How have I got on with my writing, reading and blogging targets I set back on New Year’s Eve?
• Rewrite Miranda’s Tempest
Complete my rewrite of Miranda’s Tempest in response to some very detailed advice on how to improve it by an agent during the submission process. I had intended to have it completed by now, but got seriously stalled halfway through December…
During May I went through Miranda’s Tempest and managed to complete the rewrite, despite still suffering the after-effects of my illness at Easter. I just need to finish my line edit and then resubmit it.
• Write at least 100 reviews for my blog during 2017
I hope to continue to read and review at least 100 books, with at least 24 being by women authors previously unknown to me as part of the Discovery Challenge, thanks to Joanne Hall’s post. I also would very much like to get more of my To Be Read pile read and reviewed, so will have another go at the Tackling my TBR Pile this year with the aim of reading at least 30 books during the year from this teetering stack.
During May, I read 17 books and reviewed 15 of them. This brought my yearly total of books read by the end of the month to 81. As for book of the month – Assassin’s Fate – Book 3 of the Fitz and the Fool trilogy by Robin Hobb, closely followed by The Outskirter’s Secret – Book 2 of The Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein and The Ninth Rain – Book 1 of The Winnowing Flame by Jen Williams.
• Creative Writing courses
To continue to deliver my courses to the best of my ability.
We are now more than halfway through the term and the academic year is rapidly drawing to a close. This year has been a successful one – now Northbrook has joined with Brighton University to be reincarnated as the Greater Brighton Metropolitan College, it looks as though our Adult Learning and Community Department, which for so long as been steadily shrinking, is now getting a new lease of life.
• Continue teaching TW
Continue delivering the customised syllabus we have managed to find and devise in order to meet Tim’s specific learning requirements.
It has been another marvellous month with Tim continuing to develop and punch through barriers to his learning as we continue to prepare for his exam in June.
• Continue to improve my fitness
To continue to attend Fitstep and Pilates classes to improve my fitness and regain the strength and stamina I lost after a decade of chronic lower back pain.
Once again, this has been a month of missed classes and non-attendance. I’m hoping to resume my Fitstep and Pilates classes now in the latter half of June, but so far have not managed to do so. Fortunately, I have now resolved the problem that was causing me such an issue – I was suffering from a lack of vitamin B12. Now I have sorted this out, I am back to my normal levels of fitness.
May was another month where I struggled to fulfil my teaching and writing commitments due to constant attacks of exhaustion that left me wiped out. I am very relieved this has now been resolved. I now need to crack on and see if I can gain some ground on my editing and writing schedules which have badly slipped.
I wrote just under 32,000 words during May, mostly on my blog, which brings my yearly total to just over 174,000 words so far.
Brainfluff 