Greetings all

I hope everyone is recovered from New Year’s Eye. I am, as of today. Yesterday was a bit of a zombie moment as I recovered from enjoying our trip to St. Louis.

However, I’m of as sound of mind and body that I can be right now and I make these plans without duress, though I see the WW1 Flying Kitty is on the prowl.

Speaking of sound mind, thanks to my apprentice, I may be of sounder mind than I have been in a long while. I’m someone who stares at his phone at night. I’m also someone who hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since the early 2000s. Those things do not correlate, exactly, as one is not necessarily the cause of the other, though it is a contributing factor. My apprentice pointed out that blue light is a problem, and my phone has a blue light filter. I don’t know if it’s entirely the cause, but I’ve been sleeping better since I turned it on. There are other factors, like some temporary stability in December and such, but it’s certainly helped. While I’ll probably never get a good night’s sleep, as defined by most people, I am sleeping better of late.

Anyway, I have two goals this year. The first is to put out 365,000 publishable words. Yep, I’m aiming at 1000 publishable words per day. What do I mean by publishable? Well, something that is either published or in the process of getting published. I will count blog posts towards that, in part because now doing blog posts will seem more productive in my head than I normally conceive of them. I know I need to put more there for it to get more followers, but it’s not easy for me. Doing this will appeal to the same part of my mind that really enjoys mowing the lawn. I get my exercise out of the way and I’ve done something else.

Speaking of exercise, my other goal is to lose weight. Both my sweetie and I want to walk when things get finally settled, though that’s still a ways away. Still, the day to day life is better now, even it’s not our permanent solution, and when I’m home I’m eating better than I have been. That’s helped.

However I do it, I’m going to use you all to help me but holding myself accountable on both things. The last thing on each week’s update will be my current weight and updated word count. You’ll get to see it happening.

For my blog, I’ll be setting things up to have a standard day to put some things out. For example, Wednesday will be my update day.

Friday will be Event Report Day, though I’ll sometimes do it on other days given the schedule, depending upon the schedule of the event. Here I’ll comment on the last event, or recent ones, and talk about events I’m attending.

I have some ideas for Monday. I think it might be Random Wikipedia Article Story Prompt Day, or something like that. Basically I’ll look at a few random Wikipedia articles, something I routinely do anyway for story ideas, and put the first story idea that comes to mind out on a blog post.

Please note that I will *not* be emailing these out. I said I’ll send you at most one email a week, except for the occasional major announcement, and that’s my limit. These things will only show up on the blog, which will then get announced on Twitter and Facebook.

As for the Weekly Email,  I’ve added content as well as accountability. The first thing will be the song I’m listening to when I send this email, with maybe some commentary or memory about the song.

One more thing I’m going to do is put the current word count of the next novel, so you have a benchmark. I’ll also be putting the short stories I’m working, under their file name acronym, which means you won’t know anything about them, other than that I am working on them. I’ve been wondering how to tell you when I’m making progress on these, and I think this will be the way.

This blog post has 1057 words. Only 363,943 to go in 2018.

Current Playlist Song: “Wish Them Well” Rush (Clockwork Angels) It’s just not worth keeping the demons in your life. Just wish them well.

Today’s Weight: 388.4

Updated Word Count: 1057

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Rob Howell
Author of the Shijuren-series of novels

• Website: www.robhowell.org
• Blog: www.robhowell.org/blog
• Shijuren Wiki: http://www.shijuren.org/World+of+Shijuren+Home
• Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/robhowell.org/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Rhodri2112

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