Tag: Gameplanning my Life

Returning to the River: A brief announcement

Hi, everyone.

I know I promised you some original writing, maybe even fiction, this weekend. Let me assure you it is coming – at 5 p.m. Central Time today. However, I wanted to take a moment now and let everyone know about some personal news.

It turns out I’m soon to be on the move, and both my wife and I will be returning to more familiar territory and a very familiar river.

My wife Laura has just accepted a new job as a city manager for Fort Madison, Iowa. It’s two hours away from where I’m living in Chariton, Iowa, right in south central Iowa. It will be much closer to our hometown of Muscatine, Iowa, where my parents, her mother, and eventually my daughter will be living. It’s a great opportunity for her, and I couldn’t be prouder.

As for me, I’ll be joining her after the school year’s over and seeing what opportunities present themselves. I will miss my school district, as it was a good one (Twin Cedars) and I have been having a good year working with a great group of colleagues. However, Laura’s been my home for 25-plus years, so I go where she does.

I do plan to keep in touch with those I’ve made friends and acquaintances with in Chariton and the area, especially some of my work colleagues and area writers I’ve had a chance to meet here during the past three years. However, I’m hoping to reconnect with some of my old friends and writing enthusiasts from the Muscatine/Quad Cities area, as well as any new ones from around the Fort Madison/Burlington area.

My current home.

Chariton will always be a part of my life, I believe. It will be the place where I finished my second book, started a few other projects, and started writing on Substack. It is likely going to be the last home me, Laura, and our two children ever live in again after a brief period when my son came to stay with us and work in Chariton and my daughter was attending the University of Iowa from her laptop.

Downtown Chariton, Iowa

However, I’m going to be closer to more of my family, and closer to the Mississippi River, where I’ve lived next to more than forty years. The older I’ve gotten, the more I have been fascinated by rivers in general and the Mississippi in particular, and visitors to this page might have seen a poem or two inspired by river life. When I had the chance to tour Fort Madison recently and watched the sun dancing off the surface of the waters, the sight felt so much like home to me I could barely shake it.

The Fort Madison, Iowa riverfront.

I can’t wait to get started on the new adventure. I’ll probably tell you a bit about it here, too.

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

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Writing Journal 22 June 2022: The mini-slump ends now(?)

[PHOTO NOTE: This was the first thing I pulled up when I did a search for “game planning.” It’ll fit, trust me.]

Keeping this short because I want to get it out before my self-imposed arbitrary deadline passes lol.

I think I got into a mini-slump for the past few days. Now that I’m in a vacation mode, I know what I have to do, but I now realize that I need to have an actual plan for when I have open time and not just say “Oh, I’ll do whatever I do.”

Today I’m trying to apply that to my daily schedule. Woke up early, got a good walk in, and was ready to write after breakfast. Then I found out the new season of Umbrella Academy was on Netflix and I got distracted. (So far it’s been a great season lol.)

Anyway, not the best of weeks. The past four days have been horrible. I’m going to try and turn it around, again, ugh.

Here’s the stats. Enjoy.

[QUICK AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m changing the format of the dating because I like how they set it up in Europe (day, month, year) rather than how it usually is in the US (month, day, year). It just makes more sense for me to have information organized in a clear pattern (smallest time measurement up to the biggest time measurement). Now I know I’m getting picky about my writing organization. :)]

Writing statistics for the week ending 18 June 2022:
+3,756 words written.
Days writing: 6 of 7.
Days revising/planning: 1 of 7 for 30 total minutes.
Daily Writing Goal Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6 of 7 days.

Writing Journal 10.20.2021: Good week overall

Not going to muck around too much on this. I seem to be having good results getting these writing journals out on Wednesdays after writing them a bit ahead of time. I’m also glad that, even though these journal posts are a big part of this blog, they haven’t been the only thing I have been posting in recent months, unlike some times in this blog’s short history.

I have to admit that this week’s totals might be slightly juiced by the fact that I participated in the Iowa Writers’ Corner’s fall writing retreat on Saturday. It was the first time I ever got to be a part of such an event and I loved every second of it. I am very much looking forward to when we do it again sometime next spring.

I managed to get quite of bit of revisions on a long-stalled project, so that juiced the numbers. I wound up revising and planning for 210 minutes last week. Remember, since my daily writing goal is either 500 words or 30 minutes of revisions/planning, that 210 minutes is the equivalent of 3,500 words a week. If I either write for 500 words every day or revise/plan for 30 minutes every day, that comes out to 3,500 words or 210 minutes. So, I had a good week – not a perfect week where I met my quota every day, but close enough to it after a couple months of lackluster numbers that I am quite happy with what I see.

Some other good news is that I managed to sort out my PayPal account, so that might be another tool I might get into down the line. I’m also looking more research into ConvertKit and I’m really leaning toward using that to set up an email list. Of course, if I’m to set up such an email list, I’m going to have to give people some reasons to sign up for that list… and that will be a new experience.

In addition, the more I look into this, the more I’m leaning toward trying to do more on my own rather than find an agent or publisher. I’m tired of just waiting and hoping someone will take a chance on me – I just want to start creating and see if some readers will take a chance on me for once. If there has been one thing that writing fan fiction has taught me, is that the feedback I’ve received lets me know that there are people who do like my writing. I want to not just create those stories, but go out and take them for a ride.

Anyway, here’s the numbers. Keep safe, everyone.

Writing statistics for the week ending 10.16.2021:
+2,619 words written.
Days writing: 3 of 7.
Days revising/planning: 6 of 7 for 210 total minutes.
Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6 of 7 days.