La Riposte

Monday, October 27, 2014

A Day Late, A Few Goals Short

The title of this post is probably not a good sign of things to come, but I’m going to take it as an admission of failure to hold myself to task, and an encouragement to do better next time.

It’s been a busy week, as you can read about in more detail here, if you like, but for a quick recap of what did (and didn’t) happen on the ROW front, here goes:

WRITING
- Drafted one chapter of the The Perfidious Mister Wickham 
- I didn’t post a ROW80 update on Wednesday as planned, and am obviously a bit late in posting at all this week!
- I did work on my boat this week, but didn’t post on the GypsyDangerously blog on Tuesday as I’d planned… Must do better next time!

FITNESS
- Took another two hours of classes towards my Black Belt in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, and got enough exercise in to break even, but not really build toward my other goals.

LANGUAGE
- Completed one DuoLingo class in French and two in Indonesian…

SOCIAL
- I took 8 Marines down to Hilton Head to participate in an Ethics Symposium and met a lot of interesting people, did some great workshops, and heard some amazing speakers, but nothing that was “ROW80 Goal-related”.

NETWORKING
- Got 42 new Twitter followers (now at 922, just 78 more to go!)

NEW ECONOMIC
- So, this is where I could use some help from my friends in ROW80 – please check out my Patreon project - of course it would be great if you decided to become a patron, but if not, some Tweets or Facebook shares would help me get the word out and achieve my goal to get 48 more patrons before the end of the Round! 

That said, please feel free to ask ME to do anything quick, useful, and relatively inexpensive that would help promote your current project or cause!

OK, so, that’s it for this update – see you on Twitter, Facebook, and in the comments block!

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Return to the #ROW80

Greetings and salutations! And thanks for stopping by… 

I am getting a late start to this Round of Words, though in fairness, at least I am starting it – I’ve been absent from this forum for the better part of a year. 

In that time, I have actually accomplished a good bit – started my publishing imprint, Umbrella Books, published my first paperback book, traveled to Paris and Burning Man, been featured in a videocast, a podcast, and written an article for Medium.com that’s gotten over 8000 hits.

But that's the past, and this is a goals post about the future, so here are my modest’ish goals between now and Christmas.

WRITING
- Write 8 chapters of The Perfidious Mister Wickham 
- ROW80 updates posted once a week (usually Wednesdays)
- Post weekly on my GypsyDangerously blog (Tuesdays)
- Finish The Artillerists (short story) 
- Finish Merry Christmas, Mister Washington (short story) 

FITNESS
- Run two 5K races
- Obtain my Black Belt in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program
- Get a first-class score on the Combat Fitness Test
- Bench 185 pounds

LANGUAGE
- Complete 8 DuoLingo classes in French
- Obtain a 2+/2+ or better on my Indonesian language test

SOCIAL
- Go on at least four fabulous and fun dates with old friends and new
- Buy presents for all my family for Christmas

NETWORKING
- Get 1000+ Twitter followers
- Join Lowcountry RWA

NEW ECONOMIC
- Reduce my personal carbon footprint by using alternative means to get to work at least twice a week.

OK, so, that’s it for this Round – wish me luck, and I can promise you that I’ll do the same for you, and make myself heard cheering you onward on Twitter and Facebook.