com

Writing Notes:

4/2/24 // 10:51am-12:09pm. Writing Desk, 11am PST prickle, listening to 1981 (Taylor’s Version). WC so far: 231

4/6/23 // 10:06pm-11:26pm. Writing Desk. While Ant plays Rocket League with Nick Nick and Philll (haha). WC so far: 1,479 / total this session: 1,248.

4/7/24 // 1:07pm-Added photos and added/reworded the ending a bit. and published! WC: 1,621 / total this session: 142.