Weekly Writing Intentions: Saturday, October 28, 2023,

Daily Diary, Day 1153:

Well, looking over the past week, it looks like it followed the pattern of the last two weeks. I did great on my exercise regime, not so good in terms of writing.

By the end of the week, I averaged 2 hours of exercise each day, over half of that in walking and doing chair exercises for core strength training, even doing some modified squats. And each week, I do feel stronger. With the cardiologist's approval, I am pushing the time and pacing of the walk a bit, having done a 40 minute walk this morning. I will won’t push beyond that length for now because when I take my pulse and oxygen levels, as instructed, I am still getting some wonky readings, the reason for the follow-up tests cardio and pulmonary tests.

I guess I did a little better on writing, in that the week before I only averaged 237 words a day, and this week my average was 666. But I still faced uneven progress, with some days hitting a good word count, others achieving no writing time or cutting more than I wrote.

I need to make my peace with the fact that despite how well I am sticking to the exercise regime, I don’t have nearly the control over other aspects of my life (phone calls, doctor visits, regular tasks of life like paying bills, putting groceries away) and I don’t have control over the pace of writing, beyond making sure I am actually giving myself time to sit on the couch and write!

I am also trying to do the writing related stuff like writing drafts of posts for substack, data analysis, planning next month’s promotional activity, etc.in those small increments of time or at the end of the day when I am tired, and the novel writing will be less effective. For example, I have drafts of posts for Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday already done, so there shouldn't be any distractions for the rest of today.

Looking at next week, and seeing that in addition to my regular scheduled phone calls and Thursday zoom meeting, I have a dentist appointment and a special zoom chat with other substack authors, I am going to set my intention for the week to at least maintain the average I achieved this week. Anything higher will be a win!

Here's a lighted and decorated doorway from last evenings walk.