Author: tamiveldura

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Goals Tracking: Week 3

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Goals tracking! There are three major goals I’m tracking this year for both personal and business improvement. Comment below with your goals and how you did this week.

1k words/workday:

Monday: National Holiday
Tuesday: 1537
Wednesday: 985
Thursday: 1058
Friday: 1500

Notes: How did I miss the goal on Wed by 15 words! I must have come to the end of a scene…. Well overwriting on Tuesday and Friday certainly made up for it. Friday marks the start of a new dictation experiment, the goal of which is to get comfortable with dictation. That’s it. It’s very weird to transition from fingers to speaking.

10k steps/day

Monday: 6317
Tuesday: 6590
Wednesday: 6873
Thursday: 7059
Friday: 6838
Saturday: 6888
Sunday: 9114

Notes: The auto-goal set by my watch is still hovering below 7k, but not for long, now. And it turns out, I pace when I dictate, so the above dictation experiment may actually improve this step goal at the same time! Friday was a surprise! I felt very tired for most of the day (turns out I’m having a reaction to some food, fatigue and back pain are always the first symptoms) but I went for a walk around the park with Mr V for the first time in probably two months (the cold and I do not agree) and ended up blowing past my mid-6k goal and nearly hit 10 without trying. It has bumped the goal for this week up over 7k/day. Woo!

1 completed line art/week

Notes: Week 3 and all of a sudden I don’t know what to draw for the week. It took almost two months for me to get to that point with writing a short story/week. So this week’s drawing is not complete, but I did spend many hours on it. The holiday on monday screwed up my time perception and I didn’t even start working until wednesday or thursday because I forgot all about it. Lots of weekend time instead of spacing it out. Lots of initial sketching that got wiped out to try something else. For sure a milestone in this practice. A reach for the moon and fall among the stars situation. The piece isn’t done but it exists and it wouldn’t have otherwise.

Like the christmas tree from week one, if I have time and energy in the future, I’ll come back to this one and wrap it up.

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Friday Update 1/19/24

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Friday Update 1/19/24

A lot has happened this week and almost all of it is the kind of admin work that no one tells you is necessary when they say “hey, you’re really good at this, have you thought about publishing a book?”

First: my unnamed Hellhound short story is marching along. I’m half way through it with every expectation of finishing next week. This one will be submitted to Camden Park Press for their upcoming anthology Street Magic 2. Lyn, the editor, has purchased from me several times in the past, including for Street Magic 1, but I’m still going to ask you all to cross your fingers when the time comes. Sometimes the story is great, but it doesn’t fit the mix of others that have been submitted.

Also progressing this week is my next batch of short stories to publish. Feb, March, and April all have back cover copy and text in their formatting files. Next week I’ll polish those up and put them through my compiler, Jutoh, to create final files for publishing. Over the holiday, another formatting tool called Atticus offered a lifetime deal on their software and I grabbed that, so the next round of shorts will go through Atticus instead. I just wasn’t ready to learn a whole new program so soon.

Website and Membership progress inches forward. There is now a Perks page for members to browse the serial stories and other members-only bonuses that will start building up in the archive of the blog. It’s a bit bare right now since things are just ramping up, but that will change very shortly. I’ve started scheduling member-only content on the blog every Wednesday. The first several weeks will be short stories, then as I continue writing new work I will start posting chapter-by-chapter from the novels and novellas I have planned this year.

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Goal Tracking: Week 2

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Goals tracking! There are three major goals I’m tracking this year for both personal and business improvement. Comment below with your goals and how you did this week.

1k words/workday:

Monday: 1683
Tuesday: 1200
Wednesday: 2053 – finished a short story!
Thursday: 530 – started outlining the next one
Friday: 300

Notes: I finished a short story and sent it in to the editor, so it’s expected that my wordcount dropped the following days. Writing an outline involves a lot more thinking about things than writing about things, but it’s part of my process! I’m really pleased with this week’s results.

10k steps/day

Monday: 6693
Tuesday: 6725
Wednesday: 6502
Thursday: 7079
Friday: 1252
Saturday: 6122
Sunday: 6325

Notes: Started the week off strong, hitting my step goal every day. Friday was really tough as I had a health flare up and chose to rest and recover. That worked well since the weekend went strong and I hit my goal both days. This coming week I’m going to try pushing to 7k more than once!

1 completed line art/week

Notes: I’ve been watching the birds at my feeder for weeks, now, and I’ve decided to draw a few dragons based on my local birds. This first one is a downey woodpecker (male) and here’s a photo to go with it!

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Friday Update 1/12/24

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Short update this week, because I had one goal and one goal only: To finish this Bone Witch short story for a Valentine’s anthology coming up. I did it! I wrapped up the story on Thursday and I turned it in today to the editor after a proofread and some tweaks <3 I’m excited to have an extra, unplanned story that I can put in the publishing schedule next year.

While I only had one goal, I got a lot of other admin work done during the week. I have cover art for 10 of the 11 short stories being published this year (since January is already done).

I’ve also confirmed with the editors of various projects I’m working on that I’ll be allowed to release the stories here on the blog for my subscribers, chapter by chapter as I write them. I’ll be sure to let everyone know what story is coming up first and when so you don’t miss it.

And that’s it for this week! Next week I ramp up words on another short story in the Bone Witch world, but not featuring the bone witch herself. We’ve got a spinoff based on the short I just finished.

And don’t forget to check back on Monday for my report on goals this week.

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Game Night

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Thursdays here in town are open Table Top Game Night at the local game shop. I’ve been the store a few times to browse the latest offerings, but the last time I went, just before the end of the year, I saw a sign for TT Game Night and asked about it.
Because, you see, I love table top games, but they just arn’t Mr. V’s thing, which means even though I have a small collection to play, I have no one to play them with!

Currently my collection includes: Mantis (by the Oatmeal), Munchkin, Photosynthesis, Ouch!, Arboretum, Here to Slay, and Unstable Unicorns. There are a few others, but that gives you a good feel for the group. And if Mr V was into this type of gaming, I’d have a much larger stack of boxes, let me tell you.

So when I saw that sign I realized there are a batch of people who enjoy these games like I do and here was the perfect excuse to go meet them all! Meeting new people is terrifying without my emotional support husband, but I DID IT.

I played two new-to-me games. The Princess Bride (a Battle of Wits), and 7 Wonders.

The first game is card-based and is all about that moment in the movie where Westly (the swordsman in black) faces off against Vizzini (the Cicealian who finds things Inconceivable!) The players are presented with a row of cups and a hand of cards representing wine or poison. You place wine or poison in the cups secretly, and bid for the cup of your choice hoping you’ll win the right cup that’s not full of poison! Or perhaps you’ve spent the last several years building up a tolerance to iocane poison because the trump card that makes you immune to your own poison is in your hand. Playtime was about 15 minutes, and a chunk of that was rules. I can see this going quickly with a group who’s familiar with it.

I, sadly, drank a cup of poison.

7 Wonders is a card game of supply and demand. You are provided with a world-wonder to build and you have 3 ages of your civilization to build it. There are 5 or 6 points-winning categories in this game, which means there are a lot of ways to win and building your wonder isn’t strictly necessary. There are also trade and war mechanics that are based on what your neighbors around the table have done with their civilizations, which makes for a lot of moving pieces to track.

With seven players (and the rules) this took about 45 minutes to play all the way through, but the sequence you’re playing repeats, so the first couple of rounds are slower than the last as you figure out the cards. This game comes with an alternate, harder difficulty for groups familiar with the play.

I built my wonder, traded with my neighbors, won ALL my military battles, and still only placed in the middle of the pack when the points were tallied at the end. Next time I’ll go for the science win!

Game night was, in short, a success. I met quite a few people and I’m definitely going back next Thursday to play again. I’m going to bring Mantis with me, since no one seemed familiar with that game, it plays fast, and you can include a lot of people.

I’m excited to explore more games and hopefully make a few local friends.

Do you play table top games? Which ones are your favorite? I have access to an entire store of games and I want to play the best ones!

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Goal Tracking: Week 1

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Goals tracking!

There are three major goals I’m tracking this year for both personal and business improvement. Comment below with your goals and how you did this week.

1k words/workday:

Monday: New Year’s Holiday
Tuesday: 329
Wednesday: 1060
Thursday: 1035
Friday: 1007

Notes: Since Tuesday was the first day back after nearly two weeks off, the small wordcount doesn’t surprise me. Much of the day was spent organizing myself to start the new year instead. But after that I jumped right back into 1k/day and I’m very proud of these numbers! Starting strong.

10k steps/day

Monday: 6892
Tuesday: 6309
Wednesday: 3791 – below goal
Thursday: 7438
Friday: 5461 – below goal
Saturday: 10825 – first 10k of the year!
Sunday: 3479 – below goal

Notes: Since I’m not currently doing 10k steps on average, the goal my Garmin watch sets for me is slightly higher than the day before. There’s a calculation involved, but basically, if I beat the goal it bumps up, if I don’t it bumps down. The limiting issue with movement of any kind is my autoimmune. I can’t push too hard or I’ll trigger a flare and have to spend a week not moving much at all, so jumping straight to 10k isn’t feasible or healthy.

So, if I reach for the goal my watch sets for me, I’ll inch up toward 10k at a steady rate, and that’s what these numbers reflect. You may also notice larger numbers have led to rest days. I expect my endurance for this kind of movement will increase as I keep striving. I’m very happy to have hit a 10k day last week (We took a trip to Kansas City) and look forward to pushing my watch-goal numbers over 6k and holding them there this week.

1 completed line art/week

Notes: This week’s image is a Christmas tree based on a photo I took during a walk. I think this was a little complex for the week time-limit, but I did get it finished and I even started shading. That remains incomplete but I’m pleased with the progress I made and I’d like to go back to it if I have time other weeks.
I noticed myself getting frustrated with the repetition of the line art in this one. It’s mostly a single motif over and over and I found that dull. I need to be sure I put iPad down when it feels like a chore. Art is supposed to be fun!

Results

Didn’t hit every goal every day, but started the year strong and I’m very pleased!

Share your goals and last week’s results below <3

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New Year, New Goals, New Friends?

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Are they new year’s resolutions if you start them again in July? Asking for a friend.

This year I wanted to focus on goals that are production-specific, rather than end-result specific. If you’ve ever had a desk job you’ve probably hear someone drone on for 3 hours during a presentation about SMART goals. Specific, Measurable, and I fell asleep after that. On the one hand, you get out of work for a few hours, but on the other, the topic is so boring it puts half the attendees to sleep. Worth it? Maybe if you need a nap.

I’m not here to talk about SMART goals. They’re good, but I need something a little more refined. I don’t have a fancy acronym for what I do, it’s just something I’ve come to understand about how I work: the end goal doesn’t motivate me. Thinking about all the books I will have written takes all the wind out of my sails. Because why aren’t they written now?

No, instead, the goals I make for myself, and you’re welcome to blame the ADHD on this, are limited to daily or, at most, weekly milestones. And the weekly ones are at risk of falling apart, TBH, unless I have accountability! The worst enemy of any goal I set is not being unwilling to do the work, it’s the fact that by the time I get to Wednesday I’ve forgotten all about it. Where are my no-object-permanence people at? High-five. We’re besties now.

So what are the goals for this year? I’m so glad you asked:

Write 1k words/workday – that’s Monday-Friday unless a federal holiday sends Mr V home early! In 2022 I wrote 50k words. In 2023 I wrote 100k. If I can do 1k/day this year I’ll be OVER 200k words. Can you imagine? That’s at least 3 novels. My best words year was way back in 2014, before my health took a nose-dive. I wrote a serial story on my blog with a chapter posted every week. I want to do that again.

Walk 10k steps/day – right now I average about 4k and that’s just not enough! I recently bought a stepper, though, and it’s helping me bump those rookie numbers up on days when the high is 27F and it’s just too cold to leave the house for anything other than a tea-emergency.

Complete an art piece 1/week – long time fans will recognize this challenge. Back in 2019 I challenged myself to write a short story 1/week. And I did it! That’s how I started publishing every single month. And since then, I’ve been writing and getting short stories published in all kinds of magazines. This year I want to do the same thing with art, and I’ll be sharing those results here on the blog. You all get to be my accountability group <3

About that. I work on goals best when I can tell someone about them, even if that someone is screaming into the void of the Internet. As long as the void spits back a gold star now and then, I’m happy.

So let’s be each-other’s void.

(This metaphor got out of hand immediately. Don’t try and fix it, just back away slowly and hopefully it won’t bite.)

Tell me what your goals are! Post down below with projects you’ve been thinking about, targets you want to hit, stars you want to fall amongst. Make ‘em SMART if that works for you (Achievable! Realistic! Time-Based! See, that meeting wasn’t a waste, I remember things), or tell me what little steps you want to take every day/week to look back on later.

Then, every Monday, I’ll tell you all about my goals the past week. Did I hit 1k words, 10k steps, and finish a new piece of art? You’ll have to find out on Monday because, uh, today is Thursday and the answer is not yet! And in the comments, you can tell me all about your progress. Are you going for those runs so you can do a 10k? Are you knitting and purling? Are you baking new things? Planting new flowers? Teaching the dog new tricks? (PLEASE tell me all about the new dog tricks) I want to hear all about it.

But more importantly, I want to hear about the setbacks. What kept you from your goal that week? Because I’m sure we can figure out ways to overcome together. Bonus points for restarting after a major event, like a new baby! Life is super disruptive and we’ve got to make room for our goals or they’ll get run right over.

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Friday Update 12/22/23

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Friday Update 12/22/23

The last Friday Update of the year because, let’s be honest, I’m not going to pay enough attention next week to realize it’s friday and there won’t be any work to update you all on!

But this week’s update is excellent because I get to report that my latest short story is complete and turned in to the editor at Boundary Shock Quarterly. This is a HORNETS story and for those of you keeping track at home that makes 5 total, which means I’m putting a collection of HORNETS stories on the to-do list.

I also have a surprise Valentine anthology I’ll be participating in! I’ve already started writing a Bone Wtich story for that and you’ll hear more about this in the new year. The whole project is happening very quickly, but it’s been put together by a group of experienced, professional writers and I have much confidence in our collective ability to execute. This is a very spontaneous project so I don’t have many details to share yet. You’ll hear about it as they are finalized.

Also polished up this week is the Membership Subscription on this website! The rollback a few months ago delayed this particular project, but I’m happy to report it’s soft launching now. The newsletter will get an official announcement in January (along with a newsletter refresh I think looks quite snazzy). Some authors open a Patreon, some are building their communities on Substack or Ream, I’ve decided to do so here, right on my website. This way I can share new chapters of books as I write them, including the sex scenes. Most platforms don’t allow that kind of content and building the community here means I don’t have to filter the books. You want early access? You want a free ebook when it’s published? You want to support my work directly? Check out the subscription: here.

And finally, I know this time of year is crazy crazy. Keep an eye out for my newsletter on the 27th for a boatload of free romance books, but otherwise you won’t hear from me until the new year. Happy Solstice and Happy New Year! <3

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Friday Update 12/7/23

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Friday Update 12/7/23

This week I brainstormed, outlined, and have started writing the next HORNETS short story for BSQ magazine. This is a mystery, but it’s also a Hornets, so there’s going to be power armor, specialized guns, and explosions. I’m 1300 words in and I haven’t quite figured out the personal/backstory subplot yet, but that’s a problem for future Tami. The bigger issue is what to title this thing. Hornets stories don’t really have a title convention (yet) and I’m open to renaming all of them to get one going, but until I figure that out, I’m just calling this one The Mystery.

Website backup and update happened today to keep things running smoothly. I’ve finally started working on the website subscription/membership (not quite live yet) to replace Patreon subscriptions so that I can start posting books a chapter at a time without Patreon yelling at me for the spicy scenes. I briefly investigated Substack as an alternative paid platform but the same problem remains with the spicy scenes, so self-hosting is the way to go.

Enchanted and Zero Day Exploit audio have both been published to Google and Apple, pending their processing times. Further audio on Kobo and my direct store are in progress as I write this and should be live by next week, but sometimes processing times get longer as we get closer to the holidays, so I can’t say exactly when they’ll hit stores.,

In longer term projects, my newsletter series for Round Robin book trades with other authors is being put together for next year. I’ll be bringing two new sets of romances to the newsletter: one PNR focused, the other an All Romance selection. Since I write across a lot of romance subgenres there should be something for everyone.

Until next week!

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Friday Update 12/1/23

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Welcome to December! This week I gave myself a day to recover from traveling and organize the bags. I did some reading and watched a few youtube videos about Captain of Industry, which is a game about production lines and efficiency. And just writing that line makes me laugh because of course I would watch a game about resource management on my day off. I’m such a nerd.

Fated to the Wolf continues to move forward. I got ahead of myself today because I didn’t check my outline and I wanted to get to the good stuff already, which means I just skipped two and a half scenes to write the meet cute. On monday I’ll have to go back and fill in the important bits of character I leapfrogged. Development of this story is still going very well and I’m extremely pleased with it. As of today, I’m 26k in and going strong. It’s a good thing I’m working on this so far ahead of the deadline b/c it’s a big book.

This week I’ve also wrapped up publishing details for December’s release. This is a wide release for Enchanted, my YA short story collection that has been tied up in KU for years. Enchanted was one of the first things I ever published, back when I was only releasing books on KU because I hadn’t figured out smashwords’ meatgrinder yet. That was the name of the automated system that took a .doc and turned it into an .epub. It had very specific requirements and took a long time to process a book. D2D came along and changed everything, but Enchanted remained in KU because I just didn’t have the time to go back and address it. On the 5th it’ll be available on all the stores and by the week after, AI audio will follow.

This weekend I have some reading to do and we’ve signed up for Disney +/Hulu after over a year, so we have some Loki to catch up on! Next week I pause work on Fated in order to knock out several short stories: two BSQ Hornet stores and a submission for Street Magic 2 that I hope the editor enjoys. I also need to get ahead of schedule on the publishing again.

Have a great weekend!