April has been a blur, and since May so far isn’t any better, I’m still in the catch-up mode. Yet, despite of the rush and that slight feeling of having too much to do with too little time, it wasn’t a bad month.
Writing and A to Z Challenge
As you probably noticed, I decided to partake in A to Z Challenge, writing daily blog posts about the setting of my novel. Admittedly, I had a lot of fun, and it made me put down all the little details in writing after I’ve been carrying them in my head for the past few years.
At the same time, as I suspected (and yet, somewhat foolishly, ignored those concerns), this challenge is too much of a time sink. To write a post that is informative and consistent with others takes enough of the day, but A to Z Challenge is also a way to connect to fellow bloggers – and that eats up even more time. Sadly, I felt that most people were as overwhelmed as me, hardly keeping up with comments on their own blog, let alone visiting others. It seems to me, that with so many participant, this challenge would do better as a social challenge (with pre-written posts) than a writing challenge.
Nevertheless, I had fun even though—in the end—I failed the challenge a few posts before the end of the month. I was considering pushing through the last week to the finish line, but the feeling of being overwhelmed and falling behind with everything else made me let go.
On the bright side, I managed to write over 20,000 words in April, and the challenge posts aside, I made some progress with the rewrite of my epic fantasy.
Art
With so much focus on words, I didn’t really do much art-wise, but I managed to finish a tea-related design. It was another learning curve for me as I keep discovering new and interesting things in Photoshop, but in the end, it turned out well enough to be added to my Society6, Redbubble, and Zazzle stores.
And, of course, there were dragonflies. Fewer of them, since the A to Z Challenge took most of my attention, but I haven’t entirely forgotten about them.
Life
Sadly, this year’s pansies didn’t survive a series of torrential rains and chilly nights, and I decided not to sow anything else at the moment. But the last year’s one, as wild and persistent as they were so far, bloomed and are laughing in the face of weather. I have no doubt that they won’t be bother either when the summer heat comes.
My reading slowed down a bit, both due to the amount of writing and because I can’t seem to find a read that would pull me in, but I managed to read two books that were entertaining enough, and DNF-ed a bunch of others.
And as I was talking to Inq about fairy tales, I remembered I still have to replace the collection of Grimm’s Fairy Tales I left with a friend in Ireland. Book Depository came to the rescue, as it always does, and I could enjoy my new copy of the collection just for the World Book Day.
I’m also still on top of my workouts, and April was the fourth month in the year I exercised daily. As much as I don’t have defined fitness goals, I try to stay on top of my workouts to balance out my sedentary life.
How about you? How did April go for you? Did spring finally arrive to your corner of the world?
Yes… I’m very sorry – I don’t think I kept up with visiting and commenting throughout your daily challenge and I feel bad about that:((. Love the new dragonflies – and I’m STILL marvelling at those pansies – they must be having an identity crisis – are you SURE they don’t imagine they are busy lizzies? I am very impressed with 20,000 words and glad the writing is progressing and slack-jawed with envious admiration that you are keeping to a fitness schedule every. single. day. Expecting to see you powering overhead in your Superwoman onesie any day now!
Don’t feel sorry! I’ve fallen behind as well, and sadly, I can see how blog posts are on nobody’s priority list (ok, maybe they are on some people’s list 😉 ). In a way, they are timeless too – as much as I’d like to be caught up, I do enjoy going through your “old” reviews, and I’m looking forward to my little binge readings again. 🙂
And my fitness schedule was always very relaxed: it’s not that hard to find 15-30mins before the evening shower, so there isn’t much “super” about it.
Yes… and I’ve still not managed to keep up – in fact, I’m even more behind, so I appreciate your understanding:). I’m right in the throes of the last lap as Creative Writing tutor at Northbook. As for your fitness schedule – you’re doing so much better than I am!
Same here. I spoke too soon about catching up: I got buried under work again.
Oh well… At least you kept it up for a while. I’m going to have another go in September when it’s a bit cooler.
At least the A-Z helped you get stuff down, I should imagine with all the many aspects of your story it would be easy to get lost
Yes and no. Most of those posts were about things that are in one way or another relevant to the novels, so they wouldn’t be lost.