38th ROW80 Check-In

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 4 2012
The writing challenge that knows you have a life

I'm doing things quite differently this round.  Since I joined mid Round 2 this year I have been using a blog-within-a-blog format for these check-in posts with updates stacked atop previous updates and commentary added under each goals section including a string of Ns and Ys for the five time investment goals.  This got quite unwieldy by mid round.

So now I've created a Google Doc Spreadsheet to keep track of the Ns and Ys and have set up a ROW80 page to feature the goals sans commentary.  These check-in posts will now contain only the commentary relating to the previous half week, a screenshot of the relevant lines on the spreadsheet and link to the spreadsheet and goals page.

View the spreadsheet Google Doc directly
View the goals list

I still haven't managed to reintegrate the writing portions themselves into my days yet.  I don't know whether to be pleased that the other three time investment goals--MOVE, READ CRAFT, DAYDREAM STORY--have become woven into my days so as to seem effortless or to be chagrined that I still haven't written a word outside of blog posts and fb nine days into a writing challenge.  1 part of one and two parts of the other.  Take your pick.

The life events that got in the way last week are still active.  You can read about them in the last check-in or in Sunday's post--the very ill family friend who's been in ICU since a week ago Sunday.  Or rather she did get moved to a regular room on Tuesday but less than 24 hours later she coded again and is now back in ICU.

This is all happening over 500 miles north of me and only my sister's ability to access the net via her ipad from the waiting room to send updates via fb keeps me in the loop.  But it also keeps me glued to the open browser with the fb tab visible above whatever other application I might be working in and my eye wandering often to the fb tab watching for the telltale blinking alert that a message from my sister has arrived.

The situation is especially hard on my sister's whose best friend it is and who has to juggle her duties as Mom's caretaker in Longview WA and time at her friend's bedside in a hospital 40 miles away.  We've been planning for me to spend most of November up there so Mom can celebrate my birthday with me but I've offered to come sooner if it would help so I may end up having to pack on short notice for a six week or more visit so I'm trying to get organized for that.

Then the major Secret Santa crochet project had a major setback causing a major rethinking and reworking of two sections and now the carefully calculated pace of one  4x4 inch block per day which felt barely doable must now be stepped up to more than 1--not a full second one but an average of 1.25 probably tho I'd feel better if I could do an average of 2 per day between now and November 1 when NaNo starts to catch up even get a little ahead.

Also my husband has been sick for over a week with a virus and altho I've been taking food supplements faithfully--Airborne, Vita C, garlic, L-Lysine--I have the sense today I'm loosing the battle.  Just in time for Dewey's 24-hr Read-a-Thon on Saturday!!

So maybe I can be a little patient with myself about Ns for writing this week.  But only a little because there is always, ALWAYS, going to be something getting in the way and it does seem I'm too much of a pushover about it.  My life hasn't come to a halt.  Other things are getting done.  It is about the choices and for some reason I'm choosing to NOT write.  I'm choosing to not WRITE.  I'm CHOOSING to not write.

Wonder why that is?